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The Amazing Spider-Man 2 - Grading & Discussion
- Thread starter Agent Richard07
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^Aye.
Pfft. io9 is in the business of being offended and nitpicky.
The Amazing Spider-Man 2
My Grade: C+
_____________________________
This is a movie that's been much maligned by both critics and audiences over the last week or two since it was released in various countries. And, honestly, I'm not too sure on why it's getting the vitriol it's been getting, some fans and critics likening it to, what is pretty universally seen as the worst comic book movie, Batman and Robin.
TASM2 is by no means perfect but it's not B&R bad.
The franchise rebooting Spider-Man movie from a couple years ago wasn't too bad, it was probably a bit better, and truer, take on the character and his mythos (Gwen Stacy as his first love/crush, mechanical web-shooters) while taking a slightly more serious tone more in line with how most comic-book inspired movies are these days. (The Tobey McGuire movies being pretty heavy in camp.) This movie tries to build on that and, in all honesty, it does come across a bit muddy in wanting to do too much at once while not being too sure in how to do it. Which is probably where some of the B&R comparisons come from.
In B&R we not only had a new actor for Batman but a movie tried to help build the Batman/Robin dynamic more, introduce Batgirl, two major villains in the mythos while also giving some secondary nods to another major villain (but using him poorly) all the while doing it in an over-the-top manner filled with 1960s era TV Batman camp.
Say what you want about ASM2 it's not trying to do camp, but it is a bit muddy in what it *does* want to do. It tries to carry on the plot thread from the first movie of Peter trying to find out what happened to his birth parents, it deals with his struggles with balancing his superhero life with trying to live a normal life dating Gwen Stacy (in conflict with a promise he made to her father before he died), introduces a friendship fans of the character knew likely existed but it seems like it was in this movie unnaturally as it's clunkily introduced. It then tries to set-up two major villains from the SM mythos while also having a major character moment for the character straight out of the comics.
It's a movie with a lot on its plate and like a kid who ate too many cookies before dinner it ends up pushing these scraps around for a while before it really has to deal with them at the end. Then pretty much dumps half of them on the floor for the dog to eat.
Which is probably the biggest problem in this movie. It doesn't *entirely* know what to do. One of our villains is "Electro" a man who has complete mastery over electricity and in this movie adaptation actually IS electricity. He gets his powers by being electrocuted by a main conduit in a power plant and then falling in a pool full of electric eels.
Sure, okay.
Granted, our hero gets his powers from being bitten by a spider but at least there's hand waving that it was a genetically altered spider. It's not too clear how simply being electrocuted made Electro.
Anyway, Elecrto has confrontation with Spider-Man in Times Square where Electro is disappointed Spider-Man doesn't remember him (from a random encounter they had while he was human at the beginning of the movie) and then gets upset with Spider-Man when a random cop shoots him. That's literally all of the motivation Electro has for hating Spider-Man.
Spider-Man didn't remember him at first and didn't stop a cop from shooting at him.
Spidey is able to subude Electro who is then contained in a NYC facility until he's needed in the third act.
Then there's Harry Osborne, a child hood friend of Peter's but they haven't seen each other since grade-school it seems. (Pretty much an eternity in child-hood terms considering puberty is in there and one of them was a rich kid in boarding school) The two rekindle their friendship almost instantly.
Harry was in town to meet with his father on his death bed from a genetic illness. Oscorp is passed on to Harry as Norman dies and all of the sudden Harry, at 20-something, has this genetic illness kick into overdrive requiring Harry to need treatment NOW rather than in 40-50 years considering the age of his father. Harry assumes Spider-Man's blood can help cure him due to Spider-Man's regenerative powers.
Spider-Man refuses, pissing Harry off, driving him to desperation where he injects himself with the experimental spider venom sealed away deep in Oscorp which has a very negative reaction to Harry who mutates to some degree but has his mutation stalled by putting on the Goblin suit.
Again, it doesn't make much sense how Harry got from A-to-B, his motivations aren't clear and it just seems like it happens because it needs to happen.
Harry had teamed up with Electro in order to steel the venom from Oscorp (as Harry had been "fired" and locked out of the building) and to accomplish this he breaks Electro out of a high-security prison. Electro breaks away to get revenge on Oscorp for stealing his power-plant ideas without giving him credit and to get back at Spider-Man over whatever.
In the middle of all of that Peter and Gwen have some relationship struggles, especially after Gwen decides to go to Oxford to attend school. And the bulk of the movie centers around that, there's major action sequences in the beginning and the end and the middle is largely filled with the personal drama between Peter and Gwen, Peter/Spidey and Harry, and Electo and his stereotype of a prison mental-health professional.
Look, I'll admit this movie is a mess. But it's still somehow sort of fun and enjoyable. I, for one, really liked the combination of music and Electro using his powers (there's a scene where he uses his powers to electrify towers at a powerplant to make electro-punk sounds to taunt Spider-Man.) But that's something I've seen criticized a lot as well.
I still walked out of this movie enjoying it and I think the last few minutes of it could have but cut out, improving the movie vastly, but I'll admit it had problems. I really think a big moment in it could have been done a lot better, for example.
Still I had some fun and look forward to where the franchise goes from here.
My Grade: C+
_____________________________
This is a movie that's been much maligned by both critics and audiences over the last week or two since it was released in various countries. And, honestly, I'm not too sure on why it's getting the vitriol it's been getting, some fans and critics likening it to, what is pretty universally seen as the worst comic book movie, Batman and Robin.
TASM2 is by no means perfect but it's not B&R bad.
The franchise rebooting Spider-Man movie from a couple years ago wasn't too bad, it was probably a bit better, and truer, take on the character and his mythos (Gwen Stacy as his first love/crush, mechanical web-shooters) while taking a slightly more serious tone more in line with how most comic-book inspired movies are these days. (The Tobey McGuire movies being pretty heavy in camp.) This movie tries to build on that and, in all honesty, it does come across a bit muddy in wanting to do too much at once while not being too sure in how to do it. Which is probably where some of the B&R comparisons come from.
In B&R we not only had a new actor for Batman but a movie tried to help build the Batman/Robin dynamic more, introduce Batgirl, two major villains in the mythos while also giving some secondary nods to another major villain (but using him poorly) all the while doing it in an over-the-top manner filled with 1960s era TV Batman camp.
Say what you want about ASM2 it's not trying to do camp, but it is a bit muddy in what it *does* want to do. It tries to carry on the plot thread from the first movie of Peter trying to find out what happened to his birth parents, it deals with his struggles with balancing his superhero life with trying to live a normal life dating Gwen Stacy (in conflict with a promise he made to her father before he died), introduces a friendship fans of the character knew likely existed but it seems like it was in this movie unnaturally as it's clunkily introduced. It then tries to set-up two major villains from the SM mythos while also having a major character moment for the character straight out of the comics.
It's a movie with a lot on its plate and like a kid who ate too many cookies before dinner it ends up pushing these scraps around for a while before it really has to deal with them at the end. Then pretty much dumps half of them on the floor for the dog to eat.
Which is probably the biggest problem in this movie. It doesn't *entirely* know what to do. One of our villains is "Electro" a man who has complete mastery over electricity and in this movie adaptation actually IS electricity. He gets his powers by being electrocuted by a main conduit in a power plant and then falling in a pool full of electric eels.
Sure, okay.
Granted, our hero gets his powers from being bitten by a spider but at least there's hand waving that it was a genetically altered spider. It's not too clear how simply being electrocuted made Electro.
Anyway, Elecrto has confrontation with Spider-Man in Times Square where Electro is disappointed Spider-Man doesn't remember him (from a random encounter they had while he was human at the beginning of the movie) and then gets upset with Spider-Man when a random cop shoots him. That's literally all of the motivation Electro has for hating Spider-Man.
Spider-Man didn't remember him at first and didn't stop a cop from shooting at him.
Spidey is able to subude Electro who is then contained in a NYC facility until he's needed in the third act.
Then there's Harry Osborne, a child hood friend of Peter's but they haven't seen each other since grade-school it seems. (Pretty much an eternity in child-hood terms considering puberty is in there and one of them was a rich kid in boarding school) The two rekindle their friendship almost instantly.
Harry was in town to meet with his father on his death bed from a genetic illness. Oscorp is passed on to Harry as Norman dies and all of the sudden Harry, at 20-something, has this genetic illness kick into overdrive requiring Harry to need treatment NOW rather than in 40-50 years considering the age of his father. Harry assumes Spider-Man's blood can help cure him due to Spider-Man's regenerative powers.
Spider-Man refuses, pissing Harry off, driving him to desperation where he injects himself with the experimental spider venom sealed away deep in Oscorp which has a very negative reaction to Harry who mutates to some degree but has his mutation stalled by putting on the Goblin suit.
Again, it doesn't make much sense how Harry got from A-to-B, his motivations aren't clear and it just seems like it happens because it needs to happen.
Harry had teamed up with Electro in order to steel the venom from Oscorp (as Harry had been "fired" and locked out of the building) and to accomplish this he breaks Electro out of a high-security prison. Electro breaks away to get revenge on Oscorp for stealing his power-plant ideas without giving him credit and to get back at Spider-Man over whatever.
In the middle of all of that Peter and Gwen have some relationship struggles, especially after Gwen decides to go to Oxford to attend school. And the bulk of the movie centers around that, there's major action sequences in the beginning and the end and the middle is largely filled with the personal drama between Peter and Gwen, Peter/Spidey and Harry, and Electo and his stereotype of a prison mental-health professional.
Look, I'll admit this movie is a mess. But it's still somehow sort of fun and enjoyable. I, for one, really liked the combination of music and Electro using his powers (there's a scene where he uses his powers to electrify towers at a powerplant to make electro-punk sounds to taunt Spider-Man.) But that's something I've seen criticized a lot as well.
I still walked out of this movie enjoying it and I think the last few minutes of it could have but cut out, improving the movie vastly, but I'll admit it had problems. I really think a big moment in it could have been done a lot better, for example.
Still I had some fun and look forward to where the franchise goes from here.
Tell that to Dr. Kafka.
I agree though...I really don't understand why so many people compare ASM2 to Batman & Robin. It makes no sense. ASM2 is clearly more like Batman Forever.
Paul Giamatti's Rhino was pretty camp.
Watching it I kind of felt like they had made this slice-of-life movie that they felt obligated to shoehorn in some supervillain sequences. It probably wouldn't have hurt to have focused on having just one villain and building up that story more.
Watching it I kind of felt like they had made this slice-of-life movie that they felt obligated to shoehorn in some supervillain sequences. It probably wouldn't have hurt to have focused on having just one villain and building up that story more.
^
Maybe no one cared because the villains were perhaps better integrated into the story. In the Nolan films it largely felt organic, though I do think they did a rush job on Two-Face and killed him off way too early. I also thought they killed off Talia too early as well.
Maybe no one cared because the villains were perhaps better integrated into the story. In the Nolan films it largely felt organic, though I do think they did a rush job on Two-Face and killed him off way too early. I also thought they killed off Talia too early as well.
Saw it last night. God that movie was horrible. I loved the first one, I think Andrew Garfield is spiderman but man that movie was bad. Nothing made sense. Not the villains, not the motivations, not the bystanders hanging around to watch the firefight between the cops and Rhino. It might not be Batman and Robin bad but some of Jamie Fox's lines made me cringe and think of Arnold Schwarzenegger's Mr. Freeze. The only things that worked where the action scenes and the undeniable chemistry between Garfield and Stone and so in keeping with the reasoning of the entire film of course they kill her off. I had high hopes for this series after the first one but absent Emma Stone I don't know this gets any better.
Exactly, in the Nolan films the villains were pretty central to the plot. Scarecrow and Ra's wants to poison Gotham in order to "reset" civilization to some degree there. The Joker just wants to have fun and generally cause chaos, Two Face wants revenge for the loss of Rachel and his injuries/sacrifices during the business with The Joker. Bane wants to cause his own brand of chaos and anarchy (and also fulfill the LoS's goals of "resetting" Gotham.) Their motivations are mostly organic and make sense.
In this one, Electro is mad because.... Spider-man sorta didn't recognize him once. Harry/Goblin is made because he has a genetic illness that *should* not entirely take hold for a few decades yet but he wants a cure now and Spider-man is unsure donating his blood to Harry is a good idea.
What they're doing just doesn't quite fit, make sense, or really seem all that fluid on why it all has to involve Spider-man.
I was fearful once Stone got the part of Gwen Stacey because I knew exactly where it would lead.
I agree though...I really don't understand why so many people compare ASM2 to Batman & Robin. It makes no sense. ASM2 is clearly more like Batman Forever.
I agree with the emphasized, in that both TASM2 and BR are better films than people make them out to be and in that they do similar things, retaining the undertones of the movies that directly preceded them but also injecting new tonal undertones into their respective franchises.
Electro was mad because he felt betrayed and abused by everyone. He was ignored, abused and used by OsCorp (who stole his work on the power system and also were responsible for his mutation), and then when he thought Spidey was trying to help him he gets shot at and thinks the one guy who was his friend has now also betrayed him.
Then he gets tortured by Dr Kafka on OsCorp's orders, furthering his hatred of them. When Harry lets him loose, it's with the promise of revenge.
And that's really what he wanted, total revenge on the whole world for how he was abused and thrown away by everybody. Spider-Man was just one guy he wanted to get back at, he wanted everyone. That's why he said he would be their new God at the end.
Harry was afraid of dying after seeing what happened to his father (understandable, really) and didn't want to wait decades when he thinks he has a cure NOW. When Spider-Man turns him down, he goes for the only other immediate cure he thinks he has: The Spider-Venom. It sort-of saves him but mutates him into a mentally unstable Goblin thing. The transformation warps his mind, and he now wants revenge on Spider-Man for denying him something that could have averted his current mutation. Finding out Spider-Man was Peter just pushed him further over the edge because now he knows the guy who he blames for his mutation was also his supposed friend.
The thing is, Electro's story doesn't have THAT much to so with Spidey as it does with the world in total and Harry's story needed a bit more depth added to it. But the story is all there.
Box office:
i haven't seen it, I don't know if its any good and acknowledge that box office isn't a indicator of quality. At the same time, I can't help but wonder if some of the disappointment at the box office isn't because these movies are basically remakes/rehashes of films that aren't that old and many people may already have on disc.
I really think SONY should have just recast Peter and MJ and done new films, instead of "reimagining" the origin and the stuff with the Green Goblin."
- Troubling news for Sony arrive this weekend with the news that "The Amazing Spider-Man 2" fell 59% in its second weekend. The franchise will accumulate a total of $148 million by Monday, but is showing signs of under-performing. With a production and promotion budget that nudges close to $400 million, Spidey will need to gross at least $750 million worldwide just to break even.
Compared to its predecessor, ASM2, is almost $35 million behind where ASM was after 7 days, $110 million compared to $145 million. After 7 days Sam Raimi's Spider-Man trilogy sat at $151 million, $192 million, and $182 million, respectively. And that was without the added windfall of 3D and Imax ticketing.
Sony has bet big on a franchise that is running out of gas. ASM3 is already greenlit and a side-franchise based on a number of Spider-Man villains has already been announced.
Unfortunately, audiences seem to be getting tired of something they feel they have seen too many times before.
i haven't seen it, I don't know if its any good and acknowledge that box office isn't a indicator of quality. At the same time, I can't help but wonder if some of the disappointment at the box office isn't because these movies are basically remakes/rehashes of films that aren't that old and many people may already have on disc.
I really think SONY should have just recast Peter and MJ and done new films, instead of "reimagining" the origin and the stuff with the Green Goblin."
"Franchise fatigue", eh?
I've always thought so. They used to give lip-service to wanting to go back to High School Peter...but to what end? But then, if it were this creative team would it make any difference?
I think in this particular case, it's less a matter of "franchise fatigue" and more a matter of it not being a very good movie.
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