"The Amazing Spider-Man 2" Review

"You know what I love about being Spider-Man? Everything."
==Insert joke here about being gone for three months==
The Amazing Spider-Man was one of the better movies of 2012, I thought. It might even make my top ten of that year. In fact - checking right now - it probably does. It managed to distill a lot of the important aspects of the Spider-Man character and instill it into a more grounded, darker film than the Sam Raimi Spider-Man trilogy of the 2000s. The Sam Raimi trilogy has often been touted as being the better half of the Spidey films, but I honestly liked the new one more. It had a better feel, was truer to the character of Peter Parker (his modern incarnation, at least), and wasn't so goll-darned cheesy as the Raimi films.
The Amazing Spider-Man 2 is a direct sequel to the first movie, picking up a lot of the plot points that were left hanging in the original film. It's... an interesting movie. Check under the break to see what I thought of it.
Let's get this straight right off the bat. The Amazing Spider-Man 2 is not, under any condition, better than the first film. It's messy. It's convoluted. It's obvious where things got cut. It's rushed. It's contrived - too many coincidences! There are too many sequel hooks. The tone is all over the place, ranging from incredibly cheesy to ridiculously serious. There's not enough actual Spider-Man in it. You could literally cut out a large chunk of the main plot and have it be a way better film. Almost everything in this film is caused by Oscorp (it was okay in the first film, since it made sense, but this is getting ridiculous) and they've basically become the Umbrella Corporation by this point. Its worst sin, by far, is not focusing enough on Peter Parker; in fact, the most interesting parts of the movie revolve around Harry Osborn! This movie is flawed. It is incredibly flawed.
It's still an okay movie, don't get me wrong. It's not bad. For its part, it still does a better job than Iron Man 2 at making the disparate parts seem part of a cohesive whole. But much like Iron Man 2, it ends up as a mediocre mess of a movie. It doesn't even have Iron Man 2's courtesy of having most of the disparate parts be entertaining. The first Amazing also does most of the things this film did better, especially in terms of plot management and writing. I've already laid out the parts that I don't like, but let's start with what I did like.

Andrew Garfield as Peter Parker is still the bomb. Peter Parker is snarky, intelligent, and witty. He's everything that I thought Toby Maguire lacked as Peter. And when Peter Parker feels sad or happy or whatever, you can actually believe it, much unlike Mr. Maguire's performance. Remind me to review the first Spider-Man film actually. I have a lot to say about that movie. Gwen Stacy is still wonderful as played by the gorgeous Emma Stone. She was leagues better than Kirsten Dunst's Mary Jane in the previous trilogy in the first Amazing alone, and she's great here, too. (I must put a damper, however, by stating that I still liked her portrayal in the first film better, though Peter is better here.) And the interactions between Peter and Gwen have to be my favorite part of the film. I might begin campaigning for an alternate universe "Peter and Gwen" film just because these two just work so well together. Also, Sally Field showing that she can totally own the Aunt May role.
Dane DeHaan as Harry Osborn kills the show. He's the best actor in this whole flick and I'm digging how much of an evolution he is over James Franco's Harry Osborn. Jamie Foxx as Max Dillon (aka Electro) is meh. I didn't like it too much. Jamie Foxx was good, don't get me wrong, but I wasn't digging the obsessed-Spidey-fan thing he had going on. They already lifted some of the Spectacular Spider-Man TV show interpretation into the movie. They might as well have gone the whole nine yards and just took everything. But I digress. (Honestly, they should've just cut Electro out of the movie entirely; he doesn't bring anything substantial to the table and they would've given Harry even more screen time.) Not even gonna mention Paul Giamatti's Rhino, as entertaining as he was, because he just wasn't in the film enough.

The action scenes are spectacular. The special effects are really freaking great this time around. I dug all the designs, even the kinda laughable Green Goblin they went with this time. I liked the fusion between 616 and Ultimate they went for. Electro looked cool, too, but again, they could've just cut him out entirely. Spider-Man's costume this time is super great, too. It's probably the most accurate screen representation of Spider-Man since the Raimi films. I even liked it over his design in the first Amazing which I thought was really great!
So, yes, there are a lot of things to like in this film. Unfortunately, a movie is a sum of its parts and this movie is incredibly flawed. It's fun, yes. Bombastic and comic book-y, yes. More faithful to its source than the first one, yes, technically. But it's got so many flaws that it ends up distracting so heavily from the final product that you just have to take those into account. Hell, even the things it did well, were only done really good and not great. And some of the bad parts are done terribly. For reference, I honestly thought The Wolverine was a better flick.
For that matter, I did enjoy the "twist" at the climax of the movie. It's fun to see all the snappy things they could do with the Gwen Stacy character (come on, guys; everyone should have seen that one coming). Also, the (non-)stinger at the end credits that was basically advertising X-Men: Days of Future Past - yeah, no. Too abrupt, did not make me more excited for the film. It was like really bad product placement. Non-connected universe + stinger? Big no no for me. I really would've preferred the original, deleted stinger instead of this new one. Just another one of the movie's sins.
I want so badly to like this movie, I really do. And I do, sort of. But it's the sort of movie that has you leaving the theater with a sour taste in your mouth. It's not... bad. But it makes so many mistakes that you wish it didn't make because you know that if they just fixed some things here and there, the movie could've been a great one.
I give The Amazing Spider-Man 2 six electrically-malfunctioning-web-shooters out of ten. (And that's being charitable!)
6.0/10
Now comes the wait for the next X-Men movie. Oh boy. (I kid, somewhat. I've liked all of them save Origins, so far. And even Origins was entertaining at points!)
I'm honestly just waiting for Guardians of the Galaxy to get here.