The Amazing Spider-Man 2 Review

Rating: 9/10 (23 April 2014)

Spider-Man has always been my favourite superhero. Ever since a young age I've loved the comics and the Raimi movies were a big part of my childhood. Although I was a big fan of 2012′s 'The Amazing Spider-Man', I'm not afraid to admit it had some serious problems, but for the most part I thought it did a better job with the origin than 2002′s 'Spider-Man' did. This sequel was where director Marc Webb had to really hit the nail on the head though, because Sam Raimi's 'Spider-Man 2′ is one of the best comic book movies ever made. After all of Sony's awful marketing for this movie, I was sceptical, but still very excited. I'm incredible happy to say that my scepticism wasn't necessary, because 'The Amazing Spider-Man 2′ is truly amazing.
The script of this movie is arguably its weakest component, but it's still far from bad. My favourite part of 'The Amazing Spider-Man' was the character development and relationship between Peter Parker and Gwen Stacy, and this sequel pulls it off perfectly as well. The dialogue between the two feels so incredibly natural, it's like we're seeing an actual relationship folding out on screen. In terms of the story itself, I found it engaging but certain elements often feel fairly contrived and roughly scripted. I found this forgivable however because everything else is so damn good. The movie doesn't suffer from having too many villains (which I feel proves that 'Spider-Man 3′ didn't suffer from too many villains, it suffered from an awful script), as the character of Electro is really good; he's not just a psychopath who wants to destroy the world but instead has believable motives. Harry Osborn is also a well written character, and it's hard to judge the Rhino character because he's in the movie so little. One worry I had was how desperately Sony seemed to want to expand the Spider-Man universe by casting so many well known characters (like Black Cat, Vulture/Menken and Alistair Smythe) for this movie. It turns out it works pretty well, because they aren't any overly obvious references to who these characters will become if you weren't already aware.
The cast do a phenomenal job with their material as well. Andrew Garfield absolutely kills it as Spider-Man/Peter Parker, he's far better than Tobey Maguire and does an excellent job carrying the film. Emma Stone is incredible as well, she and Andrew Garfield have amazing chemistry (probably due to them actually being in a relationship in real life) and seeing the two of them on screen together is an absolute joy. Dane DeHaan is great as he always is, I had worries about him after seeing the trailers but he does really well with the character. Jamie Foxx is a lot of fun to watch, his Electro character is just so amusing to see on screen and he does a good job of making the character a sympathetic villain. Paul Giamatti is also a lot of fun to watch for the few minutes he's on screen, and the rest of the supporting cast was good as well, there were no notable bad performances.
Marc Webb gives wonderful direction in this movie just as he did in the first one. He gives perfect direction on the previously mentioned character scenes in particular, but I also found he seems to have become a much better action director with this sequel as well. Some of the action in this film is truly incredible, a lot of the scenes are very heart pounding and are all wholly entertaining. There is also a phenomenal score to accompany the the action. The VFX in this movie are absolutely beautiful, one of 'The Amazing Spider Man"s biggest problems was its mediocre CGI, but there's no worry of that in this movie because it looks great. This movie feels like a comic book movie. It doesn't go dark and gritty like other superhero movies feel the need to do, and I respect it so much more for that. The colours are bright and gorgeous, and I'm so happy to finally see some good Spidey swinging around the city scenes that are exhilarating and incredible to experience. I'm just so happy after seeing this movie. Is it better than 'Spider-Man 2′? I'm not sure I can decide yet. Having seen 'Spider-Man 2′ countless times I think it would be unfair to compare it to this just yet. 'The Amazing Spider-Man 2′ isn't a perfect movie, but it sure is a hell of a lot of fun.