By Ed Sum (The Vintage Tempest)
Oh just what kind of tangled web have you weaved, Spidey? Stan Lee can have a field day narrating The Amazing Spider-Man 2 if given the chance. Technically he has, as part of Kellogg’s The Amazing Spider-Man 2 Web-Sling Game. In the past he provided the intros for the cartoon, Spider-Man and his Amazing Friends, but for this movie, maybe that would help explain the bits and pieces that’s cobbled together to make up this overtly graphic novel sized drama.
Technically, this film is a marvel to behold. The 3D elements are well placed and when viewed in RealD, viewers are flying in the air with the greatest of ease with the web-slinger. Even the slug fests are dynamic, but that does not help fix a rather long story that requires knowledge of what happened in the first act from the first film.
Although this movie recaps what’s important from it, the disappearance of Richard and Mary Parker, their significance permeates Marc Webb’s retelling of what makes a man a spider (with a screenplay worked on by James Vanderbilt, Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci).
But Spider-Man is no Batman. Parker became a web-slinging avenger because of Uncle Ben and the values he impressed upon the young lad. Even though shades of Batman style villainy can be felt in this film, the depths it goes is that of to not introduce Kingpin just yet into the narrative.
To figure out what’s going on requires viewers to be familiar with parts of the Spider-Man canon or what comic book series the film’s plot takes its moments from.
Continue reading “It’s Almost Amazing for Spider-Man’s Second Outing”
