Sodas & Popcorn – Movie Review: The Amazing Spiderman 2

Directed by: Marc Webb (500 days of summer, The Amazing spiderman)
Director of Photography:  Daniel Mindel (Star Trek, Star Trek Into Darkness, Mission Impossible 3)
Writing Credits:  Alex Kurtzman (Star Trek, Star Trek Into Darkness), Roberto Orci (Star Trek, Star Trek Into Darkness), Jeff Pinkner (Fringe, Lost, Alias) and James Vanderbilt (Amazing Spiderman, White House Down)
Genre: Action, Sci-fi
Year: 2014
Cast: Andrew Garfield (Social Network, Amazing Spiderman), Emma Stone (The Help, Amazing Spiderman), Jamie Foxx (Django Unchained, Ray), Dane DeHaan (Chronicle, Lawless), Paul Giamatti (Sideways, The Illusionist)

The Synopis
Peter Parker continues his battles with love, self-discovery and villains.

The Script
In “Amazing Spiderman 2”, Peter Parker(Andrew Garfield) has finally balanced the life of an average New Yorker ,with his duties as a crime fighter. As we were strongly hinted at the end of Amazing Spiderman, he is back with Gwen Stacy (Emma Stone) and they are both rounding up high school. It marks the start of the back and forth breakup and make up thing between both of them. This gets a bit annoying at some point for me.

Amazing Spiderman 2 gave me the bitter sweet feeling. As much as I liked the movie, I also happened to have a lot of rift. With a new writing team in the reigns for Amazing Spiderman 2 and three villains as promoted, we all expected a jaw dropper. I guess this is because the star studded writing cast are best known for the big budget Star Trek franchise and Transformers. Instead what we got was a clumsy and overcrowded story that had way too much going on. I know Peter Parker in the comics had a lot going on with him, but that was perfection. Here in a 2 hour 10 minutes movie, Peter Parker had to deal with a on and off relationship, recurring vision of a dead father, resolution with his parents leaving him, three villains, a friend who wants his blood, and of course Aunty May’s constant nagging.

The opening scenes of the movie reveals the mystery behind Peter’s parents Richard and Mary Parker’s disappearance. This wasn’t much of a surprise anyways. Its pretty much something we already knew from Amazing Spiderman 1. But I guess we had to get the resolution with his parents sorted out. I am definitely glad we finally have the “why did daddy and mummy leave me” twist out of the way. Whew!

The Directing
This is by far the most visually impressive Spiderman movie till date. Thanks to the Star Trek into Darkness Cinematographer Daniel Mindel who was a welcome addition to the team. The star studded musical score team which featured Hans Zimmer and Pharrell Williams among others even made it as audibly appealing as the visuals. Amazing Spiderman 2 had more action than its narrative focused sequel which was obviously an improvement. Electro’s costume which was different from the comics was awesome and a lot better. Pretty sure Jamie foxx must have been excited about that.

So far Marc Webb’s more faithful to the comics Spiderman reboot has been better than Sam Raimi’s first two versions and I am almost certain Amazing Spiderman 3 will be better than Spiderman 3. I hope so.

The Acting
I know the whole of the internet has been going crazy about Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone’s on and off screen chemistry and wont dwell much on that, but its totally worth the buzz.

Gwen Stacy was the star of the show. She did save both Spiderman and the city of New York thanks to her ingenious brain.

Dane DeHaan who looks like a younger evil version of Leonardo Dicaprio was impressive as Harry Osborne and definitely better than James Franco both in and out of the Goblin costume. Jamie who isn’t used to being a bad guy does pull off a very impressive villainous performance and a worthy adversiry for Spidey.

Not much can be said about Paul Giammatti as Rhino as his screen time was almost as little as Stan Lee’s cameo

The Verdict
Amazing Spiderman 2 gives me mixed feelings. Although it ended up falling more on the positive side, the movie had way too much going on and a lot happened to be distractions. It’s a Soda and Hotdog for me.

Remember to wait for mid-credits feature from XMen Days Of Future Past when the movie is done. Trust me, its worth it.

So have you seen Amazing Spiderman 2? Was it good or bad? Let’s know in the comments below.