The Amazing Spider-Man 2: Rise of Electro

IMDB
First time viewed: Yes
Current Release: Yes
Watched With: Andrew

I like Andrew Garfield as Spiderman, I do, but this film is a bit all over the place. There's some things that I think it does really well, there's a couple of sequences where the action and visuals look great, there's some wonderful humour. And they almost get some nice pathos in there with the romantic lead. Buuuutt...

This whole thing reminds me of Schumacher's Batman Forever. It's bright and colourful and the characters are really cartoonish and the film seems to be made for 5 year olds. That's fine, I guess I just think the tone was all over the place. It wants some villains to be dark and brooding and others to be bumbling cartoons. Jamie Foxx's Electro reminded me eerily of Jim Carrey's Riddler. The way Paul Giamatti is used is annoying on many levels. Marton Csokas plays a mad scientist that made me want to rip my hair out and leave the theatre. And I just wish Dane DeHaan had a movie to be a nice guy first. They cram in far to many plots and villains into this one. And it feels really long too. The film finishes twice. Many of the same problems with Raimi's Spiderman 3.

Sally Field and Andrew Garfield have one scene together that I really like. If they didn't worry about all those villains and concentrated on Peters back story and the romance and one villain, well, that's enough for a film. Really it is. 

They shot this film on 35mm. It looks nice, but there's one scene where it flashes back to a shot from the last film. And when you see them side by side, the difference with grain is night and day. Astounding. I'm not saying either is better or worse, but it's noticeable. So obviously this one is post-converted 3d. It's not bad post conversion, but I remember how amazing the first film looked at IMAX in 3D. 

It sounds like the 3 composers are trying to make an iconic Spiderman theme but they just ended up with Aaron Copland's Fanfare for the Common Man. 

It's another conflicty one. But ultimately there's more I didn't like than I did.