There’s so much about the second Spider-Man
movie that I love that I almost don’t know where to start. To put it frankly-
it’s a masterpiece. A hero is, I suppose,
judged against his nemeses and here we have a more-than-menacing villain for
Spidey to be tested against and also possibly his most iconic. However, rather
than being a dribbling fucknugget, this baddie has wit and even to some degree
a sympathetic human side that allows us to slightly understand the reasons
behind his demented but enjoyable murder spree. However that’s not to say we
don’t also get exposed to the burden of balancing the webslinging lifestyle of
a hero with the real-life existence of being a cash-desperate member of society
who wants nothing more than to have a roof over his head and a loving partner
with flesh-holes, consent and a box of tissues. The action too is out of this
world with the film’s legendary director at possibly the height of his career,
having managed to seamlessly blend blockbuster thrills with that distinctive
style that has of course led to him being one of the most influential
filmmakers of our generation. I am of course talking about Sam Raimi and his
film Spider-Man 2 which came out ten years ago. There’s only one
Spider-Man 2 and for anybody who thought that I've been talking about the
latest edition to this unnecessarily rebooted franchise… Obviously I wasn’t,
now fuck you!
Anyway, they’ve made it now and so I
guess we may as well talk about it… So The Amazing Spiderman 2 tells the
story of Peter Parker as he attempts to battle a sympathetic villain whilst
maintaining his relationship with a girl that’s clearly out of his league. To
quote the great Morrissey, ‘stop me if you think that you’ve heard this one
before’. This time however the pain in the arse itch-in-need-of-arachno-boy’s
sticky-fingered-scratch is Jamie Fox’s gravelly voiced, panto-twat Electro. If
you somehow haven’t seen any of the million trailers that feature him, then
imagine him as the third member of a slightly shit boy-band alongside
Schwarzenegger’s Mr Freeze and Billy Crudup’s Dr Manhattan. I don’t know what
that band would be called but with big bald heads and unnaturally blue skin
it’d be a bit like if you dragged the lifeless corpses of Right Said Fred's only
three fans out from the bottom of a toxic lake. Anyway, so there’s Electro and
then also Spider-Man’s best friend Harry who just kind of shows up out of the
err… blue, and who then turns evil too. Hmm I didn't mean that to rhyme
although I guess that line could be a taster of the kind of lyrics you'd hear
from Electro's boy-band. Oh, and I know by the way that telling you Harry turns
evil is a spoiler but it's been in all of the trailers so fuck it!
Anyway,
so in my humble opinion, the first film in this new franchise was alright but
in no way justified a reboot especially as it'd mean that we're now deprived of
Toby Maguire’s hilarious screwed up running/angry cum face. If there was
anything the last film did well it was to not kill off its main villain and to
cast Andrew Garfield in the main role. Other than that though, it went over the
exact same ground as Raimi’s first Spider-Man which, to someone as old
and decrepit as a 25 year old called ‘me’, doesn’t exactly seem that long ago.
So now, free from the constraints of telling a common knowledge origin story,
does this sequel yet justify the need for a reboot? As the opening paragraphs
probably hint towards… well, not really but I suppose it's getting there.
Ignoring that though, is the film even any good? To summarise, meh, it's okay. The
Amazing Spider-Man 2 is no Spider-Man 2 but then not much is I
suppose. On the bright side, Andrew Garfield is still great in the role
although he's probably less Peter Parker than Toby Maguire was. Seems as you're
now about three paragraphs into this film blog, I'm guessing you're either a
friend of mine that I've forced to read or a stranger to me whose also a bit of
a fucking geek. Either way, I'm sure you'll probably know that in the comics
Parker was meant to be the nerdy underdog, however with his confidence and lack
of bad-looks here there's no denying that Garfield is always cool. Not really a
problem particularly, as films are more than welcome to alter things during
their adaptation and we're still left with an brilliant performance from him,
but I just thought I'd point it out. The same is also true of Aunt May who is
played here by the amazing Sally Field who always seems like she'd be one of
the loveliest people in the world to actually know. This is in stark contrast
to the Aunt May of Raimi's films who was so annoying that if I was Spider-Man,
there's no way I'd be able to live with her and her bullshit advice without
snapping one night and holding a pillow over her wrinkled old face to shut her
the fuck up.
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| This skanky little bitch has definitely got the bad AIDS! |
With
Harry Osborn turning to the ugly side, Electro and an enjoyably over the top
performance from Paul Giamatti as The Rhino, people were worried that there
might be too many villains. They weren't wrong. Electro is, I guess, the main
villain and he's okay although unlike Watchmen, you'll notice that
despite being naked, the filmmakers didn't have the balls to show his bright
blue balls. I suppose the problem is that he doesn't get much of a backstory
and so the majority of his motivation seems to be because people forgot his
birthday. When I was nineteen, everybody forgot my birthday too but I didn't go
out and kill people, choosing instead to stay in and watch the remake of Alfie
on television using the adverts as an opportunity for some quiet sobbing
time. It's kind of a shame really because despite being massively over the top,
I quite liked his pre-blue celebrity obsessed human-self. After getting his
powers, he became a one dimensional killing machine when before hand he was the
kind of Rupert Pupkin fucknut who should probably avoid reading Catcher In The
Rye in case it ends with him putting a bullet into his heroes head. Anyway, so
that's him. The problem with Harry however is that he just kind of appears with
such suddenness, it's like the film took character introduction inspiration
from Street Fighters multiplayer by more or less just announcing, “Best
friend has entered the game”. This is also a shame because, as an only child, I
apparently collect close male friends in a subconscious but desperate attempt
at finding a brother. I therefore really enjoy seeing friendship in movies and
in the one scene where Harry and Peter hang out, it seems really natural and
sweet. But by the next scene, Harry's gone a bit fucking loopy and like a
drugged up Charlie Sheen has started screaming about needing some rare blood to
drink. I dunno, I just thought it was a shame because despite the potential,
there wasn't a chance to develop a sense of tragedy regarding the decline of
his and Parker’s relationship. On the bright side, I did like the make-up used
to make him look like the Green Goblin which, compared to James Franco's
character in the Raimi's films is much closer to that of the comic in which he
looks like a mental flying crack-whore.
So like me on my nineteenth birthday
Electro is nothing special, and Green Goblin is sadly neglected but what about
Rhino? …That was a fucking grim sentence wasn't it? Talk about needy! Anyway, in
all honesty Rhino has a screen time of about one nano-second and that's fine.
Although for the record I think that Giamatti is so amazing in how ridiculous his
performance as the Russian goon is that I honestly think it could do more
damage to the West’s relationship with Putin than the fucking Ukraine crisis. However as fun as he is, he's here to serve two purposes and that's to
firstly bookend the film with a little extra action and secondly to lead
towards this Sinister Six film that they're now banging on about. This
is, I suppose, where the question of whether this film yet justifies the reboot
can possibly be answered. As a movie on its own The Amazing Spider-Man 2 doesn't
really do anything new at all, however what it does do is start to pave the way
to this expanded universe of multiple sequels and spin-offs that are about to
start getting churned out. This obviously wouldn't have been possible with
Raimi's films because the villains in his movies all ended up fucked and dead.
However if the justification for the reboot was to allow for a larger universe,
you've got to question if this is even something we want? Just because
something works for Marvel Studios doesn't mean it'll work for every franchise
in which a slightly mental do-gooder puts on a mask and goes out to punch arse
holes in the face. I think we're also getting too close to a point of
oversaturation within this genre with each year having more comic book movies than
John Goodman's had hot dinners... well, maybe not that many but you get my point. Personally I think films should be
made because there's a story to tell and not as how it seems here, and even
with this whole Batman Versus Superman thing because The Avengers shat
out a fuck load of cash. Having said that, a Sinister Six film sounds
intriguing because it's got a good writer and director attached and I've just
no idea what it'll be. In a world in which the same old shit is dumped into
some glitter and then thrown at the screen, this new Spider-Man Cinematic
Universe I suppose has some potential. It's just a shame that where this film
is concerned, they prioritised sign posts for their future over something as
basic as you know... any fucking story what-so-ever.
So yeah, the film’s pretty good so
long as you're in the mood for something fun but unoriginal.. and it does have
a nice central relationship between Peter Parker and his on/off girlfriend Gwen
Stacey. I've avoided talking about them because on the one hand they were my
favourite part of the film but on the other it's a massive fuck-off spoiler to
say anything. I enjoyed the two characters when they were together and I
enjoyed that Peter was constantly getting cock-blocked by the ghost of his
girlfriend’s dead Dad. In fact, thinking about it, every-bodies Dad seems to be
dead in this film. Peter, Gwen, Harry and unless there's a 200 year old man
knocking about somewhere, presumably Aunt May too are all fatherless. Shame the
film didn't explore that as a theme either. Oh well. But yeah... I won't say
what happens, but the thing revolving around the future of Peter and Gwen’s
relationship at the end of the film was an amazing scene and probably my
favourite. I also really loved the fucking weird score too by the way. For once,
Hans Zimmer has done something that doesn't sound like Gladiator with
Electro's theme being particularly cool. It probably helps for me that Johnny
Marr was involved and to reference
Morrissey again, I'm such a huge fan of The Smiths that it's probably
for the best that, like Electro's pre-blue self, I've never read Catcher In
The Rye either. If you ever see me wandering the streets at two in the
morning, the odds are I'm listening to a soundtrack whilst slightly blitzed
with The Amazing Spider-Man’s being a
current favourite. To keep the positive theme up, the action was also really
good and although director Mark Webb is no Sam Raimi, he manages to retain the
excitement of Spidey's swinging by throwing in so much slow motion that it
always looks cool and just about avoids becoming a pain in the balls.
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| "Pull my finger!" |
In fact, going back to the score as I’m
listening to it now, some of it really reminds me of Batman and Robin which
is kind of what I liked about The Amazing Spider-Man 2. The first film
in this new reboot I thought suffered because it was trying too hard to ape the
feel of Nolan's Dark Knight franchise
which is a stupid thing to do. Spider-Man is as iconic as Batman and
so to make a great film he needs to have his own tone which is lighter and more
fun than Batman’s gritty or pissed off. This new film however does
have a more whimsical feel to it and so, like Batman and Robin, feels
like it's going for the camp, brightly coloured joy of simply being a comic
book movie. Although for the record I'm not saying that Batman and Robin was
any good.. or that The Amazing Spider-Man 2 is as fucking diabolically
awful as watching George Clooney's gimpy looking Batman fight Uma Thurman's
slaggy Poison Ivy. In no way is The Amazing Spider-Man 2 perfect but
it's a hell of a lot better than the first film was. In fact, I'd say that
although it's held together by a matrix-sized load of shit, there's still
plenty of great things in it to make it worth the price of a ticket. This is a
fun but disposable film with basically no story, some good performances and
plenty of pretty nice action. Just remember though that if there's one thing
that The Amazing Spider-Man 2 isn't, it's Spider-Man 2. Now if
you'd find somewhere useful to share this blog before fucking off I'd
appreciate it. I don't really care if you do or don't but I needed a sentence
to suggest that this was all coming to an end and that seemed like a good one
to me. Thanks for reading and I’ll see you next week, motherfuckers!
