The not so Amazing Spider-Man 2 SPOILERS

3 May

A couple of weeks ago I got to see the world première of Amazing Spider-Man 2 and I really wanted to love it but sadly, I did not.

I’m going to talk about what I didn’t like and there will be spoilers so if you’ve not seen the film yet, you have been warned.

SPOILERS AHEAD!!!

1. Same character – different villain
I did enjoy the first film but it did have its problems, the biggest that irked me was they used the split personality we saw in Raimi’s incarnations of Norman Osborn/Green Goblin and put them straight into Connors/Lizard.

This brings me to ASM2, the split personality was back again and this time with extra crazy with Max Dillon spending a majority of his screen time talking to himself and when we see Electro we get the voices in his head again.

They set the Dillon/Electro character up perfectly with this smart guy who is under appreciated at work, gets taken advantage of, ideas stolen and completely ignored. We can all relate to that. He then gets saved by Spider-Man who then treats Max with respect for the first time in a very time.

What was not needed at all was Max being somewhat insane. I should have been made to feel sorry for Max as he wrestles with his inner turmoil as he fights between using his new found power to destroy those that have wronged him or become like his hero, Spider-Man. After their first encounter Max believes Spidey betrayed him, used him, disrespected him just like everyone else has, this first encounter also lead to Max being experimented on.

Throughout the film Max was bullied, disrespected, ignored, had his life’s work stolen, fell into a vat of very angry electric eels because his work colleague would rather go home than do his job, shot at by the NYPD and tortured/experimented on. But what was his motivation for wanting to kill Spider-Man and everyone else? Spidey forgot Max’s name for about 5 seconds. So very weak.

2. Nice outfit
Electro gets broken out of the torture/experimentation chamber naked and in the next scene he’s wearing a costume with little lightning bolts on. Oh and the costume looked to be partly made of rubber. Yes because a walking electric current wants to be surrounded by rubber.

3. What a coincidence
Norman Osborn is introduced, says his illness is hereditary, is an awful father to his son and then dies. All in about 3 minutes. Instantly Harry becomes ill and will soon die from this disease that took 30+ years to kill his father. Huh?

Then he rekindles his friendship with Peter Parker but only because he wants Spider-Mans blood, Spidey/Peter refuses and now Harry wants Spidey/Peter dead. Better reason than Electro’s motive but very weakly built over around 10-15 minutes of screen time.

4. The big death
They killed off Gwen and it had no affect on me at all. Throughout the film Peter was struggling with his love for Gwen and his promise to her dad. Gwen complained he was pushing her away and when Peter made the decision to break his promise, Gwen tells him she’s going to Oxford University in England.

Obviously she applied months ago and had to have received several correspondences between then and now to be going into her final interview for a placement. Knowing this and yet still putting all that emotional hell onto Peter makes her a terrible person.

When she died it sent Peter into a downward spiral which was showed by him standing at her grave stone while the seasons changed for a year (may be more or less, can’t remember) in a 30 second montage. We had news reports shown on TV lasting only a few seconds saying we need Spider-Man ‘cos villains.

Spider-Man comes back and fights Rhino in a piece we’ve all seen in the trailers. Yes, they showed the end of the film in the trailers. WTF??

5. Rhino
Hello cartoon villain. The truly terrible dialogue given to Paul Giamantti wouldn’t look out of place in one of the pre Nolan Batman flicks. Just horrible.

6. Aunt May the student nurse is in charge
When power is restored Aunt May starts giving orders to other doctors and nurses.

7. Peter becomes an idiot
Considering he developed the web shooters and is amateur inventor you’d think he wouldn’t need it spelled out to him that he needs to build resistors onto his web shooters to stop them being fried by Electro.

Have you seen it and did you like it? Am I being too harsh? Let me know in the comments below.