Starring: Andrew Garfield, Emma Stone, Dane DeHaaan
Having previously saved the people of New York City from the dangerous Lizard, Spider-Man has become a hero to the city (although not without his share of critics). Peter Parker (Garfield) struggles to keep his identity as Spider-Man a secret and protecting the one person who knows the truth, his girlfriend Gwen Stacey (Stone). Meanwhile, Harry Osborne (DeHaaan) a childhood friend of Peter's and Electro (Jamie Foxx) a new super-villain and former fan of Spider-Man join forces to take down New York's resident superhero.
Looking at the current reception of Marvel's line of movie adaptations of superheroes, it's hard to deny that this run of success seems like it's not going to run out of steam anytime soon. This seems particularly true with the superheroes surrounding the Avengers franchise (Iron Man, Captain America, Thor etc.). Spider-Man, another Marvel property, has fallen behind a little. This is probably a combination of the fact that the Sam Raimi trilogy of Spiderman films (yes, the spelling difference is intentional)
is still in recent memory and with ol' Spidey cut off from his Avenger contemporaries, he feels somewhat out of the loop and doesn't have much of a sense of being original. However, that doesn't mean that an unoriginal take is a bad one, by and large.
Whilst 2012's The Amazing Spider-Man felt a little bland, Part 2 is more confident and does well because of that. Andrew Garfield's teen prankster schtick that helped give the first film an edge is still present and he's enjoyable on screen. Emma Stone, despite her youth, felt miscast in the first film as a seventeen-year-old high schooler (Shailene Woodley, who was cut from this film having had scenes as Mary Jane and now riding success with Divergent (2014), would probably fit that mould better) but as an older character, Stone has found her niche.
Dane DeHaan is a gifted actor and has an interesting presence in some roles, but as Harry Osborne he feels too much like petulant and spoiled brat for us to feel anything for him in a performance that's a little overcooked, though Dehaan does have a very DiCaprio-esque presence and the last act twist makes him more rewarding, even if it's brief. Jamie Foxx, as big and cool as he is, feels a little lost as super-villain Electro, but Foxx's career in comedy means that his earlier identity as the nerdy Max Dillon is more entertaining and where Foxx seems most comfortable.
On a technical level, the film is about average and unremarkable (though with a little too much slow-mo with the 3D only really being relevant in the Batman (1989) styled finale but after an unsteady start, The Amazing Spider-Man has found a direction and I hope the series follows it.
No comments:
Post a Comment