A very flawed film to set up for a bright future that unfortunately never happened.

Rating: 5/10 (21 December 2018)

The Amazing Spiderman 2 is my guilty pleasure movie. It's so hilariously weird and absurd. In the beginning we get Paul Giamatti yelling absolute gibberish hilariously, while there's like 30 police cars which crash all on each other. I mean Spiderman literally jokes around while people die.
However this movie also has some great stuff. The returning cast is still great, and I think we got the best Spider-man in this film. His suit is the most accurate and looks the best out of all the movies. He's cracking jokes moderately, while still staying serious when he needs to be (for the most part...). He's also clearly capable, and smart. This is how Spider-man should be.
If I'd have to say some genuinely great things about this movie would be the music and visuals. The visuals are gorgeous and the cinematography makes it all better. The music is also really great, having ominous music for Harry, and (my personal favorite) dubstep theme for Electro.
The villains are a mixed bag. The Rhino is barely in the movie and he's just silly screaming.
Harry Osborn (Dane DeHaan) was pretty good. However I don't think we got enough development for his character, and once he turns into Green Goblin not only does he look horrific, but he becomes completely insane, laughing like a literal mad man, and it ruined the character a little for me. The movie rushes to make us care for him, and rushes Peter's friendship with him. I mean in the last movie peter went to oscorp, Harry's company, and there's no mention. Their friendship should've been set up previously or established in the last movie. He has the motivations, he's dying and his father (who has this Hereditary disease?! And is green?! That is also weird...) who has neglected him his entire life, tells him he's literally dying, and is giving him the company, whilst Donald Menken is trying to take the company away from him by framing him. It's overwhelming for him. I think he could've been perfectly set up for the next film, but it was rushed for this one. Also it took 40 years for his father to die, I don't get why he's so upset, he has a few decades to live. Rushing him also made us get peter unfortunately have to email J. Jonah Jameson being reduced to an appearance via email, so Peter could have the relation ship with Spiderman needed for Harry. I also thought his transformation to "The Goblin" didn't really make sense, and his suit is saving him now despite his father saying they have no cure yet? I did like Harry, but he was very rushed and Green Goblin looks disgusting.
Electro (Jamie Foxx) was, in my opinion, actually really good. I loved Jamie Foxx's performance and the look. Electro's motivations are perfect, and to top it all off he is schizophrenic, so it maximizes everything for him. Everyone is always either making fun off him, or ignoring him, and he's dying for attention. Not only that, but he's constantly neglected and his work was literally stolen, but he's afraid to speak up, because then he believes people will like him even less. We get him imagining our burst of what he wants to do, and I think this is a great way to show the pain he's going through. AND ITS HIS BIRTHDAY. Also he's a huge Spiderman fanatic and he gets saved by him. Spiderman of course being a nice guy tells Max he needs him. Max of course takes this literally and when he actually meets Spiderman again (after he's gotten his powers in a very silly way) It's the perfect time to get him against him, and I thought it was done in a great way. Max looks for the area with the most electricity and goes there. It's a very crowded place of course. People seeing what he's doing are afraid and the police intervenes. He doesn't know how to control his power and is scared himself, accidentally attacking the police. However he finally gets the spotlight, people actually "see" him, but Spiderman comes (already having forgotten his name) and takes the spotlight, and then despite Spiderman telling them to not shoot, they do shoot him, making him feel betrayed. In the his theme you hear him whispering to himself "he lied to me, he shot at me, he hates on me, he's using me, he's dead to me, he is my ENEMY" This is the point where his snap, the only thing he cared about has "betrayed" him. You might think it doesn't make sense, but he's schizophrenic, to him everyone is against him, and he now realized he can take them himself, he's a "god" to them. This was just perfect for me, and I think Electro was such a great villain. He just really worked for me, however I do wish we got more of him despite him actually having a lot of screentime.
This movie also has another issue. It doesn't have a consistent tone. The movie begins with a jokey Spiderman, and a villain who's literally yelling gibberish, to the end of the movie where we get a horrifying, and disgusting goblin who literally kills Gwen, and Peter literally grabs her dead body and cries for 2 minutes, and it shows him going to her grave every day for the entire year. Like holy crap that is dark, and then at the end the screaming rhino guy is back?! What the hell?! I do think Gwen's death was really well done though. Emma Stone (Gwen) and Andrew Garfield (Peter) were actually dating at the time, and it shows, they have great chemistry. Gwen once again wasn't a one dimensional damsel in distress she actually does things, and when she does die it's actually sad. Just looking at Peter crying over her (great performance by Andrew Garfield) is just sad. Especially realizing that this was exactly what Gwen's father didn't want happening, and peter had promised.
I also think that was done very well, with Peter suffering PTSD from his death, Uncle Ben's and Captain Stacy's death really carries to this movie.
From this we also get some weird and stupid sub plot with Peter's Parents. Honestly having shown why Peter's parent left could've been great, but then we get this sub plot where peter literally gets a calculator from his bag, opens it, finds metro coins, goes to an abandoned subway and a train comes up from the ground revealing a video explaining everything, and to top it all off it turns out that Peter was special because he was the only person that the spider could've worked on. This just ruins Peter. He should be the average nerd, but now he's been special all along and destined for this? What if he never got bitten and the spiders did die?! It makes no sense and it's so dumb.
There's a lot more I like and I dislike from this movie. The Easter eggs like having Felisha (Black Cat) and Alistar Smythe as actual characters in the movie being set up for the future is great, but then it's over done with literally showing the entire sinister six in a room.
They also did something I really liked. Having set up things like over changing a battery when Peter tries to fix his web shooters, and saving the kid, coming back at the end. I thought it was done very well and it shows development for peter and other characters.
I also did think this movie had some genuinely good dialogue.
Despite having some great stuff, the movie does feel extremely stuffed, and it's a mess. Overall this film had a lot of great, but also a lot of bad. It felt rushed trying to set up the sinister 6, but it still managed to be an enjoyable movie, and get you excited for the future. Unfortunately we will never see the future of this universe and that's a shame.
5.5/10