The now-booming business of IMAX is starting to have a lot to answer for. I'm all for big blockbusters; despite my past review quota, a large swathe of what I actually pay to see at the cinema is big, loud, and often daft Hollywood popcorn fodder of the highest order. And I've no shame in that. But now that screens have gotten bigger, sound systems have gotten louder, and anything a filmmaker dreams up can be thrown at the screen (providing the studio has the money, that is), well... you end up with things like the Transformers trilogy.
Or indeed, The Amazing Spider-Man 2.
It's not for a lack of trying to be great fun that this sequel fails - it's precisely because of it. Films that try to be all things to all people often fall far short of the mark they're aiming for. In looking to build on his solid first effort, director Marc Webb has seemingly aimed for a kiddie's market and made a mega-budget episode of The Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers, whilst also throwing in some pretty bleak adult drama for good measure. And a side order of physical slapstick. And Jamie Foxx disappearing into a plug socket. Yes, I said plug socket.
To skim over the story, Spider-Man is now part of the fabric of New York, Peter Parker (the ever-charming Andrew Garfield) having grown comfortable with his alter-ego, despite being haunted by visions of his girlfriend's father, deceased Police Captain George Stacy (Denis Leary, who's over-serious grizzled visage fading into life made me laugh each time I saw it). Whilst juggling his college graduation with saving New Yorkers from dreadful third-rate villians such as Paul Giamatti's Rhino (one of the most appalling wastes of talent and screentime I've seen in a long while), he has to contend with Gwen Stacy (Emma Stone) feeling left hung out to dry (as if we didn't have enough of Kirsten Dunst's pissing and moaning in the first trilogy) and his supposed 'best friend' Harry Osborn (Dane DeHaan) returning from, well, somewhere after years of obviously not giving two hoots about Parker. At least in the first trilogy there was a slow build to James Franco (the original and best Harry) becoming the Green Goblin - or Green Goblin II, as the fans might have it. In this film, he wanders onto set and starts playing a slimey moneyed villain from the get-go. And this is supposed to be Spidey's best friend?! Give me a f*cking break.
But none of these folks feature on any of the major posters, oh no. Forget Rhino, Gwen Stacy OR the token appearance of Green Goblin - there's a new kid in town, or rather a new loser, replete with bad haircut, bad teeth and a bad line in origin stories. Max Dillon (the aforementioned Jamie Foxx) is a forgotten employee at Oscorp, who bears a striking resemblance to Jim Carrey's Riddler in more ways than one. The intelligent geek with delusions of grandeur, the crummy apartment complete with a shrine to Spider-Man on his wall (he saved his life a few minutes ago, in case you'd got caught up with one of the other dozen storylines this film wrestles with). After falling into a tank of genetically modified electric eels (naturally) he becomes Electro, his teeth magically fixed, and is clearly very upset with the entire world for not paying attention to him. Cue expected chaos, and Electro turning himself and his snazzy rubber suit into electricity and disappearing into a plug socket (yes, once again, I said plug socket). Oh, and a climactic scene in a power station where the musical refrains of Itsy Bitsy Spider are played out as he throws Spider-Man around the transmission towers. This is the sound of electricity making the music, by the way - just in case you needed that clarifying.
I wouldn't normally expand on the plot of any film to such a large degree, but The Amazing Spider-Man 2 appears to have not learned anything from the mistakes made by Raimi (or indeed Sony, depending on who you want to believe) on Spider-Man 3. Daft villians with ropey origins, friends becoming foes, girlfriends growing tired of their man's heroics - a familiar case of too many cooks spoiling what could have been a pretty tasty broth. I've no idea how much control Webb had over the production, but it definitely feels like a producer or two has wanted to see their favourite villain in there, and Webb hasn't had the clout to keep things simple and on track. If Raimi couldn't do it, Webb stood no chance. But hey, who knows - no-one sets out to make a bad film. But it feels like the opportunity to go wild on a huge canvas - and the thought of what you can do with 3D spidey-swinging on an IMAX screen, a million speakers firing out a mind-melting soundtrack (it's a dubstep nightmare in places) - well it would seem to have gotten the best of Webb.
In some ways you can see why this film is what it is - a very different beast to, say, Nolan's The Dark Knight, which took a darker origin film and expanded it into a serious, adult crime drama on an epic scale. The Amazing Spider-Man 2 plays like a kid's film turned up to eleven with a sprinkling of drama for the parents, and with that in mind it could be the case that as an adult, this film just isn't aimed at me. But as I said at the beginning, I usually love big, loud, and often daft Hollywood popcorn fodder... maybe I'm just growing old.
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