The sequel follow-up to ‘The Amazing Spiderman’ has Peter Parker dealing with his on-off relationship with Gwen Stacy while his Spiderman persona has to stop some exciting new villains in the town. How does that have an impact on his personal life and how he overcomes them forms the crux of this plot.
Language:
English
Running Time:
142 min
Rating:
PG-13
Release date:
16 April 2014
Directed by:
Marc Webb
Produced by:
Avi Arad
Matt Tolmach
Written by:
Alex Kurtzman
Roberto Orci
Jeff Pinkner
Based on:
Spider-Man by Stan Lee
and Steve Ditko
Starring:
Andrew Garfield
Emma Stone
Jamie Foxx
Dane DeHaan
Colm Feore
Music by:
Hans Zimmer
Shot by:
Daniel Mindel
Editing by:
Pietro Scalia
Elliot Graham
Distributed by:
Columbia Pictures

What’s Hot

  • Andrew Garfield takes the cake this time. Young, energetic and with a tinge of wit, he plays both Peter Parker and Spiderman neatly and carries the movie on his shoulders. Emma Stone playing Gwen Stacy is one character which all the movie goers will remember even after the movie gets over. At the end of the day, Gwen Stacy would be one of the best portrayals of female leads in superhero flicks.
  • Jamie Foxx plays Max Dillon interestingly with the character being portrayed as an obsessive lunatic and once he becomes electro, he plays it menacingly. Although the CGI takes care of electro in the second half, Jamie Foxx still adds value to that role. The scene where he confronts Spiderman after being transformed as electro brings out the best in him. Dane DeHaan occupies most of the screen time in the second half and plays the Harry Osborn portions convincingly.
  • The movie has an uber-cool soundtrack with tracks like ‘It’s On Again’, ‘Song for Zula’ & ‘Honest’ worthy of a mention. The ‘Electro theme’ gives goose bumps when you listen to it along with the visuals. It is refreshing to see Hans Zimmer coming out of his dark knight hangover and the sound designing too deserves praise.
  • The visuals look spectacular with amazing action sequences controlled by some brilliant VFX which is jaw-dropping. Along with the VFX, the romance between Emma Stone and Andrew Garfield is sizzling to say the least and it is evident that VFX and the lead-pair chemistry propel the movie forward.
  • The movie moves the viewers on few scenes and the impact of those scenes is such that people walk out of the theatres with a heavy heart. Near the end of the movie, there is a nice set up for the third movie of the franchise. (Sinister Six?)

What’s Not

  • ‘The Rhino’ has a screen-time of less than five minutes. ‘The Green Goblin’ appears to have been squeezed in the movie just for the sake of one elaborate fight sequence. If ‘Electro’ is the main villain then the movie lingers too much even after the battle royale with him. They simply wasted the opportunity to have made two separate story arcs in a different movie with ‘The Rhino’ & ‘The Green Goblin’.
  • Harry Osborn gets a lot of screen time but the green goblin doesn’t. Questions like, “What exactly is ailing him? What was ailing Norman Osborn? Was Spiderman involved in Norman becoming like that?” remain unanswered. ‘Spiderman 3’ from the Sam Raimi series suffered from the same problem where too little screen time was given for ‘Venom’ – his main nemesis in comic books.
  • There is an entire portion involving Oscorp being taken over and Harry being thrown out of the company which seemed totally unrelated to the ongoing plot of the movie.

Badges

Verdict

Verdict Stamp

Spirited performances and sizzling chemistry from the lead pair makes up for the crowded screenplay! Could have been Sam Raimi’s “Spiderman 3” easily if not for the romance angle which keeps us interested!