The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2014)

Everything wrong that Sony is doing with Spider-Man screams loud in the end credits of “The Amazing Spider-Man 2” with the now-standard stinger tease all of us have become accustomed to in superhero flicks. This is different. We get not a peek at a new or undead villain, but (sigh) a long, random, unexplained “X-Men: Days of Future Past” clip. 

The scene hits the viewer, hit this viewer, like an error by the projectionist. A blip from the movie playing down the hall. 

There’s no connection to Spider-Man. It’s an ad. Chicken feed to answer a studio contract. A disconnected film. Money.

And, that, folks is what this whole sequel smells of, contract obligations and a studio desperate to launch sequels, spin-offs, toys, and soda pop tie-ins at Subway. 

This fast-tracked sequel to an unneeded 2012 remake of the 2002 “origin” film shows not story-telling prowess or a love of the Marvel comics stories that thrilled my childhood, but movies as sausage. Ground, not links.

Director Mark Webb and his writers give us the great Paul Giamatti as a rampaging psycho thief during an opening truck/car chase through Manhattan then drops the actor until a third-wheel finale with a tacky CGI head of the man in a robotic version of the well-known comic book character Rhino, one that oddly hints of a lost Transformer. 

What studio makes those films? Why the Rhino here and now? Action figures at Target? 

In between it all, Giamatti’s two scenes, we do get Andrew Garfield as Spider-Man, battling both Electro (Jamie Foxx, doing a loser nerd bit until he goes all angry nerd as a guy with electric-controlling powers) and a new Green Goblin in the form of Peter Parker childhood pal Harry Osbourne (Dane DeHaan, stealing the film with intensity that unsettles). Don’t forget hints of other comic book staples Black Cat, Doctor Octopus, and the Vulture. Oh, Venom, too, I think. Blink, miss, you get the idea. Keep a chart.

Even for a comic book geek and likely target of all this name dropping and play, the film lurches and crawls, stuffed with excess, and I have not even yet mentioned all the back story hoopla of Peter’s sad dead parents … which, in the sloppy end, does not mean much. 

(If you're not a comic book geek and lost in this review, sorry, I can't explain a Green Goblin to the unknown.)

I deeply enjoy the main cast here –- Garfield is fantastic, and Emma Stone as girlfriend Gwen Stacy plays smart before sexy –- far better than the first trilogy of Spider-Man films, but Giamatti is sadly wasted. Foxx works hard to make a character bite that has no teeth, or form. Chris Cooper has two scenes as Norman Osbourne –- father of Harry, and a Green Goblin in the books -– but they also smack of a wasted talent, a headline-grabbing name grabbed and tossed in. Why him in that part? 

Plot? Peter has graduated high school and over a long summer finds himself mixed up again in Oscorp, the evil corporation that figured in film one, and once employed his dead father. He’s also fumbling at a relationship with Stacy, whose cop pop previously made Peter (as Spider-Man) promise to keep away from, before succumbing to fatal injuries. Pete cannot keep that promise, though. He loves Gwen too much, and she him. 

Comic book fans know what happens as closely as Christians know how it turned out for Jesus. But when the moment comes, it’s a mixture of awe –- that’s happening in a big summer film, gutsy –- and exhaustion as we have seen two super villains crash in, and there’s that third and fourth and who knows else coming down. Mourn? Sorry. No time.

I will give Webb and company credit for the changes they made to Electro: The comic book outfit of the yellow face mask would never work on screen. So, they retooled the character from scratch. Nice move. Even if Electro is one of the shrug characters in the books. Where art thou, Kraven? OK, thank the gods they did not actually toss in Kraven. 

Less can be more, films can breathe. This “Spider-Man” ends gasping for air, and with a headache. Is it the disaster of “Spider-Man 3” (2007)? No. But only by a web’s width. 

Garfield is by far miles better than Toby Maguire, who hit a weepy whiny ditch and never got his ass out. He deserves a better movie to play in. I hope he gets it, soon. C+

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