Around the time Sam Raimi's Spiderman films came out, I was a kid, and not into anything comic book related. It wasn't until that I saw the Spiderman films that I became immersed in this world. Although I liked the movies, I never viewed the first two films with the same praise others give it. Spiderman 1 was just meh beyond the origin, and Spiderman 2 was a good film, but other than the train scene, it's not all that memorable for me. In this film, I feel that Garfield has nailed both Peter and Spiderman. With that being said, I'm going to dive right into my review.
One of the many complaints about the first Amazing Spiderman film was that it didn't wrap up many of the plot elements it introduced. One of them being the myster of his parents. Well right off the bat, they fix this problem. The first scene deals with Peter's Parents dropping Peter off at Aunt May from Peter's dad perspective. We get to know why he did what he did. In the first film, I think they planned to stretch this arc out, but wasn't received well enough, so they just decided to wrap it up here, and I thought they did it perfectly.
The introduction to Aleksei Sytsevich, better known as the Rhino, was absolutely perfect. He was introduced in a classical spiderman fashion. Villain is on a run after stealing something, and a police chase ensues. This is where we get our first introduction to Spiderman and the new suit. What follows is Spiderman defeating Aleksei easily and humorously in a typical Spiderman manner. A perfect introduction to Spiderman.
What follows is their graduation. When Peter shows up late due to stopping Aleksei, he steps up to get his diploma and kisses Gwen in a way that just seems un Peter like. It's not a big problem, but that's just something I couldn't imagine him doing.
Also during the pursit of Aleksei, we get our first glimpse of Jamie Foxx as Max Dillon. He looks insane. He's a guy who pretty much is a loner, and doesn't feel respected, until Spiderman saves him. A little while later, we get to a scene where we see his newfound? obessesion with Spiderman. Now that was a bit wierd. Jamie did a good job in this film with Electro. Electro isn't some super complex who is all that interesting. He had no backstory, he was always a villain with cool powers. I feel that they captured that in the film.
A little while later, we get our first glimpse of Harry as he is seeing his dying father. Norman explains that his illness is hereditary, and that he was trying to find a cure. I kind of have mixed feelings as to them killing off Norman so soon. There's so much they could've done with Peter and Norman, but Deehans Goblin works fine for me.
There was a brief scene in the movie where Peter confronts his Aunt about the truth on what happened to his parents, and I felt that it was a powerful scene.
A little later, it is revealed that Harry is showing signs of the illness his father has. He calls up Peter because he knows that Peter takes pics of Spiderman and he wants Peter to try and contact him because he believes his blood is the cure for his illness.
At this point in the film, Peter is pretty much losing everything. He broke up with Gwen because he feels bad for not fulfilling the promise he made to her father and from not wantng to put her in danger. He's getting nowhere with his parents mystery, and now Harry is dying.
At an earlier point in the film when Electro first gets hishis powers, he is presumed dead. The CEO's blame his death on Harry. Harry found out what his dad has been working on. He finds the Goblen suit and the venom from the spiders that Richards were experimenting on. Little does Harry know is that the Spiders were infused with Richards DNA, and will only positively affect those that share his DNA. It is this that turns harry into the Goblin. I thought infusing the Spiders DNA with it only working with Richards DNA was a nice touch. It was an interesting explanation as to why it turns Harry into the Goblin, instead of it just not working on him the same way it worked on Peter.
Peter then finds why his dad left. He recieves a message from Gwen that she's accepting an job offer or some kind of offer to England. He professes his love for her, and they agree to both go to England together. Before that happens, Spiderman has to fight Electro who ia now working with Harry as they both have the same goal of capturing Spiderman. When Electro first appears earlier in the movie, he's defeated easily by Spiderman and Electro blames him for his arrest, and feels betrayed. Spiderman, along with Gwen, defeats Electro, and here come Harry.
With Harry spotting Spiderman and Gwen so close together, he assumes Spiderman is Peter. Harry believes he needed Spidermans blood to cure his illness, so he is now upset that his friend refused to give him what he needed to save his life. Harry grabs Gwen, and they fight on top of a clock tower. This is where the highlight of the film comes. Harry tosses Gwen and Peter lunges after her and they fall through the clocktower. Peter and Harry are fighting, Gwen is in the mix and she falls. Peter webs her up and she is now hanging onto his web. Meanwhile the Goblin and Spiderman are still fighting. Peter eventually gets the best of Harry, and it is then shown that the web that Gwen is hanging on snaps, and Spidey plunges to try and save her. Spiderman shoots a web, and it is too late as Gwen's head hits the floor, and you can hear her back snap I believe due to the way Peter grabs her.
Gwen's death hit hard. Holy Hell. I already was spoiled that it was going to happen, but it was still effective.
Following Gwens death, it has been five months since her death, and Peter has quit being Spiderman. Crime has gone up, and the public is missing Spiderman. We now go to Ravencroft, where we see Harry, looking okay, and the Man In The Shadows. They discuss that they want more trials now that Spiderman is gone. The first subject is Aleksei, whom they break out of prison. Now we move to Peter, who is in grief of Gwen's death. Like I said earlier, he quit being Spiderman. It is here where they replay Gwen's graduation speech from earlier, and it is placed well here. It goes something along the line "There will be dark days, days where you feel all alone, and that's when hope is needed the most...no matter what happens, you must allways keep hope." And that is what makes Peter suit back up. This is when we get our first glimpse of The Rhino. It is perfectly reasonable that he's introdcuced at this part of the film, even after something as heavy as Gwen's death.
Conclusion: I literally have zero major complaints for this film. I'll start off by saying that people who believe this film is convoluted is nuts. While there isn't a central plot, and if that's a problem for others, fine, but this film was very easy to follow. The whole this being too much of a setup for future Spiderman films was exaggerated. There were only three things that alluded to it. Smythe, Felicia Hardy, and the scene where they show Vulture Wings, Doc Ocks arms and all of that. It's done all the time in Marvel films, yet I find no complaints there. Now to important stuff. Garfield nails Peter and Spiderman down perfectly IMO. My favorite aspect is the HUMOR. Whether you like the humor or not is unimportant. The fact is that it's there. Instead of the dry humor from the Raimi series, Garfield is out there with it, and to me, it's great and works perfectly. Emma Stone is also great in the film. I liked Easy A, but man she's great. The chemistry between the two is perfect, and as leads they beat Tobey and Kirsten in every way. Jamie Foxx does good as Electro. Aside from the one thing I mentioned earlier, he's a great addition to this film and does good with what he's given. Dane Deehan was great. I didn't think he could hold his own next to Jamie Foxx. People say that his turn to villainy was rushed, but yet, people seem to like Dafoe's Goblin and his death all in one film. His motivations are reasonable. He finds out he's dying so he tries to find a cure. He figures that Spiderman may hold this cure, so he tries to get it from him. When he figures out that his best friend is the one who refused to give him what he thought he needed, he snaps and feels betrayed. That, along with the Venom gone bad that he taken, is reason enough for him to turn bad in this film. The death scene was great. Simple as that. I already knew it was coming, yet it was still effective. I hate that Emma is gone, but she did great with the character, and she will be tough to follow. To end my review, I will say that this film satisfied me greatly. It wasn't as perfect for me as The Winter Soldier was, but I loved it. For me this is what Spiderman 2 is to others. This definitely goes in my top 5 CBM's of all time. Sorry for any bad grammar or whatever.
4.5 / 5
So at times him being more Spidey came off as just plain bad acting when he was just Peter talking to Gwen or to Aunt May.
