The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2014) Movie Review
The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2014) Movie Review
This movie was pretty good. Spider-Man, Gwen, Green Goblin, and a lot of other characters were great in it. Electro was confusing, intriguing, cool, and overpowered, all mixed together.
First off, Electro should not have roared. He was roaring like a grizzly bear! And he was way too overpowered. In the comics, he could not make whole cities have blackouts. It was confusing, because I know that he did not have enough electricity inside of him to just lights-out everything like that. What really didn’t make sense was that he wanted to depower the whole city (Queens/NY), but without power, he could not get more powerful. And I couldn’t tell what the heck happened to him at the end. Did he die? Was he in prison? Was he back to being Max Dillon?
Max himself was surprisingly fun to watch. I really felt for him for some reason, because he did so much for everyone and the only “friend” he had was some picture of Spider-Man he put up on a wall. I liked when he was celebrating his birthday, but it made me kind of sad the way people treated him. He deserved a lot more than he got. It was funny the way his cake had lightning bolts on it because he was an electrical engineer. He seemed like he liked electricity, but he was afraid of it, too.
When he was up on the place where he was fixing the pipe or whatever, he was totally freaked out, and there was so much electricity up there. That place was confusing for several reasons: One, why were there electric eels sitting around in there? It’s not like Oscorp was doing anything with them. They were just there being scary. Two, the floor was so unstable up there. When Max was standing up there, he was fine. But when he fell because of the shock, he was still the same weight, and he was on the same surface that held him up, but now he crashed instantly through the floor, into electric eels, and already in shock. Then he got bit by the eels, which really gave him some electricity there. Then somehow he was brown and what appeared to be muddy and clay-covered. I guess it was the brown color from being fried so deeply, but I don’t know. And were the eels radioactive? *Gasp* Was Max bitten by a radioactive eel? If so, then why didn’t he have eel powers like Spider-Man having spider-powers?
When Max was in the elevator with Gwen, he seemed liked he was trying to look sharp and impress her, but he was obviously at least a decade older than her. And while he looked old as a regular dude, when he was ballistic and electric he looked like an older teen. And what was that little meter on the side of his head? It looked like it was measuring how much electricity was inside him as Electro, but it wasn’t clear. And why was so much electricity in the sewer? I don’t go digging through sewery places, so I don’t know, but maybe that was connected to the city’s electricity supply or power plants? Oh yeah: one thing I noticed about Max’s birthday cake was that it was green and yellow, Electro’s original colors. But in this movie, Electro was blue-purple. And if those were Max’s favorite colors, I can’t blame him: green and yellow are my favorite colors, too.
Electro was way overpowered. The fact that he could just disappear in a cloud of electricity and reappear somewhere else to zap some guy was not something he could do ever in the comics. Also, he didn’t seem to be able to shape his electricity into whips and weapons and stuff like that in this movie like he could regularly in comics. And when he and Green Goblin were cornering that guy for answers in the Oscorp building, in the scene where Green Goblin was like, “heheheh, that wasn’t the answer we were looking for, heheheh,” and Electro deep-fried him, he looked totally dead. But then they wanted another answer, and Electro electrified him more. But with even more electricity, the dude was suddenly alive again, which shouldn’t have happened. And in the final battle, where did Electro get that snazzy outfit? From Harry? From Oscorp? If it was from Oscorp, why did they give it to him? He had just sizzled half of their employees. It had little lightning bolts on it, which meant it was made for him and him only. And how did he lose all his hair when he got electrocuted? Suddenly he was bald. So, overall, Electro was OK, but needed a little clarifying. So that’s pretty much all I have to say about Max Dillon, a.k.a. Electro.
Who should I talk about next… Spider-Man. Spider-Man was great. It still will always get to me if he isn’t being played by Tobey MaGuire, but Andrew Garfield was still good. Andrew’s head was a different shape than Spider-Man’s head in this movie, so that was weird. Other than that, he was fine. He made less jokes than I would have liked him to, and he seemed very serious about almost everything. Aunt May needed to be older. Much older. Anyway, back to Spidey. Nobody called him wall-crawler or web-slinger, or Spidey. Just Spider-Man. And where was J. Jonah Jameson? Spider-Man was still in his photographer job, so where was the crew from the Daily Bugle? If I didn’t know what the Daily Bugle was, I would not even know it was a thing, based on this movie.
Spider-Man needed more time just swinging around in this movie. This movie spent, like, a third of the whole thing with just Spider-Man battling to the death with Electro. I get that he was the main villain, but still: I can’t think of a Marvel movie where the main villain was this much in the movie, besides maybe Magneto in X-Men. Spider-Man wasn’t as whiny in this movie, which was a relief from Spider-Man and Spider-Man 3. (I haven’t seen Spider-Man 2.)
Rhino was completely unnecessary. I was excited about him at first, but he quickly became very strange. Rhino should not have rapid-fire guns shimmied into his arms. And he looked so utterly dumb when he was charging at Spider-Man. I also think he should have been the real Rhino, not just some trigger-happy Russian criminal perched inside of an oversized robotic Safari animal suit. It totally showed off how dumb he actually was brains-wise, though, which was good. Dumb things about Rhino: he had a very foolish-looking tattoo on his forhead of like, a, uhh… Um, something. It may have been a piece of electric fence, a nod back to Electro, but probably not. He also had terrible English. Since I know Rhino is Russian, it makes sense to me, but they could say that he was Russian in the movie to make it clear for audiences.
Another thing about Rhino was the fact that he totally had the chance to kill off Spider-Man, but instead he just sat there dumbstruck watching Spider-Man be nice to some kid who he helped earlier in the film. And then he waits for Spider-Man to make his move, which was a bad idea because then Spider-Man presumably beats Rhino, but nobody knows because the very last scene was Spider-Man about to bash Rhino with a sewer top, which is a terrible end scene, cough cough Columbia cough Pictures cough cough. And another very small thing: a red star was painted onto one arm of Rhino’s suit, which looked a lot like Bucky Barnes’ (See: Captain America: Civil War review on this website) bionic arm, which was also gray-silver and has a big red star on it, so maybe this was a reference back to Winter Soldier, who was first released in theaters 6 days earlier in Captain America: Winter Soldier. So even though Rhino was only an “eh +” kind of villain, I still noticed quite a few things about him. Oh yeah, here’s another thing: even though Rhino and the criminal that helped Sandman kill Uncle Ben in Spider-Man aren’t played by the same actor, they look alike, which could mean it was Rhino and Sandman teamed up to kill Uncle Ben. Even though this sounds cool, it is probably is not the case, sadly enough.
Green Goblin: good. He was dramatic, like Willem Dafoe’s Green Goblin. That Green Goblin had a much cooler costume, with the jazzy mask and all that. Although this Green Goblin was good, very good. He was mentally being torn apart, like Green Goblin should be. Although, why did Harry become Green Goblin this time, when Norman Osborn, his father, never battled Spider-Man? Norman came up with the Green Goblin idea, so why did none of this get mentioned? Although, when Harry and Norman had their final talk together, which was basically a wasted argument, Norman looked a pale green color, the color of Green Goblin from the movies, not the comics, and had very long fingernails and sharpish teeth when they showed, so all these things indicate that he might once have been the Green Goblin, but never committed crimes as him, unlike Harry in Spider-Man 3. Plus, Harry looked very, very ugly when he was Green Goblin. Why couldn't he have looked cool like the other Harry from the original trilogy? Answer: that blasted goblin formula. It made him look like he desperately needed a facial, and his hair was wonked to the Max. Pun intended. And his Goblin Glider looked way cooler than any other Goblin Glider. It spewed green gas, instead of gray, which was a nice gobliny touch.
The pumpkin bombs still didn’t look like pumpkins. Sigh. Movies will always refuse to make it look like the comics. What’s the point of them being called pumpkin bombs if they don’t look like pumpkins? Now that I think of it, no Green Goblin has ever referred to the bombs as pumpkins, or even looking like pumpkins, or even supposed to be pumpkin-like. So, if that’s true, then why did Sony bother making them orange and round like that at all? If you’re not following, it’s fine. I’m barely following my own talking.
Gwen was good, but had much curlier hair than in Amazing Spider-Man. Other than that, I don’t have much to say about her except that I totally saw her getting killed coming. Lookup “spider man 122” for more. Although in the comics, (it’s all about the comics, guys) Green Goblin dies when Spider-Man accidentally kills him, but here that couldn’t happen, because Green Goblin has to live for the Sinister Six in the next movie to work. Which brings me to my next topic… Easter Eggs!
Here are some Easter Eggs I noticed in this movie, ranging from easy-to-notice first and harder last:
Spider-Man’s ringtone: If you have ever heard Spider-Man’s theme song, then this should be obvious that Spider-Man’s phone’s tone was his own theme song.
McDonald’s: When Electro is looking around at one point, a McDonald’s sign is clear in the background.
Stan Lee cameo: Stan Lee, Spider-Man’s creator, was a guy in the Graduation Day’s crowd when Gwen was talking.
Itsy-Bitsy Spider: This song played while Electro and Spider-Man were fighting at one point.
Whatever a Spider Can: Green Goblin said this phrase when he was talking about Spider-Man at one point.
Doctor Octopus: Doc Ock’s arms were clearly in the background at Oscorp, and in the end credits.
Vulture: Vulture’s folded-up wings were an easy spot at Oscorp and the end credits.
Black Cat: “Felicia” was a worker for Oscorp in this movie. Black Cat’s real name is Felicia Hardy, and this was not “Hardy” to spot for most.
Mysterio: In the end credits, Mysterio’s mask and green mist are pictured.
Alistair Smythe: “Mr. Smythe” is actually a comics Spider-Man villain, but in this movie, he was a businessman. He probably won’t appear later, but still, this was cool.
Rhino’s underwear: At one point, Rhinos’ underpants are revealed, and we see little rhinos. They are pretty hard to make out, because they do not look like rhinos, but they are definitely there.
So, those were the Easter Eggs I noticed. There are more I didn’t spot, for sure, but those were the ones that I managed to catch. So, overall, I would give this movie a 88%. As a letter grade I will give it a B. It was good, but could have more to it. It was fun watching, and I’m glad I chose it to see. Although I still have a few things about the movie: Felicia. I automatically knew that she was Black Cat, but why didn’t she have white hair like the comics? This puzzled me. Another thing I liked was the kid, who I looked up, and found out his name is Jorge. I liked Jorge. He was brave, and even Spider-Man admits that. I feel like he was almost a mini-Peter in the way that he was picked on, and liked to create things. I still don’t know why Rhino didn’t just get him over with sooner, but whatever, Rhino’s still dumb as heck. So… those are my thoughts on Amazing Spider-Man 2.
And my final Easter Egg… the one that I am most proud of… the one that no one else noticed… Andy Warhol was in this movie! If you looked closely, while Peter was looking up the train station that his dad rode in, then you could see Andy Warhol’s name in there, saying something about him on the train station’s facts. So as far as I can tell, I was the only one who saw this.
