Marvel Hero stuck in a Web of Incoherent Plots

Rating: 3/10 (2 May 2014)

Seems this franchise just cannot get it right. Or maybe I just want MY Spiderman to convey a tiny bit of why I loved the comic book so much. This emo, sad, downtrodden Peter Parker with huge hair and no real character just does not cut it for me, nor do the liberties taken with the entire comic book universe. Of course I never liked the "Ultimates" versions anyway. Ten years ago, Sam Raimi's Spider-Man 2 was released and quickly became perhaps the most critically acclaimed and popularly beloved comic-book superhero movie since Richard Donner's Superman in 1978. Spider-Man 2 had it all: a great villain in Alfred Molina's multitentacled Doc Octopus, a realistic romantic connection between leads Tobey Maguire and Kirsten Dunst, and a script by the Academy Award–winning screenwriter Alvin Sargent that balanced the action and special-effects. Cynical minds and business suits ruined it all.
One of the biggest misfires of this and many other films is the overuse of CGI. Where they could use real, practical stunts and effects, they take the cheap, easy and franky, lazy way out. Time and again the crowd groaned at the terrible effects that would seem bad even on a Playstation 3. The whole thing seems to have been assembled by filmmakers tone-deaf to what constitutes compelling, exciting super hero cinema. Everything the people involved could think of seems to be thrown into the film. It is an overlong mash up of several better films, populated with too many characters and a zillion plots all in a battle to be understood.
In the end, it is time to put this mess to rest. They finally got the suit right... it looks great. The cast tries in vain to save a film that refuses to live. This bad boy is DOA.