Movie Defense Force: The Amazing Spider-Man 2: Better Than Broody Gritty Wah Wah

[tdylan]

Gwen Stacy is a better girlfriend than Mary Jane, there I said it. MJ is the reason why I didn't like the original trilogy, she's not a character, she's a tool to make Spiderman look good, their relationship is just bland, there's the constant breaking up and getting back together bullcrap for all three films and of course "MJ is in some kind of danger cliché". Gwen on the other hand, helps Spiderman, has a more interesting character and their relationship is more believable compared to MJ's blandness

Rewatching the original recently I thought "Jesus Christ! Mary Jane is a whore!" A bit of hyperbole, but I thought "Christ! How many guys is she "in love with" in this movie? First it was Flash, then they broke up and she got with Harry. Then, while dating Harry, she did the upside-down kiss with Spiderman. Then, while still dating Harry, she "had a moment" with Peter while in Aunt May's hospital room that Harry witnessed, told Norman Osborne about, and Norman realized he could use her to get to Peter. Then, she tells Peter that she loves him, and kisses him, in the cemetery where Harry's (the guy she was still sorta dating - we never see them officially break up, though they had the spat at thanksgiving when he didn't defend her to his father) father was JUST BURIED.

What...the...fuck? It struck me, "Mary Jane isn't a character...she's just a plot device." Re-watch and see how much time she spends screaming. It got really old really fast.

I didn't care for Gwen in the first Amazing Spiderman, and I haven't seen the second, but I didn't dislike her. I just couldn't get involved in her knowing ultimately where her story arc was going. Also, Amazing Spiderman wasn't very good at making engaging characters.

 

[SnowWookie]

Movie Defense Force is slowly morphing from "Jim defends unpopular movies that actually have merit" to "Jim just has shit taste in movies".

Of course, taste is entirely subjective, so if he enjoyed ASM2, good for him. His taste clearly doesn't align with mine, though, so I won't really be taking his opinion on this seriously.

 

[PunkRex]

After seeing the Nostalgia Critic video concerning these films I kind of realised just how little I cared about the Raimi films, not that I don't respect them for helping come about this GOLDEN AGE OF COMIC BOOK MOVIES!

I never saw the first film but Amazing Spiderman 2 had a far more likable Peter and Gwen actually had character unlike another red haired love interest. Not to mention Gwen had a purpose, unlike half of the Marvel love interests, seriously what was the point of Jane Foster in Thor 2?

The death scene was also very good. The THUNK her head made when it hit the floor was harsh.

By some strange coincidence just before going into the film I was asking myself why movies don't have OST tracks for individual characters, for example:


Wouldn't you know it, Electro had his own theme and it was awesome.

There's a lot I don't like about the film, the villain designs are all to safe and thus forgettable, Peters parents were a lazy set up tool and the plot near the back end of the film has some real stupid parts in service to world building. Also, Harry breaking in to Ravencroft so he could break out Electro so he could help Harry break into Oscorp ~BREEEEEEATH~ was just dumb.

But Garfield and Stone were good and the insywinsy spider scene was badass, the film was okay... but the world building could go F itself.

 

[Conner42]

Ugh! All I have to say is everything I hated about Peter Parker's new iteration could be summed up in that one scene Jim decided to show at the end of this episode as he claimed it was "genuinely funny." All I have to say is that, no, I do not think that these scenes were genuinely funny and I found them quite irritating and dumb.

I have to say though, that scene where Spider-Man and Electro fight for the first time was actually pretty good. Well paced, well directed, and even coherent. Things I can't use to describe everything else about this movie though.

Oh, and I have to point out, this movie actually trying to attempt a less gritty approach would probably have been a breath of fresh air had it not been for Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk, Iron Man 2, Thor, Captain America, The Avengers, Iron Man 3, Thor: The Dark World, and the upcoming Guardians of the Galaxy. Yes, I realize these are all Avengers movies but...well, they're there! I guess the only thing I have to leave out is the new Captain America movie, but that movie had some sly, snarky dialogue I find to be way more funny than anything that was trying to be funny in either of the Amazing Spider-Man movies.

Holy shit, I never realized how much of a hot topic this movie turned out for me.

 

[tdylan]

how dare u have a differing opinion. I demand Jim Sterling's immediate removal from the escapist because moviebob told me this was a bad movie and now my small brain is starting to hurt from hearing 2 different opinions that do not match

I'm at work and can't watch the video. Did Jim say that it wasn't a bad movie, or that he liked it? Because there is a difference.

 

[Saltyk]

I'm on the side that sees that both Spiderman films have their pros and cons such as the Rami films having better villains (I mean come on, Dafoe as the Green Goblin, it's an automatic win) but there is one thing that the reboot does beat the original in and that is this:

Gwen Stacy is a better girlfriend than Mary Jane, there I said it. MJ is the reason why I didn't like the original trilogy, she's not a character, she's a tool to make Spiderman look good, their relationship is just bland, there's the constant breaking up and getting back together bullcrap for all three films and of course "MJ is in some kind of danger cliché". Gwen on the other hand, helps Spiderman, has a more interesting character and their relationship is more believable compared to MJ's blandness

Did you watch Nostalgia Critic's New Versus Old on these movies? You might enjoy it as he gave both a lot of credit where it was due. Hell, when it comes to the villains, he actually has a very interesting take on it.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

Oh I imagine this caused no small amount of arguing with MovieBob.
As for me I have not seen any of the ASM movies, but I will say that I did not like Toby MsGuire so any alternative would be an improvement.

 

[Kitsune Hunter]

Gwen Stacy is a better girlfriend than Mary Jane, there I said it. MJ is the reason why I didn't like the original trilogy, she's not a character, she's a tool to make Spiderman look good, their relationship is just bland, there's the constant breaking up and getting back together bullcrap for all three films and of course "MJ is in some kind of danger cliché". Gwen on the other hand, helps Spiderman, has a more interesting character and their relationship is more believable compared to MJ's blandness

Rewatching the original recently I thought "Jesus Christ! Mary Jane is a whore!" A bit of hyperbole, but I thought "Christ! How many guys is she "in love with" in this movie? First it was Flash, then they broke up and she got with Harry. Then, while dating Harry, she did the upside-down kiss with Spiderman. Then, while still dating Harry, she "had a moment" with Peter while in Aunt May's hospital room that Harry witnessed, told Norman Osborne about, and Norman realized he could use her to get to Peter. Then, she tells Peter that she loves him, and kisses him, in the cemetery where Harry's (the guy she was still sorta dating - we never see them officially break up, though they had the spat at thanksgiving when he didn't defend her to his father) father was JUST BURIED.

What...the...fuck? It struck me, "Mary Jane isn't a character...she's just a plot device." Re-watch and see how much time she spends screaming. It got really old really fast.

Agreed also I forgot about that last bit and sure she may have discovered her love for Peter, but I agree, you just don't do that, that was a really shitty thing for her to do.

Did you watch Nostalgia Critic's New Versus Old on these movies? You might enjoy it as he gave both a lot of credit where it was due. Hell, when it comes to the villains, he actually has a very interesting take on it.

Actually I did, at first I thought that it would get pretty heated and one sided, but it was very fair and balanced. People can say what they will about the NC, but he knows how to make a good argument.

 

[anthony87]

If you insist on ragging on someone's review, please rag on things the review actually says.

You mean things like "I'm depressed" and "I can't look at the red right now" or the title with that "Broke Moviebob" shite?

And the tweets.....oh man those tweets. They were ragable as hell!

 

[Kameburger]

You know I will say this, I don't think it's a coincidence that all my friends who hated this movie were kinda geeky (I mean this in the least derogatory way possible), and all my friends who loved it were barely into comics and games at all.
I mean hate it love it, they're doing something right.

 

[Tumedus]

Sorry Jim nope.

It wasn't fun because the story kept getting in the way. It made the otherwise entertaining action scenes feel stupid because the context either wasn't there or wasn't very good.

It went for camp, sure, but there is good camp and bad camp. This was clearly in the bad camp section. The mere fact that anyone would compare performances from this to those from the reviled Schumacher Batmans should be evidence enough of that.

But at least Schumacher, in deciding to go for camp, went with artsy, from the page of comics style looks for his villains. These villains have to be the worst designed characters in ages. Roger Corman's Fantastic Four is looking at these villains and saying "you know, I don't feel so bad anymore".

Finally, this iteration of Parker is just insufferable. It's hard to care about the outcome when I am really rooting for the protagonist to lose. They should have killed off him instead. At least it would have made for a twist that no one saw coming. And people could speculate on the opportunity to introduce Miles Morales.

 

[Quiotu]

I've always found it funny about Spiderman as a character, not that he can't get a decent movie to save his life, but that he's the character that you can't revolve a decent story around to save its life.

Spiderman is only a decent character as long as his environment involves strife concerning his life in general, which you can only do if he's young and inexperienced and unused to dealing with it. Which of course means that he has to perpetually be high school or college aged, because once he gets old and experienced enough to deal with his problems, you suddenly have a character who worked past his initial weaknesses... and turns into something Marvel can't deal with anymore.

Spiderman's weaknesses has always been his personal life, which is something that you either work out or you don't. So you're either forced to continually reboot Spiderman as some high school kid unwilling to deal with his new responsibilities, or you turn him into some kind of unlikeable man-child who doesn't want to deal with modern times, neither of which is fun to work out in comic book form or movie form. Hell, it'd be uncomfortable to deal with in series form, and that's the story form that Spiderman would tend to work best.

I'm convinced that if Spiderman was eventually given back to Marvel by Sony, Spiderman would be thrown into the sidekick business along with Black Widow and Hawkeye, someone who just doesn't have any business of being a fully fledged hero because the formula of creating that is just to goddamned contrived. Spiderman isn't a good premise because it's too ham-fisted and doesn't work for modern times, and any modern attempt at an origin story has either pissed off the purists or just not worked in general.

Spiderman is a bad character for anything modern. His origin is horrible, his rogues gallery is horrible, his circumstances are horrible. Nothing about it makes for a good story other than a warning for how you really shouldn't set up any new modern comic characters. He's Silver Age Lobo, a testament to how you really shouldn't latch a character onto the culture of the times as a whole, unless you can use it as a constant plot point, ala Cap America's background.

 

[emeraldrafael]

Sorry Jim, I just can't agree with you. I knnow its early, but I've pretty much made this movie my worst of 2014 (with really only two [well three counting the atlas shrugged movie but I know that's going to be awful and at least those people believe in their movie with genuine sincerity] films for the foreseeable future looking ready to take that (those being transformers and TMNT). That end clip pretty much epitomizes how forced garfield comes off in this movie trying to be funny when he's not just being a douchebag instead

 

[Jacques Jones]

I love this movie, to be honest. In my opinion, Rise of Electro's one of the best superhero movies I've ever seen. I'll even go as far to say that it's a perfect counterpart of The Dark Knight Rises and Man of Steel, doing everything those movies were trying to do MUCH better.

 

[tdylan]

I've always found it funny about Spiderman as a character, not that he can't get a decent movie to save his life, but that he's the character that you can't revolve a decent story around to save its life.

Spiderman is only a decent character as long as his environment involves strife concerning his life in general, which you can only do if he's young and inexperienced and unused to dealing with it. Which of course means that he has to perpetually be high school or college aged, because once he gets old and experienced enough to deal with his problems, you suddenly have a character who worked past his initial weaknesses... and turns into something Marvel can't deal with anymore....

Dude, what? Spiderman has major issues well into his post college life. Yes, it always involves strife with his personal versus professional life versus superhero life, but to say that it only works when he's young and inexperienced is ridiculous. One of the central themes of Spiderman is that his responsibility as Spiderman will always place the rest of his life at risk; he cannot juggle them. He has to choose to live one life entirely, because trying to serve both will always lead to the detriment of each. He can be a good husband to Mary Jane (they did actually get married), but his "responsibility" to the people as Spiderman will go unfulfilled. If he decides to serve the people as Spiderman, his commitment to his wife will go only half met. No matter where he goes, no matter how old he gets, his responsibilities will curse him. He's not like The Fantastic Four that have the safety and security of being "The Fantastic Four" wherever they go, and the world being in on, and accepting of their secret. Reed Richards doesn't have to worry about Kingpin taking a shot at Susan Storm. Sue can defend herself. Peter has to constantly worry about aunt may and Mary Jane. No matter how old he gets. As a teen, his actions as Spiderman cost him Gwen. As a young adult, his inaction as Spiderman cost him uncle Ben. It doesn't matter how "old" or "experienced" he becomes, being who he is will always cost him something. That's the point.

"This is my gift. This is my curse."

 

[Faith Meade]

This kind of makes me feel like Jim and Moviebob are like me and my best friend when we watch movies together. I'm always nit-picking this thing or the other or talking about with some kind of philosophical framing, and then he'll retort with, "would you just shut up and enjoy the spectacle of it?"

 

[Zato-1]

Thanks for making this video, Jim. I haven't seen The Amazing Spider Man- neither this one nor the first one- but one thing always bothered me about the discussion regarding this set of movies vs. Sam Raimi's Spider-Man films (all of which I did see): Everyone is so gushing with praise about the older trilogy. I always wondered whether I was the only one who thought Tobey Maguire's acting as Peter Parker was downright embarrassing- apparently not

 

[daxterx2005]

We have no chimney.
whaaat?

I died.

Great movie, I agree, Jim.

 

[SilverUchiha]

Humbly respect your opinion.

That said, I respectfully disagree. I wasn't having fun when I saw it (almost fell asleep partway through because the nonsensical story was not just stupid, but boring). That isn't to say that silly plots are bad, but there's silly and fun and then there's convoluted and asinine. This felt much closer to the latter for the majority of the film. Admittedly, I did enjoy the scenes where it was just Spidey vs Rhino and the action bits for the first Electro fight were... alright.

But the new Goblin just wasn't good in really any way for me. The lack of Jameson will be something that hangs over this series like a dark cloud. Good as Jamie Foxx generally is, I just found is character annoying. Comparisons to Edward Nigma are fair, but at least his reason to go mental was justified whereas Max Dillon just jumped into the crazy boat with almost no provocation needed. Yes, he was mentally unbalanced from the get-go, but I had that same problem with Harry too. They went from being buddy-buddy with Pete or Spidey and then immediately flipped on him with no real build up or real logical reason.

Aside from some of the action bits, the only other thing in the latest film that stands out is that Emma Stone is more fun to watch than Kirsten Dunst... and while I love Emma Stone, still not sure that's enough to really sell me on sticking with the franchise (especially given how ASM2 ends anyway *spoilers*).