Film Review: The Amazing Spider-Man 2

Director: Marc Webb

This years follow up movie in the latest reboot of the Spider-Man franchise as Andrew Garfield returns as Peter Parker, the masked hero. The first film opened to mixed reviews but was a commercial success which instantly lead to the announcement of a sequel, with the backstory of how Peter becomes Spider-Man now dealt with it gives the second film much more freedom. This is my Dark Knight theory over how the second film in a trilogy is usually the best as it is not constrained by creating or ending the story to audiences satisfaction.

Spider-Man continues to fight crime in New York City and starts off by stopping a Russian Aleksei (Paul Giamatti) who attempts to steal a truck delivering Plutonium. During the fight to recover the shipment he rescues Oscorp employee Max (Jamie Foxx) who following this event begins to idolize Spider-Man as an escape from the abuse he receives at his day job. At the same time Peter's childhood friend Harry (Dane DeHaan) returns to Manhattan as CEO of Oscorp as his father dies and explains that the illness is hereditary so will affect him to.

Peter Parker with Gwen at graduation

For me this was the film that needed to elevate this franchise to the next level but it suffers badly and is a step down on its predecessor. It is quickly following the previous franchise with Tobey Maguire that slowly unravelled after a reasonably promising start. Andrew Garfield is a decent lead but I never really feel the chemistry between him and Emma Stone, whilst the supposedly funny moments during the fight scenes like when Peter jokes with the villians just appear clumsy and cringe-worthy.

The plot itself suffers from confusion over the over-riding villain with multiple antagonists popping up throughout different parts of the movie. It almost worries itself too much with setting up the next film with a new villain rather than working with the current one, Jamie Foxx's character is overlooked really whilst Dane DeHaan continues his career playing a very similar character to the one that made him known in Chronicle. Overall it just fails to draw you in with excitement and considering two more films have been ordered as a minimum something drastic needs to happen in the next instalment.

1/4 Muddled plot and a script lacking any sort of sharpness