The Amazing Spider-Man 2

A vast improvement over its worthless predecessor, The Amazing Spider-Man 2 follows Peter Parker (Andrew Garfield) as he attempts to balance his personal life with his ongoing work as the crimefighting title character. The massive failure of 2012’s The Amazing Spider-Man is due, for the most part, to its pervasively familiar atmosphere, as the movie generally seemed content to act as a watered-down carbon-copy of Sam Raimi’s far superior 2002 original – with the film’s few positive attributes, including Garfield’s effective take on the character, rendered moot by an interminable exercise in needlessness. It’s clear, then, that The Amazing Spider-Man 2 benefits from its fresh take on the iconic character, with the movie, right from the outset, launching into a story that is, for the most part, not instantly recognizable – although it’s ultimately clear that scripters Alex Kurtzman, Roberto Orci, and Jeff Pinkner have packed far too many elements into the movie’s narrative. (There is, for example, little of interest to be found in Peter’s continuing investigation into his father’s untimely death.) And although there are a number of exciting action sequences sprinkled throughout the film’s overlong running time – Spider-Man’s mid-movie battle with Jamie Foxx’s Electro is an obvious highlight – The Amazing Spider-Man 2 is at its best when focused on the relationship between Peter and Emma Stone’s Gwen Stacy. Bolstered by Garfield and Stone’s palpable chemistry together, the Gwen/Peter subplot provides the proceedings with the majority of its emotional content – with the effectiveness of Gwen’s character arc often compensating for the film’s more overtly underwhelming elements. The end result is a perpetually uneven summer blockbuster that seems to hit as regularly as it as it misses, but given the terminally lackluster nature of its forebear, The Amazing Spider-Man 2 generally fares much, much better than one had any right to expect.

**1/2 out of ****