Review of The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2014) by Skulb — 24 May 2014

By far and away the worst Spider-Man movie I have ever seen and almost as bad as Daredevil. It barely has a plot at all and the dialogue is so bad most of the scenes involving talking would be better with ear plugs on so you wouldn`t have to listen to them. The guy playing Spider-Man is incapable of delivering a single, ill written line for the duration of the movie. It all comes off as corny(in a bad way), obnoxious, unbelievable or all three at once. He reminds you of why adults as a general rule loathe high school age young people: instead of speaking properly it`s all AAAHMs and EEHs stuck in all over the place, and some annoying cool guy grimace, head bobbing and all the other hallmarks of ham acting and/or a lack of civilized education.

If it wasn`t for ALL the dialogue in ALL the scenes between Peter Parker and Harry Osborn, all the dialogue between Peter Parker and Aunt May and in particular all the dialogue between Peter Parker and Gwen Stacy I might give this movie about a 4, even if it would then have been about 35 minutes long, if that. But every stilted, poorly written and atrociously directed "love" scene between Parker and Stacy drags the movie down, down down until I for one sat with my sweater upside down over my head to distract myself and so I would not have to watch the disaster. Once or twice I even put my hands in my ears and rubbed vigorously so I wouldn`t have to listen to the inane babble posing as dialogue in this movie. It all sounded as if a couple of underachieving twelve year olds had written it.

As for the villains, Electro is a black guy while he of course was not in the comics. Otherwise he is the only positive thing I can mention about The "Amazing" Spider man 2. The Green Goblin looks like he has some form of green necrosis whereas he of course wore a mask in the comics. And since he is now played by a guy who looks like weighs about 80 pounds the entire thing just looked silly.

But these are far from the only deviations from the original story. The Rhino was not a robot, firing missiles at civilians, but a super human bank robber who had been given great strength but also a rhino suit he coulndn`t remove. And to think they stuck the only good actor appearing in this turkey (Paul Giamatti) inside a transformers like rocket launcher before calling this insult The Rhino. I was hoping for as long as possible that it was not The Rhino, but this became impossible as soon as Giamatti shouted "I`M THE RHINO!". Talk about subtle.

Of course the grating Gwen Stacy also dies in the wrong place and about two hours too late to rescue the movie from its complete lack of quality. And even after they finally kill her off, after a ridiculous sequence of baloney inside a clock tower which was more reminiscent of the classic Donald, Mickey and Goofy cartoon than the comic about her death from the 60s, they somehow manage to resurrect her in flashbacks. She even repeats a pointless graduation speech, as if it wasn`t trite enough the first time around. And it`s not just that it`s bad, but that it is never stops. The movie has about a 75-25 balance between these horrible scenes with Peter Parker talking to people, with his best frown and I have a 75 IQ smile on, and action/other, less horrible scenes. But in entirely the wrong direction! I barely had time to lean back with my popcorn to enjoy some dialogue-free action before he was there again, popping up like some recurring nightmare with his unbearably poor dialogue. If Stacy, May and Osborn had all died in the opening scene in a car crash this movie would have been better. I don`t care if they had replaced them with endless scenes of Garfield fighting hoodlums in New York back alleys. It would have been better.

I don`t mind alterations to the plot, which is about 50 years old after all. But at least make them because they are improvements or indeed for some intelligible purpose whatsoever, and not just to make Gwen Stacy a feminist or give the Green Goblin the plague.

All the CGI in the world couldn`t have saved this one. And I wasn`t all that impressed with the visuals either. All flash and no substance does not a good movie make. You need believable characters, good dialogue and you know...a plot. This movie has neither.