If you’re looking for Part I, covering The Amazing Spider-Man, you can find it here.
Ten years can be a lifetime in movies but in the superhero space specifically, it might as well be three centuries.
As the genre became the dominant one in the 2010s, there were only a few movies that truly lodged themselves into the broader psyche: and for better or worse, on both sides of the coin, The Amazing Spider-Man 2, which released a decade ago this month, in May of 2014, was one of them.
Outstanding creative highs, stymied by corporate interference and a narrative, despite terrific lead performances by Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone, that can’t get off the ground.
Perfectly imperfect.
On paper? TASM 2 should have worked far better than it did.
The first film had paid its dues, delivering the origin story for this specific version of the character but the sequel arrived in a post-Avengers world. Where the focus, instead of being on what could be delivered in the moment, was instead on the future: sequels, crossovers and potential spin-offs.
The MCU is a historical outlier in movie-making, however. That is an a nigh-impossible task to pull off successfully.
And those at Sony, it was clear, only saw the hypothetical dollar signs, as Amazing 2 was crammed full of set-ups that were never realized or poor writing decisions as a whole (as their leaked emails revealed, they even enlisted MCU-architect Kevin Feige for his almost entirely-ignored input).
From the to-be Sinister Six, the unnecessarily convoluted climax or the continuing, overloaded plot-line of Peter searching for the truth behind his parents disappearance.
It had good thematic weight in the first movie, to be fair (Peter, having to deal with his complex relationship to his father and father figures both) but it is just a mess the second time around, with no legitimate payoff or sense of necessity - even bolstered by Andrew Garfield’s acting, the movie’s alternate ending, focusing on this, doesn’t fare any better.
Sally Field is back as May and she does well, of course but she once described working on the Amazing movies as: “You can’t put ten pounds of shit in a five-pound bag.”
Harsh but you know what? Not entirely off-base either, considering how the second film falters on an overall narrative level.
Jamie Foxx, playing against type as mild-mannered/friendship-scorned Max Dillon/Electro isn’t much of a story presence, despite the sympathy you may feel for his character, nor is Paul Giamatti as a purposely over-the-top Rhino.
Played up in the marketing as the movie’s third villain but instead, little more than a tease for a future that never was.
Dane DeHaan fares better as Harry Osborn, if only because his version of the character is wildly different when compared to James Franco’s take in the Raimi films - but it is only through those movies (or your familiarity elsewhere) that the Peter-Harry relationship has any legitimate traction.
Banking on the viewer to already know what’s up, with a long-lost history that is only really implied. There is simply too much going on, too many threads to follow, for DeHaan and Garfield to do anything of note.
His turn as the Green Goblin however, while brief and muddled by an over-explained subplot involving terminal illness and Spider-Man’s blood (no, I’m not kidding), is well-done, lacking the Jackal and Hyde sadism of Willem Dafoe in the original Spider-Man or Franco’s sense of vengeance but putting forth something more explicitly villainous, if equally tragic, given his motives.
Yet, it becomes clear in the final act that he is only really there, beyond never developed sequel set-up, to end the Peter-Gwen story on a deeply sorrowful note: with Gwen’s death, in a heartbreaking adaptation of Amazing Spider-Man #121 and #122.
You believe it because they believe it. Garfield and Stone building on their work from the previous movie, doing everything they can, from the opening credits to the very end, to elevate material, through the dynamic between their characters, that couldn’t find a consistent voice and purpose elsewhere.
That’s just it though.
While the movie’s weak showing and divisive reception started a chain reaction that saw sequel plans be scuttled, led to the negations between Sony and Marvel Studios that saw Tom Holland take over the role in the MCU and for Garfield to express his great disappointment over the whole experience in 2016, given his life-long love for the character, it isn’t the whole story.
Not really.
As to dial-in exclusively on what doesn’t work? It is to bypass what does click - from those performances by the main cast or the visuals, for one.
And man oh man, the visuals. They’re a cut-above.
From the framing, shot section or the work of editor Pietro Scalia, director Marc Webb and cinematographer Dan Mindel, creating a world that is bursting at the seams with life and colour, full of inspired character-driven moments - Electro, crackling with power or Spider-Man, swinging above Manhattan as time slows down in certain situations to represent his spider-sense.
There are the immensely impressive VFX, which are still legions above most of the superhero fare we’ve seen in the ten years since: combining practical sets, reference and digital work so well that, besides the obvious, you’d be hard-pressed to deduce what was what.
The costuming too, deserves praise, from Gwen’s wardrobe, speaking to the character’s sense of style terrifically well or the updated Spider-Man suit, with its Todd McFarlane-esque lenses and webbing pattern, which looks as though it has been ripped right off the page - as the larger creative team, anchored by Garfield, deliver, in my opinion, what is perhaps the purest expression of the character ever put forth on screen.
It is a quick montage sequence early in the movie but it highlights, to a tee, just what makes Spider-Man, well, Spider-Man: the sacrifice, the drive, the determination to just keep going.
And despite the Garfield-era going out on a sour note? Its influence remains.
From how the Yuri Lowenthal-portrayed version of the character in the Insomniac Spider-Man video game series takes pretty open cues: the way he swings, dives from a perch and moves in combat.
How there are numerous fan-pages and online communities surrounding the movies, appreciating what they brought to the Spider-Man canon: including the “fan edits” that have been made, notably for TASM 2, which often trim the excess storylines, delivering a far more complete, focused and enjoyable experience.
But it is something that would be felt again on the screen as well, when Garfield and Foxx reprised their roles in 2021’s Spider-Man: No Way Home, the third film in Holland’s MCU trilogy. It broke open the multiverse egg and saw all three of our live-action Webheads (Tobey Maguire, Garfield and Holland) working together, to defeat threats they couldn’t take on alone.
For Foxx, it gave him a do-over, an opportunity to play Electro the way he should have from the beginning: as himself, more-or-less, natural charisma, leading the way.
And for Garfield, it was something of a redemption, on more than one front: giving his version of Peter, haunted by Gwen’s death, a measure of peace and allowing the actor to potentially close out his time in the suit on a far better note, as one of the highlights in a star-studded affair.
Even in a five-second clip, where he’s calling out to Electro: there is just so much there. The physical expressiveness, the polite banter, the “Whoa!”, as he narrowly dodges an electric blast.
For a time, in the immediate aftermath, given the response to Garfield’s return to the role, there seemed to be enough traction that a third Amazing movie could be made (Tom Holland voiced his support and even Sony commented on the #MakeTASM3 hashtag) but it has been two-and-a-half, almost three years since No Way Home, at the time of this writing.
The moment, one could argue, has passed - but that’s okay.
Garfield and Maguire just might return again down the line, in whatever the MCU is cooking up in regards to their Secret Wars film and that would be cool but the live-action Spider-Man franchise is and should be, firmly Holland’s going forward: as his Spider-Man 4 seems to finally be finding its pre-production legs. Not to mention everything happening on the animated side with the excellent Spider-Verse movies.
Yet even as the larger operation stumbled, the duology remains something of a benchmark. When it swings (literally) it swings, reaching heights few movies of its type have been able to match.
If that isn’t amazing? I don’t know what is.