BE WARNED HERE BE SPOILERS!!!!!
I won't take you through every minute of the film
but here are the notable points. I'll say first that I bet it's really
hard for the writers to have to start up a franchise and not only have a
first movie out but a sequel to that movie within seven years of one of
the worst super hero movies of all time. The general public is pretty knowledgeable on this franchise. On one hand you have
people that want you to stick to the comic origin and on the other you
have the fans of the first two SM movies from the 2000's and let's just
not talk about the third movie (just like the 2014 Superbowl).
The whole thing felt rushed. Which is something
considering it's 2 HRS and 15MIN. Even the trailer gave illusions to
different storylines (like Norman Osborne talking directly to Harry
about taking down Peter Parker when in the movie Norman dies after one
scene) so it makes you question when did they actually finalize the
plot? They must have jumped back and forth so much in every stage of
development the result is something that makes good scenes hard to
remember and bad scenes linger and linger and linger.
The theater didn't make a peep when I saw it, none of the jokes
landed and it really made me miss Sam Rami's first two films. Remember
when Doc Oc ripped off the safe door and grabs bags of cash and coins
with huge dollar signs on them? That was perfect! It looks like a
comic and the fight scene was amazing. That's what most of us are there
for! Gimme that and lots of... that!
Maybe I'm idolizing those movies a bit too much because they certainly
had their flaws but when this film really began with Paul Giamatti as a
Russian mobster tearing through the streets,* it felt like there was no
force behind anything because everything was CGI and Peter's banter was
off putting. Even though Garfield does a good spiderman in that first
sequence he's acting like a middle-schooler.
From the start there was just too much going on for any
one scene to have any sort of resonance. Marc Webb seems to like to
give his protagonist actors room to breath and improvise but the result
in this movie was waaaay too many scenes with Peter and Gwen just
looking awkward in front of each other. So imagine all of those
mushy/break up scenes in addition to : Aunt May's storyline where she's
bumbling through everything (AND YES, she has a speech where she uplifts
Peter's spirits AGAIN while moving things into boxes AGAIN to get
peter back to being spider-man without knowing he is : "If i could talk
to spiderman I would tell that kid..." ughhhh Aunt May) , Harry
Osborne's entire origin story to becoming Green Goblin along with Norman
Osbornes life and death, Max Dillard's entire storyline in becoming
Electo, teasing to Rhino and we see him fight for all of 2 minutes at
the end (he does look awesome though), Peter's struggles with Captain
Stacey's memory (Denis Leary's easiest paycheck hands down, 3 or 4
scenes where his memory looks menacingly at peter, that's it, that a
wrap! ) , Peter discovers the truth about his parents disappearance and a
his work at Oscorp... and his fathers underground secret subway
laboratory (Hmmmm...Ok), and then two or three fight scenes of course
between spidey and the baddies. Does that sound like a lot? because it
was.
There were literally 4 scenes where P and G get together and break
up and then they do a flash back when SPOILER Gwen dies at the end.
Like we needed to be reminded of her when it felt like she had way more
time on screen than Electro. So while the first movie was about lizards
taking over manhattan, it had an underlying plot with Captain Stacey
saying stay away from my daughter to peter. UNDERLYING. This movie
though was about Gwen's death. We led up to it the whole time and then
after we dealt with it's meaning to Peter. Oh and then I guess the
movie was also about the formation of new bad guys. I understand they
want to make the sinister 6 happen but holy crap do they have to make it
happen in the next movie? It would have been awesome if electro had
this movie to himself, they proved with the special effects he's a
really cool character and Jamie Fox has the chops to delve even deeper.
It took 4 movies (two Ironmans, a Thor and a Captain America) to get to
the Avengers and if we're trying to get to do the same for the villains
in the Sinister Six, considering the villain in the first film, The
Lizard, is not a part of the Sinister Six, maybe we could pace ourselves
a little! But I guess they can make the 6 villains whoever they want
so who knows.
As far as they're costumes go - they all looked pretty
cool. Anybody who says Electro should have had the big rays on top of
his head is kidding themselves, while I'd love to see it... just to see
it in real life, Jamie Fox radiating blue in a
hoodie/un-explained-spandex costume looked awesome. His transformation
to electro fixed his teeth which I guess makes sense if he can
evaporate. Then I already mentioned Rhino looking good. The suit of
metal armor instead of trying make a rhino skin like material, was also a
good choice. (insert any photo of THE THING in a movie ever here if you
don't believe me). Then the Green goblins costume was the least
exiting of the three but still fun. They also decided to go against the
comic look, a guy who's face/mask looks much more like the wicked
witch, and instead went with a smiley greying Heat Miser with cracked
teeth. I thought it was less exiting because he lacked any sort of
storyline to GET the suit. It just happened to be there. He ate some
bad venom (is there good venom?) and then he just crawled to it. We've
now established that there are a ton of other suits being manufactured
like the vultures wigs and Oc's arms so he could have just crawled to
any of them for that matter. How's that for an origin story "yeah I
guess that suit was the closest to me so..." He's got bombs apparently
that he knows how to use. I know that is part of the character but he
went from 0 - 60 in no freaking time, and to that point, he becomes
Goblin, fights spidey just after electro did and then gets knocked out.
I've read there were a ton of alternate scenes with Harry but what
we're left with is the quickest rise and fall of a villain I've ever
seen.
Let's talk about Dane DeHaan real quick. I liked him in
Chronicle and I thought he was pretty good in this but anybody who's
being compared to Willem Dafoe has a tough job. Technically HARRY was
played by James Franco in the other films, in which case DeHaan was
perfect for the role and a much better choice than Franco in my opinion,
but the villain GREEN Goblin was Dafoes role not Francos and differs
from the two soon to be trilogies. So in that way it's hard not to
watch it without seeing Dafoes amazingly expressive face looming in my
mind, but DeHaan does creepy really well so it was all good.
Random note:
What the hell was that Dr.
Kafka guy? He's only on the screen for 5 minutes so understandably he's
over the top but because we didn't see more of his character, all we do
see is what looks like a German Doctor who looks like an extra in
Madona's Vogue music video, who's sado masochistic and who surrounds
himself with effeminate goons. What the hell was that! Am I supposed
to feel good when he's killed? Because all I felt was weird.
All in all this was a fine movie. Just fine. Overall Sony bit off way more than they can chew.... again.
*Is it just me or did a ton of people die in that car chase? Those cars
were totaled by a semi and we're just going to assume nobody was in
them... driving...in an intersection. But everybody says spidey saved
the day, so ok.
.JPG)
