The Amazing Spider-Man 2

[jgsugden]

I know AICN is not respected here, but I pretty much agree with the Quint review of the film... http://www.aintitcool.com/node/67172 ... with the exception of his approval of Giamatti as Rhino.  Quite a waste.  I found all villains to have been badly bumbled with poor direction putting them over the top (I'm betting there was strong pressure to be like Marvel/Disney and not be afraid to be more comic book-like ... but the people in charge did not know how to pull that off).  If you're going to go so far out there as to have Max be a man made of electricity, you need to find a better way to do the Rhino than turning it into the nightmare some furry had after seeing Pacific Rim.  I'd have still been critical of a 'Were-rhino' approach or a man in a rubber suit, but it would have been better than a mecha-battle armor designed to look like a Rhino for no good reason.

[Ghambit]

A lot of the qualms I see have to do with suspension of comic-book disbelief.  ASM is to Marvel as Abrams' Trek is to TOS.  Look at it that way.  It's meant to be a caricature; a semi-artistic foray if you will.  To that end, I quite enjoy them.  Note: I dont particularly like Abrams' Trek.   

[Maven]

The emotional core the script explored seemed to be about how characters made what appeared to be an unloving choice (deciding what's best for the other without regard to their choice) in order to protect or help the other in a way that wasn't immediately apparent.


I was noticeably bothered that Norman Osborn supposedly had decades before the illness progressed to a point that left him dead, while they made it seem Harry had weeks and that the disease only asserted itself shortly before his return.

[Lakov_Sanite]

Everything in ASM2 can be boiled down to:

Why....?
Because reasons.

[SurfD]

I was noticeably bothered that Norman Osborn supposedly had decades before the illness progressed to a point that left him dead, while they made it seem Harry had weeks and that the disease only asserted itself shortly before his return.

Yeah, that had more to do with the incredibly poor job the film did at showing the passage of time.  I mean, fuck, from what I could tell after sitting back and thinking about it, the lion's share of the movie takes place over at least half a year or more: Harry comes back shortly after Gwen and Peter "split" and Peter has been spending at least a few months shadowing her up to the climactic final "major" fight.   They just do a really shit job of showing that time passing. Then there is another timelapse of about 5 months before the "return" of Spiderman to new-york and the Rhino scene.

[Maven]

Everything in ASM2 can be boiled down to:

Why....?
Because reasons.

Yeah!   There was a loose coherency to the entire work. At times the rapid pace and energy was great (interactions between Peter and Gwen), but other times things move so fast that if you stopped and thought about what and why things were happening, it doesn't hold up. I agree with points made about how there was too much going on -- Green Goblin almost felt shoe-horned into the piece just so

Then there is another timelapse of about 5 months before the "return" of Spiderman to new-york and the Rhino scene.

That scene ... so many issues with it. Did the kid's choice make sense in terms of the script? I thought, with regards to the narrative, that it was similar to the grounds of Gwen's choice (and setting up Peter making that same choice), but unlike Gwen knowing and accepting the risks of her decisions (not having it made for her), the kid acted on a naive interpretation that would get him killed. Gwen had a purpose for putting herself in harm's way, the kid was throwing his life away.

Rhino fired at least one volley *past* the kid to suppress the police so Rhino & kid could have their moment! ("Why don't the police just grab the kid?" "Because SUPPRESSING FIREEEEE!!" "Why didn't that cause the kid to absolutely shit his pants from the physical response alone?!")

But it was cool, am I right? Guys? Where you going?


Thought it interesting that Peter made the same choice as his father with Harry and attempted to do with Gwen.

[jgsugden]

If you were rating the modern films based on Marvel (Spideys, X-Men, Avengers/MCU, Punishers, Blades, etc...) from the past 15 or so years, where would this movie fall? 

The good things the two leads do pull it up from the bottom of the bottom tiers, but I'd say it rivals Spidey 3 for the worst Spidey movie and it doesn't come close to the middle tiers. 

[MediumHigh]

This movie was garbage. Not even the special effects could save it from souring me to anything spider-man coming out from that studio. I already protested amazing spider-man 1 but, god could this at least be 4 in the scale of bad to good? Can I at least be able to turn my brain off and enjoy the special effects? Nope for every 2 seconds of satisfaction you get 1 hour of brain draining, mind numbing, soul sucking agony starting with the horrible indie hipster shit that belongs in the used CD's trashed bin of dated and grossly inappropriate soundtrack. The lack of drama or tension is this movie is astounding as the movie serves extra large slices of ham for everyone except gwen stacy..... who could have left the plot earlier. Her arc does shit. Her break up does shit. Her  I'm putting this at batman forever level bad. This is a warning label to stop giving these fuckwitts money so Marvel/Disney can purchase the spider-man movie license. As it stands now this franchise is being used to funnel drug money.

[Maven]

Speaking of not speaking about this: Box Office numbers at 14 days of release show Spider-Man's foreign gross at 80% (400mil) of the full run of the first, while it is still 100 million off domestically. 90 mil opening weekend versus 60 mil of the first.

So it looks like it'll pull down more money than its predecessor on the strength of foreign markets, but the big picture is the franchise as a whole might be wearing thin.

Compared to other outings in the Spider-Man series, though, this is a disappointing debut. It's tough to compare this to the first Amazing Spider-Man, which opened on a Tuesday ahead of the Fourth of July weekend. The best comparable titles are the first and third movie in Sam Raimi's original trilogy, which also debuted on the first weekend of May. Those opened to $114.8 million and $151.1 million, respectively, with much lower average ticket prices and no 3D premiums.

Foreign gross of the original Spider-Man series sat around 50/50 domestic / gross, with SM3 at 40/60. The ratio for ASM2 is 25/75.

[Merusk]

That guy's drawing the wrong conclusion. He's right when he said that the movies needed to be "amazing" so soon after the Rami pictures and they weren't.  That's probably the bigger reason for the failure.

As for the numbers, ignore the F/D ratio of the originals. They're 14 years old now and the world has changed a ton.  That ratio is reflected in almost all movies these days. That's why you're seeing the shift in things that appeal to more than just Americans and a HELL of a lot less "go Team America!" than even 10 years ago.  Lots of wealthy people in other countries that were 3rd world 15 years ago are going to the movies today.  I read an article that this is why GI Joe, when it was released, was an International force, not a US one.

Avengers: 41D/ 59F
CA2: 35D/ 64F
Rio 2: 27D/ 73F
300 2: 32D/ 68 F
Robocop: 24D/ 75F
Jack Ryan: 38D/ 62F
Need for Speed: 21D/ 79F
Transcendence: 34D/ 66F

[Maven]

That was why I included those numbers -- to show the trend of foreign gross's increasing importance. I don't know if I can look at domestic-only numbers now when people talk about "Who's King At The Box Office?"

The influence of business on creative products like you mentioned with G.I. Joe is one of those realities of movie-making and any multidisciplinary projects I've come to accept.

[Evildrider]

So the new plan to keep the Spiderman license is to just put the next movie in 2018. 

[Riggswolfe]

I was just coming here to post about that and the Sinister Six movie being written and directed by Drew Goddard. (Which is at least semi-hopeful but I bet Joss Whedon called him and teased him. "Hey, working for Sony on their shitty Spider Man spin-off huh? Cool. Oh, I've got to go, Avengers 2 won't direct itself after all!" )

http://www.aintitcool.com/node/68104

[eldaec]

I finally saw this last night.

Was pretty dull. And a great many things made no sense. Also the CGI was really bad.

But was better than ASM1 and strangely refreshing to watch a comic book film that didn't follow quite the same rigid structure of the MCU and didn't have a wink to the other films or a comic book easter egg every ten minutes. Garfield was much better than I remember him being in ASM1. By the end I was probably more interested in Sony Spiderman than I was at the start.

[MediumHigh]

I finally saw this last night.

Was pretty dull. And a great many things made no sense. Also the CGI was really bad.

But was better than ASM1 and strangely refreshing to watch a comic book film that didn't follow quite the same rigid structure of the MCU and didn't have a wink to the other films or a comic book easter egg every ten minutes. Garfield was much better than I remember him being in ASM1. By the end I was probably more interested in Sony Spiderman than I was at the start.

Wow this movie was trash and I nearly hurled popcorn at the screen by the end of that shit show. To say ASM1, a movie I still refuse to sit down and watch, was worse.... dear god.

[Ironwood]

Just to be clear, ASM1 was NOT worse than ASM2.

ASM2 was a hell of a lot worse, mostly because it tried to answer the only hinted at retarded questions in the first one.

The answers ?  More and deeper retardery.

GRIMDARK.  WHOOOOOoooo.