Escape to the Movies: The Amazing Spider-Man 2 - The Movie That Broke MovieBob

[DavejaVu]

I'd say about 9/10 of these comments are agreeing with MB. Some of the people are just extrapolating on his review without even having bothered to watch the movie themselves. I'm going to be a dissenting voice to this review because I actually kinda liked it.
Garfield is a much better Spidey than the depressing nerd version that Maguire portrayed.

Garfield and Stone have great chemistry as a couple(leagues better than Dunst and Maguire). They made Spider-Man feel powerful again. He seems like the hero that could take on multiple villains on a weekly basis instead of the one that gets his ass handed to him by every minor villain. The music fits the action better than almost any film I've seen especially the Hans Zimmer/Pharrell team-up for Electro's Theme. I actually like that Rhino had a more minor role as basically an up-jumped thug. Not every villain needs to be complex multi-layered character. It's kind of a breath of fresh air to see a villain that's not the genius turned madman character. I think that at the very least this was an enjoyable popcorn flick and definitely worth the watch even just for the eye candy.

I think when you see this kind of reaction to a movie it is more of an issue with the reviewer than the movie itself. He seemed to like the Raimi movies but if you go back and rewatch those without your nostalgia glasses on they have lost a lot of their luster and the new films actually look pretty good in comparison. This is the kind of review where I can't help but think that he went into the movie wanting to hate it and that is exactly what he got out of it.

 

[keserak]

It's possible to give rational analyses of things you despise. I, for example, hate Deus Ex: Human Revolution with a passion that could burn houses down, but if you asked me to sit down and give it a formal review I'd say the game is good and give it a score somewhere around 4/5.

Preach on. I despised Human Revolution for every decision the devs made in it -- I couldn't even get past the Everything Is Orange bs (no joke: it hurts my eyes for several days after playing). I adore Deus Ex and suffered through several playthroughs of the objectively bad Deus Ex 2, and while I understand that Human Revolution is not as bad, it's just such a bad Deus Ex game that I can't play through it. And yet I also understand that there's a crap-ton of people who like it.

Which is bad for me, because that means the franchise will go off in a bad direction. Which it already did -- look at the latest installment.

So I sympathize with Bob. We can't avoid more bad Spider-Man. It can't be escaped. I'm right there, too.

 

[Heather Nichols]

Hey Bob, I'm glad to see a fellow critic approaching this from the perspective of a fan. I review based on a star system, I gave the first film a single star, this one I gave a three solely based on Foxx's performance and the small improvements they made on the first film. Hindsight, feeling it's more of a two now. Prior to writing my review I heard a bunch of people giving it high praise on the radio and thought maybe I'm just being a snobby critic and I should go easier on this film. No, Spiderman was as huge an influence on me as he was on you. Peter Parker was the worst part of this film. To me he is supposed to be a quintessential geek fantasy of the nerd becoming the hero. I played the games and had some of the comics and this was just not him.

Electro kept it engaging, his buddy-comedy-I-need-you with Harry Osborn was the best chemistry on camera. I know Garfield and Stone are dating in real life but they were just frustrating to watch like that jock and cheerleader couple you see in every high school rom com that just isn't clicking and she's fed up with his bs and he is clingy as all you-know-what.

I'd rather Sony pump money into a family drama pic with DeHaan and Tom Felton as a couple of boys with big daddy issues because at least that would be something more co-cohesive and engaging than this film. I'm posting a link to my review at the bottom of this, not for promotional purposes but as a discussion point. Hindsight, I think I went to easy on it, I'm just starting out as a critic and I second guess myself when I think my not liking something might just be snobby.

http://tawfikzone.com/?p=421

 

[Chester Rabbit]

Outch Bob you pretty much sound like how I felt after I saw Man of Steel for the first time.(Well except it didn't taint everything that is Superman for me and was still able to go home and watch Superman Returns to put a smile back on my face)
Man of Steel both infuriated me and broke my heart. Mainly because I knew what they were trying to pull off had worked and people thought that's what Superman has to be for today's audiences, and yet no on has any problems with Mr. Boy Scout Rogers(neither do I).

 

[karkashan]

Meh. I liked the film.

Sucks to be you, I guess.

 

[Zeraki]

And now Bob understands what Mass Effect fans went through after Mass Effect 3.


OT: The scene Bob laughed at... wasn't remotely funny. It was horrifyingly brutal and honestly made me cringe. It was the only part of the movie that actually managed to elicit an emotional response from me as well.

That is until they ruined it by not ending the movie where they should have.

Spoiler

The beautifully shot scene in the cemetery where it shows the passage of time as the seasons change should have been the note the movie went out on. But nope, we got Paul Giamatti acting like an overblown cartoon character in a giant Rhino mech.

... why the hell would Oscorp even build that thing? What practical purpose would a giant mecha-tank shaped like a rhino serve?

That was the most frustrating thing about this movie. For every great moment, there were at least five bad ones. The constant tonal shifts made it really hard to stay invested.

 

[wolfyrik]

"Want this move to fail" "sick and tired of Spiderman"

Exactly how I felt after the first ASM (ASM, it sounds like a sexually transmitted disease, pretty fitting really). When I heard that a second film was actually being made, it was like being kicked in the gut, after already being floored from the kick to the testicles which was ASM 1.

 

[IrisNetwork]

They say Rhino looks like Transformers but I know where they really ripped off the design. Machinegun, multi rocket launcher and face window? Yeah I've seen that.

 

[Professor_Fate]

Hey Bob,

I don't really have an opinion of this film, except to say that I haven't seen it or its predecessor (in large part because of your review of the former). Just wanted to comment that this video is a lovely example of what I enjoy most about your work. It's almost a "Big Picture" video that somehow infiltrated into "Escape to the Movies". Thanks.

 

[Reason_To_Smile]

One of the best spidey movie !!! for me this is the best and perfect !!! i wish there would be new heroin for spidey in next movie ... 5/5 !!!