“The Amazing Spider-Man 2” has divided critics and audiences alike and this initial backlash worried me, but luckily I was pleasantly surprised. I quite enjoyed Marc Webb’s reboot, and this second instalment is just as enjoyable. It is packed full of great scenes and web slinging action but is perhaps a tad too long and tonally uneven in places.
The chemistry between Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone is the key to this new series and it is just as fun and emotionally charged as it was in the first film. Their bond feels real and the pair spark of each other really well. The story is a bit all over the place and the villians are not as strong as I thought they would be. Rhino is barely in the film, Electro is menacing enough but pretty two dimensional and Harry Osborn/Green Goblin is effective if a little underused.
The action scenes and special effects are fantastic if a little video game-like in places. The web slinging scenes are breathtaking and Spidey’s new costume looks stunning, it is certainly the best costume of all the Spider-Man films.
Nothing really stands out to me as a particularly memorable action scene apart from the last sequence with Green Goblin. It is all well handled and brilliantly choreographed but I feel that I must mention that nothing still comes close to the train sequence in “Spider-Man 2”, a monumental achievement of special and practical effects, it remains to this day as one of the, if not the most spectacular comic book action set piece ever committed to film.
It’s hard to top moments like this and this reboot is of coarse its own thing but Sam Raimi’s original trilogy is still fresh in a lot of peoples minds. I love the first film and the second is one of my all time favourite comic book films. The third was very disappointing but it still had its moments. This reboot series has been hugely successful and it is very enjoyable and I will no doubt watch “The Amazing Spiderman 2” again. It’s funny, exciting, and quite moving in places and it was nice to see a superhero saving people again.
4 out of 5
ComicBookMovie.com, and/or the user who contributed this post, may earn commissions or revenue through clicks or purchases made through any third-party links contained within the content above.