Review of The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2014) by Miroslav G — 03 Aug 2015

Despite the mixed reception that this film has received, this film is bigger and better than the original and is, in my opinion, the best Spider-Man film yet. This time around, the film isn't tied down by a rehashed origin story and subsequently is given much room to grow and explore.

The cast is great: Andrew Garfield's Peter Parker and especially his Spider-Man are both better and have grown significantly (I had my doubts originally, but there's no longer any question on who's the better Spider-Man).

Emma Stone is once again awesome as Gwen Stacey and the chemistry she and Garfield share on screen is great too. The villains were handled much better than I thought they'd be, completely balanced (for the most part) and they don't suffer from underdevelopment like the overabundance of villains in Spider-Man 3.

Jamie Foxx was a little too strange and campy when obsessing over Spider-Man in the beginning, but once he becomes Electro, he's awesome and chews up the scenery; easily making him one of the best Spider-Man villains of the films.

Dane DeHaan was surprisingly much better than I thought he'd be. His friendship with Peter despite being sudden was quite believable. And when DeHaan becomes the Green Goblin, he's pretty good through his complete disregard for everyone and everything and is only driven by his sole motivation to kill Spider-Man, making him truly sadistic.

He's no Willem Dafoe, but DeHaan's Green Goblin is good because it's different and doesn't try to rehash its preceding incarnation. Although, DeHaan's Goblin was hardly in the film and feels kind of shoehorned in just to get the comic book accurate scene (even if it was a great scene).

Paul Giamatti's Rhino, on the other hand, felt like a completely unnecessary addition to the film, taking me out of the film completely for the few minutes he was on-screen and was ridiculously portrayed.

But even if this film is good for the most part, it's not without its flaws. The film seems to have an unfocused narrative at times, not quite sure on where it wants to go. The tone is inconsistent throughout the film, going back and forth between a dark and emotional picture and an upbeat, feel-good action/superhero flick, rendering it unsure of what it wants to be.

Besides these few flaws, The Amazing Spider-Man 2 is a sequel that improves upon the original and does the source material justice while setting up for something much bigger and potentially better and therefore, should not be missed.