Tom is crawling up a wall with his counterpoint review of The Amazing Spider-Man 2.
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| "Eat your heart out, Palpatine! I am much more high voltage!" |
Look, I get it. I really do. Hardcore comic book
readers base their enjoyment of movies solely on how true the experience is to
the source material. No matter how mundane and insipid the movie is, comic book
fanboys will root for it if it strikes the right comic book nerdgasm chords.
But what about the rest of us? I have nothing
against comic book or superhero movies. I absolutely LOVE all the
Avenger-related movies and even dig the X Men films a little bit. But I love
them because they're great movies. Captain America: Winter Soldier is a
great example of a comic book movie that works for movie goers. I loved it so
much, it actually got me to watch Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. religiously and want
to start reading the comic books.
There is so much
missing for movie fans with this flick. There was absolutely zero character
development in this movie. I vaguely remember something about Sally Fields
taking a second job. I thought it would be a big deal, or at least a valid plot
point. But it was glossed over so quickly I couldn't care about it at all.
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| "...so funny. They thought I died at the end of Titanic! Well, here I am, bitches!" |
It seems like the
action will pick up when some science dude loves Spiderman, then suddenly...
Well, things change quickly, cheesily, and with very little explanation when he
gets all electric to the sounds of a Skrillex rip-off.
The first hour and
a half are filler material; perfectly average goings-on that Sony cranked out
to retain the rights to Spider Man for a few more years. I required numerous
reminders that the mid-twenty-something main actors were supposed to be
graduating high school. I never got a sense of Peter Parker's sense of
anything. What does being Spider Man mean to him? Is this an alternate universe
version of Spider Man where Peter is both borderline retarded and has
borderline personality disorder?
Why is Spider Man
able to change outfits in the blink of a camera change in one scene, only to
require 30 seconds to change in another? Purely for lame, poorly timed comedic
effect as far as I can tell. I don't want to be accused of failing to suspend
disbelief here; I'm not looking for a physics lesson. But after seeing so many
great superhero films in the last two or three years, I'm just looking for some
consistency and something to engage me as a movie watcher.
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| "...garlic." |
I keep coming back
to how poorly the characters, especially the villains, were developed. Hardcore
comic book fans can fill in all of the massive gaps left out of the movie
story, but most of us aren't hardcore comic fans. I'd like to say that the
action scenes make up for the mundanity of the rest of the movie, but they're
just average. There was so much potential for the villains to use their
ill-explained powers in unique ways, but the potential was wasted. When I'm
going to a superhero movie that's not based on a Friedrich Nietzsche work, I want
some friggin' ACTION. Nope. Same old stuff.
This movie just
plain sucked for movie goers. It's this year's Kick-Ass 2. If you enjoyed that
movie, you'll have an amazing experience with this "Twilight"
rendition of Spider Man. Otherwise, just wait for Godzilla.
-Tom McDaniel