The Amazing Spider-Man 2 Movie Review

With 2012’s ‘’The Amazing Spider-Man’’, everyone’s favourite web-slinging hero made his return to the silver screen, with a prime focus on the original comic book series. Two years on, the sequel aims to soar higher with more villains and more action all around.

The Amazing Spider-Man 2 continues from the original, with Spiderman aka Peter Parker (Andrew Garfield) continuing to protect New York while also grappling with his personal life and past. It’s a fairly straightforward springboard for a superhero flick but from here, many things come to pass. New characters and villains rise, Peter’s relationship with Gwen Stacey (Emma Stone) is pushed to the limit and more details about Peter’s parents come to light. It’s a lot to take in and although the film delivers healthy doses of action and drama throughout, inevitably there are some plot points that get neglected at several points in the film. For example the intriguing story thread of Peter’s parents and their involvement with the OsCorp Company (which links with the original film quite well) is tossed to the side and doesn’t really receive a proper payoff at the film’s conclusion. Aside from these issues, ‘’The Amazing Spider-Man 2’’ maintains the quick pace of the original, which is sure to keep any superhero fan on the edge of their seat.

Spidey’s second outing into a comic book focus sticks to what worked in the original in terms of casting, while also bringing in new faces. Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone are again great as Spiderman and Gwen Stacy with their relationship shining through at every opportunity. Peter Parker in particular goes far beyond wisecracking as his character is faced with a great deal of strain from multiple angles throughout the film. On the other hand the villains are often very lacking; they suffer a similar problem to 2007’s Spider-Man 3 in that they all have their individual strengths but are struck down by a lack of cohesive development. Elektro (Jamie Foxx) has the best action scenes but his backstory is essentially non-existent; his character is a typical nerdy OsCorp employee who happens to be saved by Spiderman and nothing more. The Green Goblin/Harry Osborne (Dane DeHaan) suffers from the opposite problem; he has a solid build-up and fits in naturally with the main cast but when it comes down to fighting Spider-Man his ultimate appearance is disappointingly brief, and if you thought Venom’s part in Spider-Man 3 was brief, just wait until you see how much screen-time the Rhino gets in the film. The characterisation of ‘’The Amazing Spider-Man 2’’ is altogether mixed, delivering both great heroes and dissatisfying villains in differing measures.

Sony Pictures were really pushing the 3D for The Amazing Spider-Man 2 and the final results are much like the characterisation, mostly mixed. The shots of Spider-Man swinging through the city continue to be awe-inspiring, although there are several areas that really don’t need 3D, especially more quiet and subdued scenes. But whenever Elektro comes on screen, the film transforms into a dazzling lightshow fairly similar to Sony’s InFamous series on the PlayStation 3 and the 3D effects are better for it, enhancing the action scenes to great effect. The super-villain, along with most of the action sequences rely mainly on CGI to entertain the viewer, though for the sequel slow motion shots have taken over from the point of view angles seen in the original film. The use of slow motion also works fairly well, increasing the intensity while never becoming excessive across the film’s 142 minute run time.

Despite having a little too much going on and the heavily unbalanced villains ‘’The Amazing Spider-Man 2’’ still has a few things to enjoy, making it another competent entry in the web slinger’s cinematic career.

Rating: 2.5/5 Stars