Oh, God, why did I watch this?
I love Spider-Man. I have loads of his comics around the house. I’m awfully forgiving of most of the missteps the comic took with him. I even enjoy some of the modern comics of his! But this movie manages to cram bad ideas on top of bad ideas.
First, Peter Parker is the core of Spider-Man. Peter is the reason we’re invested in making sure that Spider-Man saves the day. In this movie, Peter is a tool. He's not a well-meaning nerd. He's a jerk.
The first thing that happens in the movie is a sequence involving Peter’s parents. This story didn’t work when they handled it in the comics, and it doesn’t work here. It takes up the first seven minutes, and the entire time I’m wondering why I’m bothering to watch this.
Then there’s a more real opening to the movie. Spider-Man thwarts the theft of some radioactive material by a guy who will become the Rhino. He manages to finish that up in time to get to his graduation ceremony and receive his diploma. Gwen Stacy is the valedictorian, who remains on stage throughout, for some reason. Peter steps on stage to applause, takes his diploma, and takes to the opportunity to kiss Gwen - deeply. This is possibly the worst thing they could have chosen to do.
I’m not just comparing against the version of Peter Parker from Amazing Spider-Man comics, based on the time that he was in high school. Peter only got confident enough sometime in the early 90s… after he married Mary Jane. This act makes Peter out to be an asshole. He’s a cocky prick. Why should I like him? Cause he saves people?
(To be fair, I did like a little thing during the opening where he prevents a bus from crushing some people.)
Then we get a conversation with Gwen that seems unnatural and bad.
Then Spider-Man swings around the city again. This time, he flips around and wiggles in the air a lot. This is annoying. It’s distracting, and it just makes me think about how awkward it would be to do these things in the air.
He helps a kid out. I’m sure this will pay off later.
He almost gets caught in costume by Aunt May, and delivers a terrible excuse that he’s got soot on his face from cleaning the chimney. May tells him they don’t have a chimney. His response is “whaaaat?” This gag makes Aunt May into an idiot, and Peter into an idiot for using a terrible, ridiculous excuse.
Meanwhile, at Oscorp, Max Dillon, an awkward guy, in the vein of Milton from Office Space, gets pushed around a bit at work. He’s also fixated on Spider-Man because he was saved by him.
We get introduced to Harry Osborn as he goes to visit a dying Norman Osborn.
This is the first massive problem. The movie is introducing a character that plays a major part in the movie about half an hour in. He’s supposed to be friends with Peter. But we have to cram Harry and Peter’s friendship, betrayal, insanity, and conversion into super-villain into an hour and a half. That’s possible… if there weren’t other plots to deal with. The smart thing would have been to establish Harry in the first movie, and develop him further in this one.
You know, at this point, I’m going to just use my notes directly.
- Colors are annoying
This was the first thing to jump out at me. The daylight sequences have this strange color palette, especially his costume. I’m not sure why it is, but this set of colors just makes the computer generated work look more fake, and it becomes more obvious when they switch to a real costume.
- Peter kisses Gwen on stage, like an asshole.
As I’ve already said. Completely breaks character. I’m supposed to like and identify with this guy?
- Twist when he jumps off buildings
As I’ve said.
- Chimney gag is weird
Again.
- Max Dillon is wrong.
Electro was always a strange character in the comics. He didn’t get much development until later in the canon, but one thing was notable. He was not a bright guy. He was a blue-collar lineman. I liked this approach. This version of Electro is weird. He’s obsessive, bright, but he doesn’t seem to have an articulated reason for hating Spider-Man. He’s just that way because it aids the plot.
- Peter walks like an asshole through traffic.
This is a real sticking point for me. Peter walks into traffic to get to Gwen, and just makes a truck coming at him wait as he crosses. I have massive, massive contempt for people who do this kind of thing.
- After beating Electro, Peter decides to research his parents for some reason.
This is a prime example of a script problem. There should have been some outcome from defeating Electro. Instead, we get a break where Peter just starts researching his parents. Why? What was the inspiration? Boredom? Nothing else to do?
- A single cameraman feeds video to all of the screens in Times Square?
Is this right? This seems really weird to me.
- The music is terrible.
This was a problem I had with the first movie as well. They love to insert some pop-rock stuff into these movies, and I hate it. It takes me out of the movie, and dates the movie to a time period. Spider-Man should be timeless, and this is the most conspicuous way of placing the story into an era.
- Peter watches a youtube video that has no content.
Peter decides to research how he plans to defeat Electro (since he seems to assume that he’ll have to fight him again). This involves Peter playing a YouTube video with a scientist announcing that he’ll teach all about electricity. The content of this video amounts to being a 20 second introduction that teaches nothing except for the idea that if too much power goes into a battery, it might explode. Way to learn about science, Peter.
- Aunt May resents his parents?
May and Peter get into a weird scene where she explains how she resents her parents for leaving. This is weird. May is supposed to be more of a rock than a whiner.
- Spider-Man refuses to give blood.
This is a plot point, and it bothers me. As a plot point, it seems desperate. Peter’s reaction to the request is wrong. If he were concerned about the loss of his secret identity, that would be okay. But he claims that he doesn’t know how dangerous it would be for Harry to receive his blood. Peter knows that Harry has all of Oscorp behind him. I think Harry can have some tests done.
- Secret lab?
This is a step above the normal absurdity that this movie has. Peter finds a subterranean secret lab that his father left behind. Somehow, the lab has no dust, runs perfectly, and has a nice video to welcome and explain things to him.
- Electro can disintegrate himself now?
I suppose this is okay. But it seems unnecessary.
- Goblin’s transformation is annoying.
They decided to douse the sequence with strobe lights. I hate that crap.
- “I hate this song!”
During the big finish battle with Electro, there are stabs of music that imply the melody of “Itsy Bitsy Spider.” That would have been okay, but Spider-Man saying this line is very close to breaking the fourth wall. And that’s not a Spider-Man I want.
- The PLANES.
This thing was the absolute dumbest thing in the movie. Electro has sucked all the electricity out of the city. So now flight control can’t communicate with planes in the air. Two planes are heading right for each other! They’re going to collide in 4 1/2 minutes! After hearing this, the air traffic controller tells the girl to “Clock it right now!” She pulls out a stopwatch and starts the clock.
So we have a literal TICKING CLOCK.
But Spider-Man has no knowledge of it. His goal remains exactly the same, and he would bear no responsibility if he didn’t defeat Electro in time. This strange detour into air traffic controller-land is only there for the benefit of raising the tension for the audience. This is the laziest, dumbest possible screenwriting possible. This is Tommy Wiseau’s Amazing Spider-Man 2.
- The music cues from Electro’s fight carry over into the Goblin’s fight, at least for a little bit.
Weird.
- Slow-mo is abused in this movie.
I don’t mind slow-mo. In certain cases, it can be useful, and it can communicate some tricky sequences to the audience. In this movie, slow-mo is used to focus on selling specific images, rather than in service of the story. Spider-Man flips around town, they toss in some slow-mo. Spider-Man does something heroic, dab on some more slow-mo. It hurts the tension of the movie. I’m far less impressed with Spider-Man when I can’t tell what he’s doing.
- Gwen’s death is WRONG, WRONG, WRONG.
I don’t expect it to be just like the comic, but I expect them to adhere to the things that made her death in the comic work. In the comic, Gwen’s death isn’t clear-cut. She could have been dead before she was thrown from the bridge, she could have died during the fall, or she could have died as a result of the sudden stop from Spider-Man’s webbing. This ambiguous setup is what makes the death work. Peter feels guilt, but it’s unclear to him if that guilt is valid. In this movie, Gwen is clearly alive and dies as a result of his webbing.
- Dr. Kafka?
In the comics, Dr. Kafka was a female scientist, and a very helpful one. She helps Spider-Man try to find cures for Vermin and a variety of other villain-types. In this, Kafka is a sadistic male scientist. Why would they do this? It doesn’t help the movie. It’s a reference for no reason at all.
- Spider-Man retires, then returns immediately.
Why did they do this? Why? This story was handled in Spider-Man 2, and handled very well. Here, they relegate a substantial plot down to two scenes. First, Spider-Man has disappeared. Second, Spider-Man returns. This is meaningless for the audience. It creates another ending, when one was already in place. But it does bring us to the last problem.
- The Rhino is terrible.
I can’t say much about the performance, since I couldn’t understand most of what he said. But the Rhino suit is absurd. The effects work on it looks very awkward, since it looks like he can’t possibly fit into the suit correctly. The final confrontation has a dumb little touching moment where Spider-Man returns and persuades a little kid in a spider-costume to go back to his parents. While Spider-Man is standing in the street, talking to the kid, the Rhino has a bunch of guns out. He’s just standing there. Spider-Man is being irresponsible! Get the kid to safety! Don’t stand in the line of fire and let him stay there!
Now, there were a few things that I actually liked.
- Spider-Man’s muffled voice.
It’s a bit distracting, but it’s accurate. I like that.
- Near the end, they mention the Vault.
This is very interesting. I’m surprised that Sony got to that first, I would expect The Avengers 2 or one of the Marvel Studios movies to establish The Vault.
- “I love you” on the bridge.
This was actually a very nice touch. Gwen knows it’s for her, but it could be taken as a love letter to the city from Spider-Man, which would be good.
Let me put it this way. I will never own this movie. For an action, super-hero movie, I don’t think I could have been more bored. I find this movie - and the first one - disrespectful to Spider-Man, and it derails the fantastic heroism the character encapsulates.
Let me also make this clear - I didn’t mind Spider-Man 3. It’s not great, but I think it’s light-years ahead of this garbage.
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