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Saturday, April 26, 2014

Amazing Spider-Man 2 review: A shock to the system

I'd say if I hadn't seen any other comic book movies for the last 10 years, this movie would be awesome.  Not to say I didn't like it.  Far from it.  But it does suffer just because comic book movies are in no short supply these days.  With the Avengers and all the movies tied in to that, it's a little harder for something like Spider-Man.  Not because it's a bad movie, but because it focuses on a smaller scale than the other Marvel movies out there.  But if it didn't, it wouldn't be Spider-Man.

Before I fanboy out about Spider-Man, let's talk about the movie.

The acting is amazing.  The cast I'd say is slumming it being in a comic book movie.  There's academy award winners in this!  Jamie Foxx brought an amazing amount of life into Electro.  I didn't know which direction they were going to go with him, but they managed to take something as silly as "turned into a giant energy battery by falling into a vat of mutated electric eels" into something I could at least take seriously enough to keep watching.  Emma Stone.  That's all I have to say.  I'm in love with Emma Stone.  She's brilliant.  She conveys emotions with even the slightest of gestures.  Future actors of the world, take notes.  Andrew Garfield is the perfect casting choice for Spider-Man.  He has a great face that really exudes pain.  When he's emotionally tortured, it's written all over his face.  He even throws in a New York accent when he gets worked up.  Sally Field.  She should be starring in dramas about the first female President of the United States.  She's totally slumming it to be in a cheesy comic book movie.  The only problem I had was the way they wasted Paul Giamatti.  The guy was barely in the movie!  But luckily with the teaser at the end of this one, I'm guessing we'll see more of him in Amazing Spider-Man 3.

The story is what it is.  It's Spider-Man.  It's a comic book movie.  Because there are so many of them out there these days, this one doesn't stand out to me.  It's not better or worse than other Marvel movies.  It does get cutesy on more than one occasion.  The little kid in the Spider-man costume was just dumb.

I can't say there was anything wrong with it.  I really liked it.  It's just a victim of there being better comic book movies out there.  I'd say Captain America 2 was just a better movie overall than this one.  And that is still out in theaters.  Maybe this should've been released in June.  

Honestly I really liked the movie.  But I can't say it was even the best comic book movie I've seen this month.  But it's still worth seeing.  

So now let me gush about Spider-Man for a few paragraphs:

What sets Spider-Man apart from other Marvel heroes is that his victories come with a very high and very personal cost.  Look at some of the other heroes in the Marvel Universe that are featured in movies lately.  Ironman, Captain America, Thor, and The Hulk.  Of these characters, which of them have ever lost?  I don't mean like lose a fight or something like that.  I'm talking about failure.  A situation that turns the sentiment against the hero.  Where he failed to save someone and that person died.  And that death haunts the hero for the rest of his life.  It's very common in comics to bring people back from the dead.  The most striking example I can give right now is Bucky Barnes from Captain America.  In the first Captain America movie, Bucky died.  But in the second movie he got better.  In the movies Thor has never had to mourn the loss of a comrade or love interest.  Neither has Iron Man.  The only one that can come close to it would be the Hulk and even then it's stretching it because he pushes people away so the monster within doesn't accidentally kill them. 

With Spider-Man it's different.  Spider-Man is a working Joe.  He isn't a soldier with the support of an army behind him.  He isn't a multi-billionaire playboy.  He's definitely not a God.  His problems are smaller scale.  He worries about making ends meet.  He worries about his family.  He has to deal with a newspaper that has it out for him no matter what he does.  And if that wasn't bad enough, he has to find a way to balance his love life with the problems of the city.  He doesn't have the luxury of sitting around wondering what Harry Osborne's latest evil scheme is going to be.  He has homework and the rent is due. 

Also Spider-Man is a product of New York City.  While other heroes are from there of course, he's still an average guy from the city.  He can't go off and deal with some giant threat over in Malawi or whatever.  He's in New York and New York has enough freak shows like Electro and the Green Goblin running around.

And Spider-Man's victories come with a huge burden.  He has people die around him.  He can't save everybody no matter how hard he tries.  He has self-doubt.  He sometimes wonders if he's doing more harm than good.  He has to sacrifice having friends and family in order to be the hero.  Even the best of us would crack under that kind of stress. 

I really like Spider-Man.  Even if the comics get a little on the weird side.