The Amazing Spider-Man 2 is the sequel to 2012’s The Amazing Spider-Man. It stars Andrew Garfield, Emma Stone, Jamie Foxx and Dane Dehaan. The film picks up not long after the last movie and features Peter and Gwen taking the next step with life after high school. Peter is still haunted by his promise to Captain Stacy (Gwen’s father) and struggles to stay away from her, because his life as Spider-Man could kill her.
If I had to pick some recurring themes for this movie, one of them would have to be letting go of the past. Peter still struggles with being abandoned by his father at a young age. There is an entire scene in this movie where Peter constructs a wall of newspaper clippings, maps and little notes to try and figure out why his father did what he did.
Another theme would be a fear of the future. Harry Osborn (played by Dean Dehaan) fears a genetic condition that he inherited from his father Norman. Said condition is incurable and drives to desperate lengths to avoid dying like his father. There is a point in the movie where Harry breaks into his own company and goes down to a secure wing in the basement. The remains of the Spider program that gave Peter his powers is down there and he injects a vial of Spider venom in the hopes that it can cure him.
While those parts of the film are done well, the weakest part of the film would have to be Jamie Foxx as Max Dillon/Electro. Dillon is this invisible loner who just wants people to notice him. He becomes obsessed with Spider-Man. Even after his transformation into Electro, he still wants to go after Spider-Man because he believes that he is a fraud after a confrontation in Times Square. In addition to Electro, there is Harry Osborn as the Green Goblin and Paul Giammati as Rhino. Harry Osborn at least deserved his own movie and should not have been tagged on at the last minute once Electro was done.
My thoughts on this movie are mixed at best. On one hand there is substantial material to work with, but the opportunity is wasted. There are problems with this movie that keep it from being amazing and instead, reduce it to being Average.
I rate this film 6 broken web shooters out of 10.
Clifford T. Hofferd is a movie critic living in Prince George, British Columbia, Canada. Follow Clifford’s blog at thengpblog.blogspot.ca
