The Amazing Spider-man; Rise Of Electro Review

Ok... this may feel disjointed, but its an accurate representation of the film.

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The film opens to what is essentially a spoiler for the middle act as we discover Richard Parker trying to destroy his research - unable to destroy the Spider's he tries leaving the country and after a short rather intriguingly shot fight in which his wife is killed they're plane presumably crashes. What i find so unfortunate is that later in the film we have a 'mystery crime solving' scene with Peter essentially putting the pieces together and figuring out that Richard Parker was trying to stop Oscorp using biological weapons - as such with the first scene it essentially feels like the whole middle act is just a rehash of what the first scene told us in 5 minutes...

Then we are introduced to Peter Parker - the city love him, though not as much as the start of Spider-man 3. We hear a passing civilian express joy in seeing Spider-man as he swings past in rather amazing webslinging that is an improvement upon the first film. Sadly this ends with the Russian Mobster scene in the trailer - who i suppose is meant to be comedy relief... 

While we do see Spider-man saving people from his oncoming path of destruction - it does feel like he isn't taking it seriously despite lives on the risk. Especially when he spends a few precious seconds talking to Max in order to give this character the silly motivations he has which we'll get to later.

In the time since The Amazing Spider-man Gwen and Peter have been dating, breaking up, etc... and are currently in a relationship - however it seems Peter is guilty over Gwen's father who appears several times through the film warning of the inevitable fate Gwen could experience if she sticks with Peter. Sadly this results in some odd moments through the film where they both love each other - yet don't know whether they are meant to be together, complicated by the news that Gwen is going to England to study at Oxford.

They end up dating, breaking up, getting back together as friends, kissing... it is almost impossible to follow anything more than they love each other but dont know whether being together is good or not. Sadly its never really cemented later in the film as to whether they are going to be getting back together - though Peter does offer to go with her to England as Spider-man.

Yet lets not forget about good old Max Dillon who is a psychopathic obsessed freak to the level where he is talking to himself pretending Spider-man came to visit him on his birthday. Jamie Foxx tries his best with what the script gives him - however I'm still not sure whether we are meant to relate with him or pity him. His transformation occurs seemingly due to workplace negligence as he becomes Electro in a rather gruesome method, his skin being burnt and then peeling off.

Sadly you'll only relate with him for a while during the Times Square scene which kind of goes nowhere other than for a few cool visuals with slow-mo camera methods to show off the Spider sense. The scene as with other Electro scenes is ruined by a terrible score that sadly is just Jamie Foxx explaining how his thoughts are going while his character tries to pull off a sympathetic look as he tries to Electrocute helpless civilians. The Times Square battle ends with Spider-man just soaking Electro in water.

The film kind of bumbles around the middle - where we end up with Peter simply trying to find out what happened to his parents. We have a forced scene where Aunt May declares that Richard Parker was labelled a spy and was attempting to sell his research - yet we already know from the opening scene that it wasnt the case and this is immediately cleared up in the next scene.

Meanwhile we have the arrival of Harry who has motivations - but once again the script limits the character. Essentially he discovers he shares the same disease as his father - Norman, who unfortunately dies after proclaiming his research was to help cure his son and himself. We do however see a cryo-capsule... but i'll complain about that issue later.

While Electro is being tortured and experimented on in RavenCroft by an insane German scientist - Harry ends up being framed for allowing human testing by Donald Menken resulting in him being forced to leave Oscorp. After trying and failing to convince Peter and Spider-man to help save him from dying - he breaks Electro out of RavenCroft forming a deal to catch Spider-man.

Harry and Electro break into Oscorp killing and reviving Menken in order to get him to lead Harry to a 'secret project' area - which gives us a small glimpse at what we see later before Harry tries some of the Spider formula resulting in him mutating into the Goblin. Electro meanwhile heads to a power plant to make the city dark.

Peter at this point realises the obvious and decides to move with Gwen to England - writing a message on web and talking to her on the bridge before going to stop Electro who turns out the power. For some reason someone chose to add more peril to the situation with a subplot about a hospital that Aunt May works at and another subplot about a plane that is about to crash - but that stuff is really just filler to say 'no electricity is a bad thing'

Electro and Peter fight with Gwen eventually making her way to the power plant and they overload Electro. Gwen and Peter go to embrace however the Green Goblin arrives and their is a tense scene where he puts two and two together realising Peter is Spider-man. Green Goblin kidnaps Gwen, drops her and a very short fight ensues resulting in some cogs breaking that leads to Gwen falling to her death - despite Peter's web managing to grab her. It would be an emotional scene as Peter craddles her - but the character of the Green Goblin is gone during this scene. He gets hit in the head and then the fight is over - you've seen every scene of the Goblin in the trailers.

Rather than the 'I will avenge you' style plot of the comics instead we have Peter mopping around for 'a year?' visiting her grave. While its nice he's blaming himself - the reason many including myself wanted to see her death was for some long lasting implications. We could see Peter try and desperately forget her - leading to Mary Jane helping him get better, or this could lead to him with the Venom symbiote or Mysterio exploiting his emotions... instead he is given advice from Aunt May before going off to battle the Rhino as the film ends with the Rhino fight.

Oh... but lets not forget about the mysterious man in shadows who is officially revealed to be Gustav Fiers (Referred to as Mr Fiers) which many believed was 'Fear' meaning that he would be Mister Fear - however i can confirm that it was definitely Fiers and he is instead the Gentleman who is manipulating the events behind the scenes and setting up the Sinister Six - which an alive harry is revealed to be part of.

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Now... the difficult part... the film chooses to mess with what you've already seen in the trailers. Their is no scene to establish the Sinister Six and rather than seeing all SEVEN chambers we see a total of FOUR - which include Rhino suit, Vulture Wings, Doc Ock tentacle and finally Harry's Green Goblin glider and armour.

We also DO NOT SEE Norman's head in a jar which was originally scheduled to be in the film - showing him to be alive. We DO NOT SEE the Venom symbiote either - once again a scene from the trailer being edited. Many scenes are missing or feel disjointed as they just end - i think their are like two scenes that are actually edited together properly.

As for Rhino - he is simply given the Rhino suit... because. Their is no real reason why Aleksei is given the suit - it simply happens for an action cliff-hanger conclusion.

The score is alright - but not anywhere near as memorable as the Elfman score. Sadly it sounds more like a 'daily bugle' theme while other score extracts just serve to be background noise or get in the way.

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Now... ratings, summary, umm... lets see...

The film desperately attempts to show you a collection of scenes that sadly dont have much of a meaning - characters like Norman Osborn, Donald Menken, Dr Kafka, Alistair Smythe, Rhino and Felicia Hardy are thrown into the film in an attempt to hint at a larger universe however they only have a max of two scenes. Their's a massive lack of depth to any character with a suprising twist of Harry Osborn being the only character who makes any sense in his motivations or his actions.

Their are shoehorned in refrences to Spider-man throught in terms of the ringtone of his phone being the Spider-man theme, Electro playing Incy Wincy Spider and other musical cues. The issue being with Electro that he is simply near insanity from the start and while i do understand that loneliness can make one essentially go a bit nuts - this guy idolises Spider-man to the point of being so jealous of him that he tries to kill him.

I know others have compared this to Batman & Robin and i can see the resemblance with shoe-horned in villains. But in truth its more like a prequel to Batman & Robin if that makes sense - we have some minor set-up to characters who feel like they'll be important later on - however at the moment do nothing. I would'nt necessarily call it a bad film as the visuals are amazing almost all the time and their is a lot of variety to this film.

Yet, i cannot give this film a good rating. I swore to myself that whatever happens i'd give it an extra point just for having the balls to follow the comics with the death of Gwen - even if it meant sacrificing the best actress in the movie... however this is handled poorly and is rushed and at the end of the film it really feels like nothing has changed. I would'nt even call Spider-man more serious at the end as he goes back to teasing Rhino and the fact the Rhino fights essentially bookend the film make it seem like this was the intention - to show despite death that people move on - but that is going against the comic its adapting which focused on death, loss, revenge and consequences.

I'm going to leave this without a rating - as i get the feeling that those reading this will either have seen the film or have made up their own mind when reading this... but i have to say their isnt enough to keep me waiting in anticipation for the sequel or the spin-off's... though the visuals of the Sinister Six might look cool when we see them all together.