Sunday, May 18, 2014

MYST #5: The Amazing Spider-Man 2



CAUTION CONTAINS SPOILERS

There is nothing more fun than going to a drive-in in summer temperature. This past Saturday was one of those days with the Amazing Spider-Man 2 was showing. The Marc Webb directed film was starring the first movie's cast with Andrew Garfield as Spider-Man/Peter Parker and Emma Stone as Gwen Stacy, Peter's love interest. The movie centers around Peter and Gwen's post-high school decisions, an unfortunate electrical engineer who turns into an electric villain named Electro (played by Jamie Foxx), and Peter's dying friend, Harry Osbourne (Dane DeHaan), who turns into the Green Goblin while trying to save himself. 

The movie overall was very entertaining. There were many action scenes that were new due to the eccentric villains. The shots were taken in New York City that were recognizable, such as an action scene in Time Square. This aspect made the movie take on a more realistic feel. These were accompanied by a lot of landscape shots which, in addition, showed Spider-Man to be small in comparison to the whole city. The characters were well-developed and were portrayed well by the different actors and actresses. There was a clear and distinct chemistry between Peter and Gwen, played by Garfield and Stone who themselves have been known for their own chemistry. This differs from another Spider-man franchise, Spider-Man made in 2002, which lacked the chemistry between Peter (Tobey Maguire) and Mary Jane (Kirsten Dunst).

One of the very distinct cinematic scenes was when Gwen was falling to her death and Spider-Man was trying to save her. What made this scene so emotional was that the fall was shot in slow motion. Accompanying this was the dramatic music composed by Johnny Marr, Hans Zimmer, and Pharrell Williams. What finally topped this off is the back and forth close-ups of Gwen and Spider-Man and the web trying to catch Gwen. The tears coming out of Gwen's eyes are clearly seen and her emotions being on a sense of dread that unfortunately comes true.

Overall, my final reaction to this movie was anger. Gwen was one of the best love interests in the superhero franchise. Bound for Oxford for microbiology after high school is brutally ended by a feud between Parker and Osbourne. Granted, this was generally what happened in the comic books but it still was not a high note for women success in movies.


I give this movie a 3 out of 5.

1 comment:

  1. Good review Lucy! I saw the first Amazing Spiderman and liked it a lot, but I haven't been hearing very good things about the second one. I was hoping that the Amazing Spiderman 2 would have continued on and been as good as the first one, but I guess that's not the case.. I will probably end up seeing it anyway because I like the actors in it. Once again, nice review!!

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