In this installment, it’s The Amazing Spider-Man 2. The headline here? The Amazing Spider-Man 2 is better than I gave it credit.
In my earlier review of The Amazing Spider-Man 2, I bemoaned the overfull quality of the film, calling it “a more sprawling narrative that feels inflated by the demands of producers who want to lay groundwork for future films rather than let those films develop organically.” The kindest word I had for the film was “serviceable,” but I lamented, “‘serviceable’ just isn’t good enough any more.”
I’ll be honest: in the wake of Captain America: The Winter Soldier, my comic book movie radar needs some serious readjusting. It’s probably my second favorite comic book movie of all time at this point (you know the first), but it’s making the others look bad. I noticed this problem after seeing X-Men: Days of Future Past. While I waited for the inevitable postcredits stinger, my first thought was, “Eh.” Immediately, I checked my premises; aside from one or two very small bits, I hadn’t had an unkind thought during the film itself. The only thought I could rally behind that lukewarm off-the-cuff reaction was, “It wasn’t Winter Soldier.”
And that’s no way to review a movie. On its own merits, X-Men: Days of Future Past was a smash success for me, and that’s the review I wrote. Reapproaching The Amazing Spider-Man 2 with a similar sensibility (and a clearer sense of how all the moving pieces fit together) yielded comparable results. It is, perhaps, the sequel I was waiting for after The Amazing Spider-Man.
The positives I cited still stand – Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone have extraordinary chemistry together, Jamie Foxx’s Electro is a vastly original and highly entertaining nemesis. And I have better things to say about Dane DeHaan’s Harry Osborn; I love that the film takes him down a different path than James Franco’s, and his character arc is much more compelling the second time around.
I remain, however, disgruntled about two pieces, though in revisiting the film they loom less large than I had perceived. On the subject of DeHaan, I’m still miffed that the film doesn’t spend as much time developing his third-act twist, and I’m still sore about the “I’ll be back” cliffhanger. I would have much rather spent more time with him than on my second grievance: I still maintain that the subplot surrounding Peter’s parents is mishandled in the film. These scenes don’t contribute anything to the narrative, don’t bear logically on the plot at hand, and ultimately don’t even resolve themselves. Either the film needs to foreground this subplot – it is, after all, the opening scene of two films now – or drop it in favor of something more closely connected to the central story. If it doesn’t pay off in The
In hindsight/retrospect (not sure which one), these are much smaller issues than I had initially felt. I had a blast with The Amazing Spider-Man 2, especially the first hour (I know, because I got my refill at the moment when Peter digs out his father’s briefcase). But the rest of it didn’t disappoint; I found myself laughing, caught up in the entertaining parts of the film and asking myself, “When exactly did I space out the last time?” I couldn’t find that moment.
I feel the same way now about The Amazing Spider-Man 2 as I do about X-Men: Days of Future Past. It doesn’t revolutionize the genre, and it isn’t The Winter Soldier. But it doesn’t have to be. I had forgotten that a film needs only to entertain and, time permitting, say something important. The Amazing Spider-Man 2 more than succeeds at the former. And the bits about hope at the very end tickle the Dark Knight Rises enthusiast in me just fine.
In short, I’ve upgraded this one to “buy on DVD.” (That’s high praise coming from someone who still doesn’t own The Amazing Spider-Man.)
2 comments:
Nothing wrong with changing your mind.
Any other films you can think that you liked or didn't like at first but changed your opinion on? This could be an interesting feature.
I'd have to think on that one... some of the reviews up here are already second looks (i.e., The Shining, Star Wars prequels), but if I come across one, it'll be here on a Tuesday.
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