The Amazing Spider-Man 2: SPOILER POST

WARNING: The following post contains Spoilers for ‘The Amazing Spider-Man 2’. If you haven’t seen the film yet, please refer to my Spoiler-Free review of the film as here, I’ll be discussing some of the key points of the film in detail. You have been warned!

(Spoiler-Free Review: http://rimoviecorner.blogspot.com/2014/05/the-amazing-spider-man-2-2014-review.html)

Last year, the most polarizing film of the year was arguably ‘Man of Steel’, as both critics and audiences were divided in their reactions to it; some liked it, and some hated it. There really wasn’t any middle ground when it came to that movie. This year, I think it’s safe to say that ‘The Amazing Spider-Man 2’ is going to end up being the ‘Man of Steel’ of the year. The reviews from critics have been fairly mixed, and while audiences have been a bit more positive towards it, there are still quite a few people who aren’t the biggest fans of the film. I’m one of those people who did like it (in fact, I liked it a lot) but even then I’ll admit that while I do think it’s better than what a lot of critics are saying about it, I don’t think that it’s ‘perfect’, as I noted in my original review for the film and, as you might have guessed, this is a film that definitely demands a Spoiler Post as there are some things in the film worth talking about that I couldn’t really talk about that much in a non-spoiler review. This time however, instead of focusing on one major thing, like I did in my Spoiler Posts for ‘Iron Man 3’ and ‘Star Trek Into Darkness’, I’m mostly going to just expand on various things that I said in my original review.

As I did in the review, I’m starting off this post by talking about the whole ‘overcrowded’ situation that has been getting the most attention with critics and audiences because, when you get down to it, ‘The Amazing Spider-Man 2’ isn’t really as crowded as some are saying, at least when it comes to characters. The film’s story is pretty self-contained and does focus on the right characters, most importantly the relationship between Peter Parker and Gwen Stacy. As for the whole thing about this film having three villains, at the end of the day only one is the main villain; Electro. The Green Goblin AKA Harry Osborn does not show up until the final battle but does survive the fight between him and Spider-Man. Rhino (Paul Giamatti) is only in the film for a few minutes; at the beginning when’s he stealing the Oscorp truck of plutonium and at the end after he’s given a new mech suit courtesy of Oscorp. This isn’t a case like ‘Spider-Man 3’, a film that also had three villains but yet really didn’t have a definable ‘main villain’. Here, it’s handled fairly better so overall, this film isn’t as ‘overcrowded’ in characters as the marketing may suggest.

However, I will say that there were two characters that I felt were rather unnecessarily included in the film just because they played major roles in the comics. The first is Felicia Hardy (Felicity Jones) AKA Black Cat in the comics, who in this film is Harry’s assistant at Oscorp, and it has been reported that she will probably become Black Cat in a future film. The second is Alistair Smythe (B.J. Novak), who in the comics created the robots known as the ‘Spider-Slayers’. If I hadn’t known who these characters were before watching this film, I’d swear that I would never have known why they were so important to be included in the film because they are both only in the film for a few scenes. Felicia, as mentioned earlier, is in a few scenes with Harry and ultimately doesn’t do much while Smythe has a few scenes in the beginning of the film with Max Dillon and also has nothing to do. This is nothing against Jones and Novak, and I’m fine with them playing a bigger role in future films, but either the filmmakers should have waited and put them in the next film or give them more to do in this one because like I said, the film isn’t really as crowded as you think, so they could’ve been given more to do.

But then again, maybe the cast of characters isn’t the thing that is making a lot of people say that this film is ‘overcrowded’. It might be more in the case of how many ‘plotlines’ are going on within the film itself, resulting in kind of a messy narrative. Of course, we have Peter dealing with both his relationship with Gwen and also this new batch of villains, but then we also have Harry trying to deal with trying to cure the disease that he has which he got from his father Norman and of course, Oscorp’s dark secrets, especially in regards to what happened with Peter’s parents, amongst other things. Still, despite all of this, I didn’t really feel that the movie’s plot was too bloated. I mean, maybe I just didn’t notice it and on that note, I am aware that some elements of certain plotlines were cut out (more on that in a second) but as a whole, like I said earlier, the film stayed pretty ‘self-contained’ and didn’t really try to do too much as far as ‘expanding the universe’ was concerned… but then again that leads to my one major complaint about the final film; the whole idea of ‘expanding the universe’, the plan that Sony is looking to do with the next two films as well as the two spin-offs that they have announced, was sort of an afterthought when watching the film. 

The whole idea of a bigger universe (a ‘Cinematic Universe’ if you will) doesn’t really become relevant until the end of the film, when the Man in the Shadows from the first film (played again by Michael Massee), whose identity is revealed to be a man named Gustav Fiers AKA ‘The Gentleman (it was originally reported that he was the character ‘Mr. Fear’ but this was ultimately proven false), visits Harry to discuss some of Oscorp’s ‘special projects’; the first major lead-in to the ‘Sinister Six’. They break Aleksei Sytsevich (‘Rhino’) out of prison and give him a new suit of armor… but really, that’s all there is to it in terms of set-up for the ‘Sinister Six’. Now, I don’t really know how much material there actually was in terms of ‘Sinister Six’ set-up that they shot, but I have the feeling that there was a lot more to it originally than what we saw in the final film and that stuff ended up on the cutting room floor, similar to how the plotline of Peter’s parents wasn’t looked into that much in the first film but yet it is shown that there was more to that in the film’s deleted scenes. This is the second ‘Spider-Man’ film in a row where that sort of situation has happened and I know that in my review, I sort of implied that was partly because both films had the same editor but really, it’s obviously more because of ‘studio interference’ from Sony.

Now, for the record, it’s not like this hasn’t happened before. There have certainly been a few cases where even the Marvel Cinematic Universe has had some films that must have been altered in editing (‘Thor: The Dark World’ and ‘The Incredible Hulk’ are two that come to mind) to fit with the plan that they have in mind for their ‘Cinematic Universe’ and it seems like Sony’s doing a similar thing with this film but here, it really doesn’t work in their favor. Now, I want to point out that I am really excited for the two spin-offs, ‘Venom’ and ‘Sinister Six’, and I’m excited what the filmmakers can do with these characters. But as is, Sony really needed to do more in order to expand the universe further. It’s not like DC’s current plan for a Cinematic Universe where they’re ‘rushing’ some things, but it’s not like Marvel either, who took their time to develop their Universe. I’m not going to go as far and say that Sony is ‘ruining’ the franchise (a franchise which, as we know, they did hastily reboot just so that they can retain the rights to Spider-Man) but at this rate, Sony should be a little more careful in developing a Cinematic Universe.

So who will be in this universe’s Sinister Six? Now originally I was going to do a list of the six that I would have speculated to be possible members for the group, but Sony has already hinted at who could be the Six of their film universe via screenshots from the end credits. From these six images (shown below), there seem to be four definites; Green Goblin (that one was obvious considering the connection to Oscorp), Doc Ock and Vulture (as evidenced by the shots of Ock’s tentacles and Vulture’s wings located in Oscorp), and Rhino (Paul Giamatti has confirmed that Rhino will return for the next film). The last two images are currently up for debate, though are speculated to be hinting towards Kraven the Hunter and Chameleon. The latter, to me, seems like a bit more plausible scenario seeing how Chameleon’s look in the comics matches the image of the face with no eyes quite a lot. The one that sort of resembles a mask (the one that is supposedly hinting at Kraven) is the only one that I can’t really get a beat on but who knows? And on that note, the final lineup for the group hasn’t actually been confirmed yet so this is all just speculation at this point. But I’m pretty sure we’ll soon find out who will make up the Sinister Six of this film franchise.

Now there’s another thing that I’ve noticed amongst some reviews and that is that some are comparing this film to the Joel Schumacher-directed ‘Batman’ films, mainly in terms of the dialogue and tonal shifts. There are a few bits of goofy dialogue in this film, including a moment when Electro says ‘It’s my birthday… time to light my candles!’ before fighting Spider-Man. This comes after a scene where Electro (before his accident) is obsessing over Spider-Man and pretending that they’re best friends, which I do realize is sort of similar to Jim Carrey’s take on the Riddler in ‘Batman Forever’. Despite all of that, I just don’t get the connection to the Schumacher films. Yes, there are a few scenes that are a bit too goofy and the dialogue in those scenes certainly doesn’t help to hide that fact, but I wouldn’t say it’s goofy to the point where it becomes ‘campy’. As for the whole tonal shifts, I didn’t really catch it that much and I did actually like that this film was more lighthearted than its immediate predecessor. And besides, nothing will ever be as campy and over-the-top as Schumacher’s ‘Batman’ films and I don’t think that this film ever goes ‘that far’. Plus, there really is some excellent humor in this film thanks to Spider-Man and his trademark wisecracking personality. I’ve said before that Andrew Garfield really got that down well in the first film, but here it’s perfected and that is why I’d say that he’s now the definitive Peter Parker/Spider-Man of film alongside Emma Stone, the definitive Gwen Stacy of the film franchise.

Speaking of Gwen, now it’s time to talk about probably the biggest moment in the film, Gwen Stacy’s death… and I’m guessing that most of you already knew that was going to happen because of the marketing. Certain trailers showed the scene where Gwen is falling in the clock tower where Spider-Man and Green Goblin are fighting and Stone was also shown in both trailers and set photos to be wearing the same outfit that the character wore when she died in the comics. It also didn’t help that the internet pretty much spoiled that part when the film was first released in the U.K. But, as is, this scene is handled really, really well. It’s not exactly like it was in the comics where it happened at the Brooklyn Bridge (or the George Washington Bridge if we’re going by the text) but then again, that location was used in a scene similar to Gwen’s death from the comics in the first Raimi film (albeit with different results). Still, despite the change in location and the fact that the Goblin actually isn’t really the cause of her death, it’s still very effective and does manage to stay fairly close to the original scene: Gwen falls, Peter catches her with his web, but the impact of her being caught basically results in her death, more specifically in this case she hits her head when she reaches the ground after a very long fall.

I’ve noted before that the key reason why I liked the first reboot film so much was that I really found myself emotionally invested in the characters and Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone have such great chemistry in these roles… and that, to me, is the main reason why Gwen’s death is so emotionally effective in this movie. You remember that scene right before the final when Peter writes ‘I Love You’ with webs on the Brooklyn Bridge for her and then they reunite? That’s a great romantic scene and a prime highlight of Garfield and Stone’s chemistry… and it just killed me because I did know what was going to happen because I stumbled across the details on the internet. But even though I knew going in what was going to happen to Gwen, that scene still put me to tears. Part of me is so damn sad that it happened… and the other part of me is actually glad that they did finally put this iconic/infamous moment on film and that they did do it justice. That scene from the comics was one that I really wanted to see done in a ‘Spider-Man’ film, even if it means that the great relationship between Garfield’s Peter and Stone’s Gwen won’t be continuing in future films.

So those are my thoughts on ‘The Amazing Spider-Man 2’. For the record, I’m not saying that I think this is a perfect movie… it does have its flaws. The biggest flaw for me really is that for a movie that is trying to lead into something bigger, it’s still a fairly self-contained film. I am very excited to see what they would do with a ‘Sinister Six’ and a ‘Venom’ film, but Sony you really have to do a better job at establishing your own Cinematic Universe. Not only that, stop interfering so much in the editing process because both ‘Amazing Spider-Man’ films have proven that key parts of their stories have been cut out of the final product. But, through all of this, ‘The Amazing Spider-Man 2’ is just a fun superhero film and a very entertaining summer blockbuster that is pure movie escapism. It has great action, some fantastic visuals, an excellent cast (with an outstanding pair of excellent leads), and of course, it knows how to have fun… and I wouldn’t have it any other way.