Movie Breakdown: The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (Noah)

People are doing traditional-style reviews all over the web, so we decided to try something different.  In each “breakdown” we’ll take a look at what a film’s marketing lead us to believe, how the movie actually played, and then what we learned from it all.  Read on!

The Impression:

Did you see the second first Amazing Spider-Man film? Factor in the “Law of Diminishing Returns” and this might actually just be Andrew Garfield eating a slice of pizza for two and a half hours.

The Reality:

The Amazing Spider-Man 2 is a big giant mess that when compared to the tightly knit storytelling of the actual Marvel films, looks like a steaming pile of sandy doggy doo-doo, but Marc Webb manages to eek out a few strong characters and some breath-taking action scenes.

Peter Parker (Andrew Garfield) is Spider-Man, but he’s reeling from the death of the cop dad of his lady friend Gwen Stacey (Emma Stone), but he loves being Spider-Man, but he’s intrigued by the mysteries behind his parent’s disappearance ten years ago, but man, he loves whipping around on those webs, but Harry Osborn (Dane DeHaan) is back in town talking in raspy voice and looking for Spidey blood, but … alright, alright, you get the point. There’s a lot of shit going on in the new Spider-Man flick, too much it seems, as the film buckles under the weight of its own sequel aspirations.

Andrew Garfield continues to be a near perfect Spider-Man, bringing all the wit and acting ability he’s brought to everything else he’s done in his short career and his pairing with Emma Stone as Gwen Stacy is a highlight of the film. Same can be said for Jamie Foxx’s Max Dillon, the film’s Electro, a well-written bit of thanks-turned-obsession-turned-deadly. Dane DeHaan on the other hand flounders as Harry Osborn, choosing a sort of arch-villain tone for the entire piece, and his poor acting isn’t helped by yet another awful visual portrayal of Green Goblin. By the end of the film DeHaan looks like he’s been attacked with dime store Halloween makeup. Throughout most of the first 2/3 of the film I found myself, though completely distracted by the wildly variant music, enjoying myself, caught up in Spidey’s flights through the city, even smiling at some of the cornier bits of dialogue as wielded by Emma Stone and Andrew Garfield. But when the film slides into it’s last act, it grows weary and can’t seem to find an adequate way to stick the landing. Instead thrusting battle scene after battle scene before sloppily tying a bow on the whole damn mess. It’s better than the first film, but so is the Youtube video of me doing my laundry.

The Lesson:

Throw in the towel Sony, just pass the legacy back to Marvel and let’s start seeing some solid Spidey flicks.