The film opens as Richard Parker (Campbell Scott) records a video message to explain his disappearance. Later, he and his wife, Mary (Embeth Davidtz), are aboard a private jet hijacked by a man sent to assassinate Richard. With the pilot dead, the plane crashes....
In the present Spider-Man (Andrew Garfield) is chasing Russian criminal Aleksei Sytsevich (Paul Giamatti) who attempts to steal a truck containing dangerous plutonium vials--captures him, rescues OsCorp Industries employee Max Dillon (Jamie Foxx)--all while talking to girlfriend Gwen Stacy (Emma Stone) on the phone--telling him that he is late for their High School graduation ceremony. He is haunted by visions of Gwen's dead father, Captain George Stacy (Denis Leary) and the promise Peter made to keep Gwen safe by not seeing her.
Peter's childhood pal Harry Osborn (Dane DeHaan) returns after being away at school for years just in time to see his terminally ill father Norman Osborn (Chris Cooper) who tells his estranged son that his illness is hereditary, and Harry is at the same age when symptoms first appear . Norman gives Harry a tiny portable device containing his life's research. The next day, Norman dies and Harry is appointed CEO of OsCorp .
Meanwhile, Max starts to idolize Spider-Man. While performing some electrical maintenance in an OsCorp lab, he loses his balance and falls into a tank of genetically modified electric eels. They attack him, and he mutates into power generator--Electro. As Max stumbles into Times Square he accidentally causes a blackout. Spider-Man swimgs into actiom and attempts to calm him down, but seeing him as a threat the police fire on Max, causing him to lose his temper and attack...
In my review of 2012's The Amazing Spider-Man one of the things that made the reboot work for me was that Garfield's Spidey seemed to stay closer to the character as created by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko much more than the Tobey Maguire incarnation from the previous trilogy (I liked both 2002's Spider-Man and 2004's Spider-Man 2 a lot). And c'mon the chemistry between real life couple Andy and Emma really was palpable--unlike Tobey and Kirsten Dunst as Mary Jane Watson which at times, seemed stiff by comparison...Thankfully those ingredients stay the same in the sequel--providing a solid foundation amid the mayhem.
The script by Alex Kurtzman, Roberto Orci and Jeff Pinkner based on a first draft by James Vanderbilt has a lot of ground to cover--but save for one big miss step exception the film did not feel over stuffed to me at all. A lot of other reviews for the film knock it saying there's too much story that introduces too many new characters. I don't think so--It's nowhere near as bad as say Sam Raimi's Spider-Man 3 which had three major bad guys or in it or even director Jon Favreau’s Iron Man 2 which felt like it spent more time setting up The Avengers than dealing with Tony Stark's (Robert Downey Jr.) crisis at hand.
Yes "Amazing 2" also has three villains in it--but Electro is front and center here-both Giamatti's Rhino and DeHaan's Green Goblin have limited screen time--And before anyone cries foul over Harry's large amount of screen time--It felt more organic to me. It doesn't hurt that DeHaan is such a watchable actor-His scenes pre-transformation are strong and believable so that the time devoted to his up and down friendship with Peter and medical plight are worth the time devoted.
Sally Field is back as Aunt May and had some great scenes with Garfield--that also ground the film--especially as Peter discovers the truth about his parents' leaving him behind in the last film.
The most disappointing aspect of this installment for me is Foxx's Max/Electro. He is underwritten--coming across as cliched and one note. It's too bad. The Academy Award winner is very talented and deserves better than he got here.
Webb stages some exciting heroics throughout but it's the final confrontation with Electro/Gobby and Spidey that does it for me. Borrowing heavily from crucial Wall-Crawler comic book lore Webb recreates some classic panels and imagery that I recall from my youth reading reprints of classic Lee/Ditko. Garfield and Stone sell it all the way through--from meet/cute to some pretty emotional moments-echoing the spark that Christopher Reeve and Margot Kidder had in Richard Donner's Superman...
Is Amazing Spider-Man 2 perfect? Nope. Does it spend time setting up Sony Pictures' further plan to expand the Spidey film series beyond The Amazing Spider-Man 3 with The Sinister Six getting their own film that Drew Goddard will write and direct? Yes. But for me the extra stuff never bogged this film down---I look forward to seeing what comes next...
No comments:
Post a Comment