Amazing Spiderman 2 Review

For those of you who aren't comic book nerds, that glowing blue guy on the right is called Electrode and he's the villain here.... sort of.

So after his girlfriend's dad was offed at the end of the last movie (spoilers!) Peter is now grappling with doubt and insecurity relating to Gwen. He loves her but doesn't want her to be around him in case she gets hurt due to his hero antics, ya know the traditional story the superhero dating a human goes through. So he pushes her away and spoilers it doesn't work. Anyway 2 ball there (get it 2 ball, cause he's bald so like cue ball but 2 is the solid blue one (if you actually got that without it being explained, congratulations)) is a guy named Max who really probably needed to see a therapist or two, and also learn to be a little more assertive. He has zero friends and everyone at his job pushes him around like he's the prison bitch. One day Spiderman saves him, and he developes a very unhealthy hero worship. This is important later on. I don't wanna say too much more, but in short order he ends up mutated into the glowing weirdo you see above and then proceeds to lead a totally normal life but is a bit of a social outcast due to the blue skin. Really unexpected turn by the writers here. No obviously him and Spiderman begin fighting and it leads to a big throwdown near the end. There's also a side plot involving Harry Osboure dealing with a life threatening genetic disease.

This movie actually wound up being better than expected. I recall that the last one left me less than impressed and after reading over the old review that I did of it (located here: Amazing Spiderman Review) I can understand why. The bad guy from the film was bothersome for a few reasons, and the plot on the whole was pretty boring and run of the mill. Is that the one where they line up all the cranes along the street for him to swing on? Or was that one of the other Spiderman films? Either way, that scene was really lame. But yeah, back when I wrote the review I stated that the only good thing about that film is the actor playing Peter and from what little I can recall of that movie (I also called it forgettable) that adds up.

So maybe it was lowered expectations cause of the first, or maybe I'd heard somewhere that this one sucks, or perhaps both, but I went into this expecting to be thoroughly unimpressed. Now, saying that this is better than expected isn't what I'd call a compliment given all that. I basically just said it's better than a big pile of shit. Now, there are plenty of things that are better than a big pile of shit but are still not what I'd call good. This isn't even one of those things. I actually liked this one. It's not the best movie ever, but I think the fight scenes are well done, and though I didn't really expect this, there's actually a reasonable bit of humor in there as well. Spiderman has been know to be a bit of a joker, so a touch of humor here and there makes sense. But yeah, I think things are well done here. Good film. Give it a try.

8 witty retorts out of 10