Spider-Man, X-Men, Wolverine, Fantastic Four and other non Marvel Studios films.

[EVA]

Really? I remember everyone saying that exact thing when the first Raimi movie came out. He was perfect. I think everybody remembers him being worse because he got dragged down by the writing in the 3rd movie, and that's everyone's last impression. When wasn't being a douche in that one, he was crying profusely. Tough to overcome shit like that.

He was inarguably great in the first two, though.

[Niners Fan in CT]

Him and Dunst had negative chemistry.

[EVA]

*claps*

 

I loved -

Times Square Fight (nobody dies!),

 

Ha! Keep telling yourself that. It was nice to see them make a big show of Spidey trying to save people, but once the big screens and shit started falling down, there's no concievable way that people didn't die. It's not possible.

Not to get into it about that movie again, but that movie's sneaky brilliance was the way it confronted you with a mass casualty situation and made you deal with it. It forced audiences to ask themselves if they were comfortable with all the loss of life hidden beneath summer CGI spectacle, whereas most of these movies, such as ASM2, just kinda yadda yadda it away. They want you to just see the spectacle, not all the implied ugliness underneath.

I mean, yay, Spider-Man saved those people from being electrocuted. But what about all the first responders who were all RIGHT THERE when all those tons of metal came falling down?

Not that it was his fault or anything. There was nothing he could have done. It was too big for him. But, damn, what a tragedy. In real life, we would be somberly reading off names of the deceased in rememberance of Lightning Man Killed Everybody Day for years afterwards.

[EVA]

Him and Dunst had negative chemistry.

Not his fault. He was great. She was consistently terrible.

[Niners Fan in CT]

What movie?

 

 

 

 

Him and Dunst had negative chemistry.

Not his fault. He was great. She was consistently terrible.

 

 

I wouldn't say he was great. He was a good Peter but didn't do much for me as Spidey. Garfield is tremendous at both. Dunst was awful. Emma Stone is fucking fantastic.

[EVA]

What movie?

Oh, you know the one. The one that will make Zeidler go mental.

[Niners Fan in CT]

 

What movie?

Oh, you know the one. The one that will make Zeidler go mental.

 

 

 

Oh right, lets leave that alone. We'll have plenty of destruction to discuss with the new X-Men.

[Bustronaut]

Holy shit, comic book movies want you to see spectacle, WHO WOULD HAVE FUCKING THOUGHT?

[EVA]

I feel like these movies have a better handle on Spider-Man, but the first two Raimi movies had a better handle on Peter Parker. Garfield is fine, but he's almost completely unrecognizable to me as Peter Parker.

[EVA]

Holy shit, comic book movies want you to see spectacle, WHO WOULD HAVE FUCKING THOUGHT?

Way to dodge the point! All those people died and yer boy Spidey didn't save them!

Between that and

Peter quitting being Spider-Man and moping around after his quasi-girlfriend died until someone snapped him out of it

this movie was batting 1.000 on including stuff that apparently drives militant comic books fans crazy.

[EVA]

I was hoping someone would jump in here, so I didn't have to triple post, but...

I thought ASM2 was a solid little movie. It was definitely a marked improvement over the first one. Ultimately, though, it was too hobbled by the shaky foundation laid in the first movie (the Oscorp conspiracy, the Mystery of Pete's Parents) to get beyond "pretty okay." Any time a character had to drop a load of exposition to progress those particular plot points, which was early and often, the drama grinded to a halt and my interest dropped to nil. (Between this and CAP 2, this has been the Spring of Exposition. In the category of "Heroes Being Lectured by Computers," advantage: CAP 2.) They were stones around a potentially better movie's neck.

Seriously, I went from, "Oh, Colm Feore is in this movie; what a pleasant surprise," to "IF I HAVE TO SEE COLM FEORE ONE MORE FUCKING TIME..."

That said, the most painful info dump might have been Harry and Norman's reunion. Just so naked and inelegant. Like, Harry should've started by saying, "Even though, as father and son, we know each other, we should explicitly summarize our lives right now for anybody who might be listening."

But beyond clunky plot mechanics, and despite being a decidedly better movie, I think ASM2 has the same fundamental problem as it's predecessor: It exists to fulfill a contractual obligation, to be franchise fodder, not because anyone involved has a specific love for or take on the character; it's a necessary cog in a clock that Sony has already set to ticking. Granted, what Sony is doing with this franchise isn't much different than what everybody else is doing right now, but they do it badly.

For instance, the climax of the movie is deeply emotional. It hits all the right notes and is extremely affecting. And a better movie would've let that play. But, dammit, Sony has more movies to milk from this IP, so we're going to jarringly dash elsewhere to set up a sequel and/or a spin-off, because....that's what Marvel does. Except that's not really how Marvel does it.

Marvel starts by telling solid stories that stand on their own, THEN they bolt on the franchise stuff. ASM2 felt like a solid story that was written in the margins of Sony's outline for the Spidey franchise.

Like, there was probably a really good movie that could've been built around Electro. Surprisingly. I've seen reviews that actually accused Jamie Foxx of phoning it in, and I didn't see that at all. He really goes for it. The problem with that character comes late in the movie when, despite having ascended to god-like status as a being of pure energy who no longer requires coporeal form...he's the second banana, doing glorified henchman work for Goblin. If you take Goblin out of the equation, spend more time fleshing out Electro's headspace post-transformation, and let the climax be centered on "How does Spidey stop a god that he can't even punch?" (as opposed to it being the summer movie equivalent of those old Nitro main events where everybody's just waiting for the run-in)...then I bet that's a pretty good movie.

Granted,

If you take out Goblin, you can't necessarily kill Gwen....but then you get another movie with Emma Stone. So that's a win. The only times these movies ever really feel alive are when Garfield and Stone are onscreen together. There is zero chance whoever they bring in to play MJ will measure up.

I was just giving it (deserved!) shit, but the BEST scene* in the movie is actually the Times Square showdown with Electro. It perfectly captures the "Can the hero save this guy, or is he going to have to take him out?" conundrum that CAP 2 played at but didn't really earn. Stretch that out to a whole movie, and I'm probably deeply invested in the outcome. As it is, it's kinda downhill for Electro after that. Too bad.

*

Okay, it's probably really the seasons changing montage at the end, but I can't just come out and say that, right?

[Niners Fan in CT]

I agree with a lot of what you said except the idea that Marvel tells solid solo stories that lead into the "big event".  They really don't. The Thor movies are there. The Iron Man sequels were blah. Only Captain America has a great sequel with a story that stood by itself.

[TheVileOne]

The movie is now the worst reviewed Spider-Man movie ever and it looks like it could be the lowest grossing one as well.

[The Z]

Good review, EVA, even though you slammed in the post before that (at least I think that was directed at me).

 

How is this the worst reviewed Spider-Man movie on RT? This one was so much better than the first one. Really weird.

[Bustronaut]

It really seems like blockbusters are getting super divisive. it may be reviewers wanting more hits and using more hyperbolic phrases, or a growing tendency to review movies based on what they expected to see, rather than based on its merits.

[EVA]

Good review, EVA, even though you slammed in the post before that (at least I think that was directed at me).

It was not a slam on you at all. I actually somewhat agree with you point from earlier that it was odd how they spent the whole movie hammering that idea, but then glossed over it at the end. But, you know...It was more important to get that Sinister Six tease in so people could get all anticipatory and shit.

[MonteCarl]

I had zero expectations going in to this movie. I wasn't super hyped to see it or anything and just went to see it last night because of a last minute decision to take the familiy out. I did enjoy the movie more than the first one, but there was too much.......I dunno....filler maybe? It was definitely way too long. When did it become the norm for movies to be well over two hours long? What happened to the 80-90 minute movie?

 

Anyway, I don't think the backstory with Peter's parents is interesting at all and they could've cut all of that out completely. And I mean cut it out completely from the first movie so it wouldn't even be a "mystery" at all for them to continue on in this one. HIs parents died when he was a baby so his Aunt raised him. That's all we need to know. Why shoehorn this other stuff in there? Why make Peter's Dad the one who engineered the spiders (with his own DNA) that ended up creating Spider-Man? Take the parent's stuff out of there and the movie is shorter by a good half hour.

 

I think I good movie was there with the Electro story. I enjoyed pretty much all of that. The Goblin stuff was heavily tacked on, the "friendship" between Peter and Harry never really clicked so there was no weight behind Harry turning, and the creation of the Goblin was rushed. They were obviously using this movie to set up the Sinister Six movie, but if they just stayed the course and made one movie just about Electro with the Gwen side plot, it would've be way better.

 

The action pieces were really well done. The initial Times Square fight and the big battle at the end were pretty great. I also enjoyed the opening bit, which gave us (IMO) the first good look at the quick/snappy Spider-Man who likes to talk smack to his opponents during battle. Garfield and Stone have great chemistry and everytime they had any interaction was great.

 

So, I wouldn't say it was absolutely Amazing, but it was good. Too much bulk with unnecessary stuff thrown in really weighed it down. Take out the Peter's parents stuff and trim the run time down to under two hours, and it would be way better. There IS a good movie buried in this one, but they tried too hard to set things up beyond this film rather than keeping the focus on just this one.

 

I'd say it's a good 6.5 out of 10.

 

EDIT:

Went back through to read the posts now that I've seen it and won't be affected by Spoilers, and EVA's review made all the same points I did here, but much more elegantly.

[Niners Fan in CT]

The movie is now the worst reviewed Spider-Man movie ever and it looks like it could be the lowest grossing one as well.

 

You must mean worldwide? Boxofficemojo is projecting a $91M opening weekend and the last one opened at like $60M.

[EVA]

How is this the worst reviewed Spider-Man movie on RT? This one was so much better than the first one. Really weird.

It really seems like blockbusters are getting super divisive. it may be reviewers wanting more hits and using more hyperbolic phrases, or a growing tendency to review movies based on what they expected to see, rather than based on its merits.

After reading a bunch of reviews last night, it seemed like most of the major critics used the movie as a jumping off point to levy an indictment against Hollywood's current soulless franchise culture. Which I think is fair, because the movie displays some of the worst traits of that culture...but it also probably skewed the rating on this particular soulless franchise movie more negatively than it probably deserved. Like, I have seen much worse movies of this sort, but this is the movie everybody decided to take a stand on.

And I can't say that's totally unfair. While it's an improvement over the first movie in almost every way, the one thing it didn't improve upon is that it still didn't provide a compelling reason for its own existence beyond it's potential for a billion dollars.

Love what he did with Spider-Man, or hate it, I don't think anyone can rightfully deny that Sam Raimi unabashedly loved the characters (except Venom!) and had a very specific vision of what stories he wanted to tell with them. His movies had soul - a weird, awkward soul, but a soul nonetheless. He had something to say with, and about, these characters.

When I watch the ASM movies, I get no real sense of affection on the part of the filmmakers, and they don't have anything to say besides, "Stay tuned for AMAZING SPIDER-MAN 3 and SINISTER SIX and..."

[EVA]

Anyway, I don't think the backstory with Peter's parents is interesting at all and they could've cut all of that out completely.

 

You mean you weren't on the edge of your seat for that thrilling opening sequence with all the characters you don't give a shit about on the plane?

Seriously, who thought that was a good idea?

And I mean cut it out completely from the first movie so it wouldn't even be a "mystery" at all for them to continue on in this one. HIs parents died when he was a baby so his Aunt raised him. That's all we need to know. Why shoehorn this other stuff in there? Why make Peter's Dad the one who engineered the spiders (with his own DNA) that ended up creating Spider-Man?

Because it's a FRANCHISE, maaaan. It's a rule or something these days. Franchises have to have mysteries, needlessly convoluted backstories for the characters (and audiences) to slowly piece together over the course of multiple movies, and oodles of easter eggs and foreshadowing. Because otherwise, how are you going to hold the audience's attention for, like, 6 fucking movies? Nobody can just make one good story anymore and hope people like it enough that you get to make another one, and that they like that one enough that you get to make another one, etc. Everything is about the next thing.

At times, watching ASM2 was like trying to buy a videogame at Gamestop. You have to sit there and listen to somebody giving you the hardsell about a bunch of shit you don't want just so you can get the thing you do.

CAN I JUST TAKE MY ELECTRO AND GO?

[Niners Fan in CT]

All I have to say about the RT score and the like is that the movie was well above 'Positive' until it hit the states. That's all you need to know. Our critics are fucking terrible, miserable people.

[Big Fresh]

Contrarians.

Speaking of, is FSW dead for good?

As far as I know, from talking to him on Twitter, he's free to come back now. But since he's kinda bored with wrestling, may choose not to.

[Big Fresh]

I agree with a lot of what you said except the idea that Marvel tells solid solo stories that lead into the "big event". They really don't. The Thor movies are there. The Iron Man sequels were blah. Only Captain America has a great sequel with a story that stood by itself.

Insanity.

[Brian Fowler]

Instead of just cutting the incredibly boring stuff about his parents, they should have repaved it with more building of the Harry/Pete relationship.

But the Electro stuff was so good, and Dane Dehaan was very good as Harry, and the action scenes were pretty good. Definitely better than Spider-Man 3 or the first Amazing. Definitely not as good as Spider-Man 2.

[EVA]

I forget when it was exactly, but there was a moment when the Electro stuff clicked into place for me: "Oh, he's Walter White, except instead of a meth kingpin, he becomes a lightning god."

WHY CAN'T THAT BE THE WHOLE MOVIE?