Review: The Amazing Spider-Man 2

by Trevor Kirkendall

★★½ 

Disclaimer: reviewer is not what one would refer to as a “fanboy.”

My only knowledge of how the stories in these comic book movies work is solely based on what the filmmakers bring to the table each time. That and a quick search of Wikipedia before and after the screening never hurt either. I can also say that I’ve never been really big on the Spider-Man adaptations that have been brought to the screen in the past. “Spider-Man 2” in 2004 is the one very big exception. That’s still one of my favorite superhero movies of all time, placing fourth on my Best Ten of 2004 list.

Outside of that, the series has been pretty stagnant. “Spider-Man 3” in 2007 killed Sam Raimi’s interest in it with Sony not even wanting to continue on with him and Tobey Maguire. So they did what any of us would have done: they rebooted it. Also, they had to make another movie pretty quick or else they’d lose the rights to the franchise. That might now have been so bad. The rights would have gone back to Marvel Studios. Then we could have had Spider-Man hanging out with Iron Man, Hulk, Thor and Captain America. Oh well. I bet they really do regret selling the rights to some of their most valuable property now.

“The Amazing Spider-Man” in 2012 was yet another bland telling of the Spider-Man character. This time, Peter Parker (Andrew Garfield) was updated to the modern times (since 2002-2007 was oh so long ago). Now we have Spider-Man keeping up with his loved ones via cell phones and searching the Internet for clues with Bing (who uses Bing?). He also seems like a bit of a hipster. Maybe I’m wrong, but that’s how I see it. Or maybe I’m just getting old and have nothing in common with the high school kids these films are about.

Nevertheless, “The Amazing Spider-Man 2” opens the summer movie season this year on a weekend that’s been pretty much synonymous with comic book action movies for the last several years. Here we find New York criminals being hunted down by Peter Parker, once again played by Andrew Garfield. One this particular day he’s running late to his high school graduation because he’s trying to stop a mad Russian criminal named Aleksei Sytsevich (Paul Giamatti) from stealing plutonium from Oscorp.

But things aren’t going so well for him and his girlfriend Gwyn Stacy (Emma Stone). He promised her father (Denis Leary) as he was dying at the end of the first film that he’d stay away from Gwyn to protect her and that’s weighing heavily on his mind everyday. Every time he kisses her, he can see her father in his mind, watching him and judging him – literally.

If there’s one problem that too many superhero movies outside of the Marvel Cinematic Universe run into it’s the overuse of villains in their films. We’ve already met Sytsevich. Now enter Max Dillon (Jamie Foxx) and Harry Osborn (Dane DeHaan). We know from the original series with Maguire that Osborn is best buds with Peter Parker who will later resent him and attempt to kill him. Dillon is a new one for us non-fanboys.

Dillon loves Spider-Man. He’s obsessed with him. When Spider-Man saves his life one day, Dillon can’t believe it. When taking a ride up the elevator with the beautiful Gwyn Stacy, he can’t believe she remembers his name. He wants to be liked. He wants to be needed. He wants to be remembered. All this is a bit difficult for him since Oscorp has used his new power grid designs and gave him no credit for it.  Eventually an accident happens which turns Dillon into an electrically charged energy bomb. He calls himself Electro.

It would be rather easy to get the story completely oversaturated at this point with what appears to be three different villains. However, everything is pretty evenly spaced out. Personally, I was surprised with the handling of the story. A script from the likes of Alex Kurtzman, Roberto Orci and Jeff Pinkner usually spells convoluted disaster (see “Transformers” and their much-loved-yet-much-maligned TV series “Lost” and “Fringe”). Spider-Man only faces one villain at a time rather than all three ganging up on him on different fronts.

But that’s about the only thing they did right. When the film isn’t showing high-octane action sequences of nothing but CGI, the movie is nothing but plotting exposition. We’re treated to scenes of people talking that don’t do much to drive the plot forward. I suppose everything might be trying to set up what will ultimately be “The Amazing Spider-Man 3” or the spinoff series featuring the Sinister Six. But this is “The Amazing Spider-Man 2” and it should be handled as its own stand-alone film. That’s the problem with most of these mega film franchises: they’re always looking ahead to the next film instead of focusing on this film.

 Could you imagine how dull all these movies Marvel Studios have been putting out would be if they only existed to set up the next “Avengers” movie? Sure, not all of them are great, but they all stand by themselves. “The Amazing Spider-Man 2” never feels to be a film all on its own, but rather a piece to a larger picture that might ultimately not be very satisfying.

And maybe that’s what director Marc Webb likes about these scripts. Maybe he prefers to see the characters evolve and grow throughout the entire series, however long it may be. His only other big movie outside of the new Spider-Man franchise is “(500) Days of Summer” which was nothing but growth and evolution of characters. That might work well enough for one movie, but if they keep it up for an entire franchise, that might be rather dull.

Still, “The Amazing Spider-Man 2” pays off well enough when they’re in the midst of action sequences. And that’s really what people are paying for, right?  Webb uses the CGI to lift his action sequences up to a level that’s exciting for every viewer. But who isn’t tired of CGI by now? The climactic battle sequences of this film feel like big screen cartoons. Filmmakers can integrate live action and CGI better than this. We’ve seen it before with Christopher Nolan in his Dark Knight Trilogy or Joss Whedon in “The Avengers.” So it can be done.

It’s hard for me to say this is a bad movie though. The 100 drawn out minutes of muddy exposition are indeed boring, but there are some good moments (especially one great scene in particular between Peter Parker and Aunt May, played by the great Sally Field); the other 40 minutes are quite enjoyable. There are some tense moments and the action sequences are well put together (even if it’s from a team of animators rather than a film crew). Looking ahead at a summer full of unimpressive titles, I guess it’s a good thing that we started out on a half way decent note.

Review: White House Down

by. Joe Moss
★★

Roland Emmerich’s “White House Down” brings us the second white house take-over film this year [the other Being “Olympus has Fallen”…reviewed by Trevor May 3^rd] but that is not necessarily a good thing. The story, written by James Vanderbilt (The Amazing Spider-Man, The Losers) seems tired—full of the standard espionage clichés.

The President makes a political move that prompts  power-hunger weapons companies to want him removed from office; a plan is set in motion to take him down; the proper people are paid off from all levels of the government; mercenaries are hired; and a down-and-out soldier saves the day. Seem all-to familiar?

Jamie Foxx (Ray, Django Unchained) plays President James Sawyer, a very President Obama-esc president. He never served in the US Military and is about to abolish the war in the middle east and completely withdraw all military presence based on information given him by the Iranian President AL-Shareef. This is not a very popular move on Capitol Hill, especially with Speaker of the House Raphelson (Richard Jenkins) as is intoned during a private conversation with his lead Capitol Hill Police officer, John Cale (Channing Tatum).

John Cale desires more than being Capitol Hill police and is set to interview with Secret Service for a job at the White House. At the interview he discovers that an old college flame, Carol Finnerty (Maggie Gyllenhaal) is now the Special Agent in charge of White House Secret Service personnel. After telling him that he is unqualified for the position, he is summarily dismissed. However, since he brought his daughter along on the interview [exactly…WHAT???] he decides to take White House Tour that is just beginning as they are signing out to leave.

John’s daughter, Emily Cale, played by Joey King (Oz the Great and Powerful) is the break-away star of the movie. During the ensuing White House take-over, she records information on her phone and posts it to her YouTube© blog for the world to see. She becomes an internet and media darling—ultimately leading the bad-guys to recognize her and use her as bait to lure John Cale out of hiding with the President who he managed to rescue from uncountable mercenaries armed with fully automatic weaponry.  King’s performance is amazing as she plays a modern-day damsel in distress courageously and defiantly. She provides the much-needed (albeit shallow) depth to the film’s entire story line.

During the course of this film we come to realize that not only are multiple people on Capitol Hill unhappy with the president, but his own head of Secret Service, Special Agent Walker (James Woods) is in on the hatred as well—due to his son being killed in a President sanctioned Marine insurgence into Iran. He is working with Stenz (Jason Clarke…Zero Dark Thirty, Lawless) and Tyler (Jimmi Simpson…Date Night, Zodiac) to help reestablish the United States’ position in the Middle East.

I will not spoil entire plot (as it is much too thin already) but it is safe to say “White House Down,” while not big on plot and innovative storyline, should easily satisfy all of the big booms and gun-fire that everyone expects from this type of film. On that front, the film editing by Adam Wolfe (who has started to transition from TV series like Criminal Minds and Third Watch) and sound editing by Jamey Scott (Total Recall 2012) are spot on.