The Amazing Spider-man 2 A Mixed Bag

Rating: 5/10 (25 May 2014)

The Amazing Spider-man 2 is a mixed bag there are some things I did like and others not so much which I will get into later. First off I'm not sure if Marc Webb is the right director for Spider-man. There was a lot of talking in this movie that didn't really go anywhere and not much action. Andrew Garfield really does embody Peter Parker/Spider-man. They got that aspect of the character down right. Emma Stone puts in a good performance as Gwen Stacy in her limited screen time. Jamie Foxx does what he can as Max Dillion who later becomes the villain Electro. Same goes for Dane DeHaan who pulls off a convincing performance as Harry Osborn. The rest of the cast including Sally Field and a brief appearance by Chris Cooper as Norman Osborn do the best they can with what little they were given. The action scenes are well staged when there is some but are very short and there isn't many of them. Maybe 5-6 action scenes tops throughout the film. Now onto the bad. Some of the dialogue isn't the greatest but this is coming from the writers of Transformers so don't expect anything like Nolans Batman trilogy. Electro was a cool villain visually development wise not so much. He did resemble Dr Manhattan from Watchmen I liked it nonetheless though. Unfortunately Electro spends most of the second half locked up after his first fight with Spider-man during the Times Square sequence. Foxx tried to elevate the material and gain sympathy from the audience but I blame the script and was given a couple cheesy lines. He did have godlike powers and they could have done so much more with the character. What was the point of having a powerful villain like that just to sideline him for the most of the movie till near the end. Just didn't make a lot of sense. DeHaan's Harry was actually well developed throughout the film but his Goblin is rushed and only gets at the most 3-5 minutes of screen time near the end. It's nothing more than a glorified cameo. He gets a brief fight with Spidey and then he's rather easily defeated like Electro. It's a shame because his look and laugh as Goblin was quite sinister. I didn't feel much of anything when Gwen met her fate because I just wasn't emotionally invested in the characters. They should've saved that for the next film and perhaps had Harry become the Goblin in a mid credits scene or something. I understand they're building up to the Sinister Six but it seemed like they were trying to hard to set things up for future sequels instead of just focusing on telling a coherent story. Paul Giamatti who I consider to be a good actor in other movies hammed it up way too much as the Rhino. He was just kinda stupid to me and his attempt at a Russian accent is dreadful. I couldn't understand almost a word he said luckily his character is limited to just 2 scenes. He wasn't pivotal to story besides providing the film with a few quick action scenes and to show the type of criminals Spider-man has been facing since the end of the first film. I really wanted to enjoy this movie but after it was over I was like that's it and just felt disappointed. Even though I had no expectations it was still a major letdown but that's just me.