THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN 2

Spider-Man returns to swing and deal with angst in The Amazing Spider-Man 2, the latest Marvel summer blockbuster.  This reboot of the Spider-Man franchise adds more villains and more drama but isn't all that satisfying.

It's high school graduation for Peter Parker (Andrew Garfield) and Gwen Stacy (Emma Stone), and the course of their love never could run smooth.  Peter is in love with her but is afraid her being around him could get her hurt (reinforced by his imagining her dead father -- to whom Peter promised he'd stay away from Gwen -- staring at him), while Gwen is considering a scholarship to Oxford, taking her far away from Peter.  And there's still the mystery of why Peter's parents Richard and May Parker (Campbell Scott, Embeth Davidzt) vanished, and what Aunt May (Sally Field) is doing to keep Peter provided for.

But superheroes need super villains, and ASM2 introduces two (technically three, but the last one is barely in the movie).  Max Dillon (Jaime Foxx) is a mousy, angry nerd who idolizes Spider-Man.  When an accident gives him electrical powers, he becomes Electro -- and his hero worship turns to hatred when he feels like Spider-Man is stealing all of his attention.  Meanwhile, Peter's old friend Harry Osborn (Dane DeHaan) has just returned, inherited Oscorp, and found out that he's dying of the same degenerative disease that killed his father.  And Harry thinks the cure lies in Spider-Man's blood.

While ASM2 has more interesting villains than its predecessor, it also has some of the same annoyances.  The action often relies on a combination of slow-motion and freeze-frame shots, which is meant to show speed but gets distracting at times.  While Stone is spirited as the smart, spirited love interest with a mind of her own, Garfield always seemed more like a sullen cool kid than the nerd Peter Parker was supposed to be.  Jamie Foxx is fun as the uber-fan of Spidey, but most of that vanishes under a deeper voice and glowing blue makeup.  And Dane DeHaan is fine as Harry, though his villainous transformation happens so late in the movie it's almost unnecessary.  (The final villain could have been left out entirely.)  And the conspiracies seem to exist solely to keep churning out sequels.

The Amazing Spider-Man 2 has some exciting sequences, but the same problems as the last time (not to mention some glaring absences of subtlety) make it a movie that can be entertaining and then forgotten almost immediately.

Overall grade: B-
Reviewed by James Lynch

THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN

Spider-Man is back: back to the beginning. The Amazing Spider-Man is the reboot of the wall-crawler's franchise, leaving behind the Tobey Maguire films for a darker, more conspiratorial movie.

As a child, Peter Parker was left with Uncle Ben (Martin Sheen) and Aunt May (Sally Field) when someone seemed to be after his scientist father Richard and mother Mary (Campbell Scott and Embeth Davidtz, appearing very briefly in the film). Jump ahead, and Peter Parker (Andrew Garfield) is a lonely teenager picked on by jock Flash Thompson (Chris Zylka) and with a crush on Gwen Stacey (Emma Stone). An accidental discovery leads Peter to Dr. Curt Conners (Rhys Ifans), a colleague of Richard Parker. Curt and Richard worked together on splicing together human and animal DNA; Curt imagines this would both let him regrow his missing arm and improve humanity by removing its weakness. Of course, during the visit Peter Parker winds up in an area where experimental spiders are, and when one bites him, it leads to superhuman spider powers -- and, eventually, the spandex-clad Spider-Man. Similarly, Curt's experimenting on himself transforms him into the Lizard: a giant, disturbingly powerful cgi creature with plans for his transformational formula...

Oddly, Gwen Stacey isn't just the romantic interest; she's the center of several plotlines. She's the daughter of Captain Stacy (Denis Leary), the police officer determined to arrest the masked vigilante. She's the intern of Curt Conners, involving her in the movie's scientific endeavors. And she's a "regular" pretty girl at school, turning up in the halls and classrooms to run into Peter.

As with most comic book relaunches, The Amazing Spider-Man spends too much time retelling an origin we largely know. While the parental conspiracy is new (and a led-in to the sequel), pretty much anyone who's heard of Spider-Man knows the fate of Uncle Ben and its affect on Peter Parker. Andrew Garfield plays Peter Parker more as a sullen, rebellious teen than geeky outsider, neither particularly good not bad in the role. Emma Stone is a bit better as the teen with numerous responsibilities, but Rhys Ifans is fairly boring as the movie's villain, who goes from put-upon scientist to cgi monster interested in his own power and transforming others without their consent. The action is well done -- but it doesn't really kick in until quite late in the movie. The Amazing Spider-Man is decent, but amazing it ain't.

Overall grade: B-

Reviewed by James Lynch