The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2014) - Review

Amazing is a bit of an overstatement

I did not enjoy The Amazing Spider-Man.  I thought it was lazy, unnecessary, and cheesy -- and not cheesy in the same way that the originals were cheesy, but cheesy in this sad and unaware way.  And I wanted to say the same about this one.  I wanted to write this up and tell you that this movie is complete garbage and you shouldn't watch it.

And I was only half right.

Half of this movie IS garbage; on the other hand, half of it is also really really good.  If you take Spider-Man and the villains out of this movie, it works.  It works damn well as a quirky little romance dramedy between Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone.  The human element of this movie is simultaneously real, engaging and full of heart.  I was actually surprised at how well the Peter/Gwen relationship works.

Do NOT want!

But, having said that, anything to do with the villains Electro, Rhino and Green Goblin is pretty much garbage akin to the first installment.  Luckily Rhino is only in the movie for about two minutes total, so he's not a big problem.  But the other two... man oh man.  Electro is one of the most poorly written villains I've ever seen in a superhero movie.  This is seriously approaching Batman and Robin territory.  Or Batman Forever, more appropriately seeing as how his obsession with the title character is more like The Riddler than anything else.  Either way, it's awful -- laughably so.

So with this movie you get a mixed bag.  Some stuff works, a lot doesn't.  But with the bloated run-time, the unintentional cheesiness and the poorly written villains, the bad stuff tends to outweigh the good in this one.  I'd say it's worth a watch, especially if you're a fan of the character, but don't expect much.  It's hardly amazing, but in comparison to the first, well, I guess they nailed it.