Release Date: 05/02/2014
Peter Parker runs the gauntlet as the mysterious company Oscorp sends up a slew of supervillains against him, impacting on his life.
You can probably tell from the scenarios I gave before the break, but I'm not all that excited for this one. Normally, I love superhero movies and give them a pretty large benefit of the doubt pre-release, but this one is just throwing up too many red flags. Unless it has a running time just short of 6 hours, there's no way it's going to be able to cover all the ground the trailer makes it clear it wants to. You know what's a clear sign of a convoluted plot? When you have an almost 4-minute trailer entitled "Enemies Unite" and you can't even get to one of them ("Rhino"). Paul Giamatti's villain gets a total of about 3 seconds of screen time, and no actual mention. Let's see if I can round up all the subplots that we know about: Parker's continuing relationship with Gwen Stacy, witty repartee with his aunt while he tries to hide his identity from her, Oscorp's interest in Parker, The Osborn family including Chris Cooper as Norman Osborn, so let's assume it's for more than a scene or two, Green Goblin (very little room for him in the trailer as well), the work of Peter's father that probably got him killed, some family flashbacks (Martin Sheen and Dennis Leary are still listed in the credits), Electro and Rhino. Whew! Full slate!
I will admit that I wasn't a huge fan of the reboot. Other than its strong, impressive casting (I never liked Tobey Maguire for the role), I saw little reason for its existence. 10 years from the original Spider-Man to its reboot is not enough time in my mind to warrant a new series, so from the beginning, The Amazing Spider-Man seemed like Sony just going through the motions to retain the rights (which revert back to Marvel if a movie is not made in a certain amount of time). The finished product justified that outlook in my opinion, being a competent, but unspectacular superhero movie carried by its stars that added nothing new to the character and was easily forgotten after leaving the theater. Still, there is great potential in the Spider-Man mythos, so each movie gets a bit of anticipation on my end. The casting of this one, however, already had me dismissing it before a trailer even premiered. All the villains seem somewhat miscast, but surprising casting can pay unexpected dividends (Heath Ledger's Joker remains the best example) so the more alarming element was when the third villain was announced. Too many villains is the hallmark of superhero movies jumping the shark and I see no reason this would movie be the exception.
The issue with villains is that each one doesn't just need a role in the movie's plot, they all need backstories and origin stories as well, and those eat up valuable screen time. It's very easy to "waste" a villain (Venom in Spider-Man 3) or create one that adds nothing to the film (Sandman in Spider-Man 3; man, that movie was a trainwreck). Given the strange casting of Foxx as Electro, who has apparently decided to play the villain as Emperor Palpatine (seriously, was the hoody an intentional choice? Fire the costume designer), Dane DeHaan as Harry Osborn, whose hair invites unflattering comparisons to the emo Peter Parker of Spider-Man 3, and Paul Giamatti, who is apparently so unengaging as Rhino that he can't even make a trailer (adding nothing to the film alert!), there are no early indicators that this movie is up to a task no superhero movie has been before. Throw in the fact that these movies love to add winking hints about who the next villain will be (Sinister Six and Venom spinoff movies have already been announced), and it seems like they've succumbed to Pat Riley's "Disease of More".
The marketing materials for The Amazing Spider-Man 2 don't seem to be shying away from spoilers either. Between the posters and trailers, we already know all the villains involved (a move I'm not sure director Marc Webb would approve of, considering the film's credits only list DeHaan as Harry Osborn and not Green Goblin, suggesting he wanted to keep it under wraps whether or not he'd become that villain in this movie), leaving only the specific beats necessary for Spider-Man to emerge victorious in question. The limitation almost all superhero movies are working with is the lack of gravitas: we know the hero will survive, so a major dramatic tool has already been removed from the director's belt. This means the movies need to take full advantage of the remaining tools at their disposal, and surprise villain appearances can be one of those. The fact that the marketing team has chosen to throw that one out tells me it might've been tough to put together a compelling trailer, so they turned to revealing all the villains involved hoping their appeal would lure viewers.
That leaves precious little room for a high ceiling, so I've capped it at 3.5 stars, which would fall right in line with its predecessor that sits at a 66 on Metacritic; competent, but not memorable. I pretty much spent the entire article listing the reasons this could go wrong, so 2 stars might seem a little high, but the inherent entertainment value of Spider-Man is high enough that it would be tough to go much lower. I'd love to be proven wrong, but I just don't see this one being very good.
As a bonus, I used a picture of Rhino where he appears to be menacingly wielding a ShakeWeight.
As a bonus, I used a picture of Rhino where he appears to be menacingly wielding a ShakeWeight.