This is a post that I have been trying to figure out how to write for about a week, maybe ten days now and each time I’ve come to approach it I can’t quite figure out how to get my thoughts down clearly. Normally I’d put in a little synopsis of the story but there are a few different plot lines that the film focuses around, and it’s hard not to stray into spoiler territory. We have Peter Parker’s relationship with Gwen Stacey, his friendship with Harry Osborn and his Aunt May. Now lets throw in the mystery surrounding his parents death and the difficulties that Harry Osborn is facing as he takes charge at his now dead Dad’s business, OsCorp. Norman Osborn dying isn’t a spoiler as he dies very early on, which is a waste of Colin Cooper if you ask me.

Let’s not forget Max Dillon who soon becomes Electro, Jamie Foxx looks like he had fun here, and his first of all idealisation of Spider-Man and then his pure hatred. Then we have the emergence of the Green Goblin and the Rhino, who looks kick-ass in a mech suit as opposed to a rubber one.

There is also minor plotlines with Aunt May and Gwen Stacey that I noticed, oh and another one for Harry Osborn.

So we have a lot going on in this movie and that is one thing that I’ve found I’m a little annoyed about. In my, humble, opinion we have three, maybe even four movies worth of story here. It almost feels like, as a movie goer, I’ve been mugged off a little. I’ve spoken on my blog before about how I was a little bored by the first film, but after watching it again I’ve got a lot more appreciation for it. So I was looking forward to seeing what the writers, director and producers did with this second movie. The first was used to re-establish the character and the world Spider-Man/Peter Parker exist in. My natural assumption was that they would have more freedom to give us a film where they are not establishing characters and relationships, but instead we get a film which is loaded up with at least four major story lines.

The acting is good, the direction is good. The action and special effects are breath taking and its a very easy film to watch and the story is easily followed. Its all very compact though, we get a small snippet of story and then BOOM huge leaps take the movie forward to a conclusion. I’ll speak more of that in the spoilers at the end of the post.

There are a fair few little Easter Eggs throughout the film to watch out for 😉

It was really good to see Spider-Man in action as he never kept his mouth shut. Throughout the opening action scene he is constantly mouthing off and almost being too casual in his crime fighting, its a lot of fun to watch 😀

Overall I did like this movie, it just feels like they’ve rushed over a lot of good story to build for future movies.

 

*****Spoilers Ahead*****

 

 

*****I’m Not Joking*****

 

 

*****Last Chance******

 

 

*****Don’t Say I Didn’t Warn You*****

 

As I said in the first part of the post there is a lot of story lines in this movie, I can understand the Green Goblin one being rushed through and altered (The storyline was a staple of Raimi’s trilogy) but I would have loved to have seen Colin Cooper as The Green Goblin, although a part of me kind of hopes that although we’re told Norman Osborn is dead I can’t recall seeing him dead. Even if we did that doesn’t mean anything, but I think that’s more wishful thinking because, as I said, I would have loved to have seen Cooper’s Green Goblin.

Speaking of Cooper’s Norman Osborn, we see him dying of an illness when he could be, I dunno maybe in his fifties and he tells Harry that it’s hereditary and it’ll start showing in Harry soon, which it does. He goes from looking pretty well to quite sick very quickly. When he injects himself with something he thinks will cure him it goes bad very quickly and he just so happens to crawl to the weapons and armour that make him the Green Goblin. Earlier on in the film he is trying to get Spider-Man’s blood as he thinks it’ll cure him. There’s more to this miracle cure but my mind is a little foggy with those details.

The Rhino is in the film for all of about a minute. Most of what you see in the trailer is in the movie, but how it is set up in the film it works well. As Spider-Man is about to fight the Rhino the film ends. This bit works really well but why did we not get to see Aleksei Sytsevich becoming the Rhino? Paul Giamatti looks awesome, if his accent makes it all but impossible to understand what he’s saying. But we get him before the Rhino suit at the start of the film and then in the suit at the end.

Electro get’s a fair bit of screen time and I think is pretty well handled, although the Max Dillon part of the story did remind me a little of Edward Nygma from Batman Forever.

I mentioned that I thought Colin Cooper was a little wasted, so was Sally Field. She is one of the most talented actors we’ve had the pleasure of seeing, give her more time to explore her relationship with Peter.

There is a reference to Peter Parker selling pictures to the Daily Bugle, which annoyed me as I love that part of the Spider-Man universe. I really want to see J. Jonah Jameson again, but only if J.K. Simmons is recast. he was born to play Jameson!

Peter and Gwen. Early on in the film Gwen dumps him, because he is guilt ridden because he broke a promise to her Dad. This wasn’t needed in my opinion. It was there just to add a little more conflict to Parker’s life, just have them being happy and maybe dealing with Gwen having a chance to go Oxford (I think it was Oxford). That would have worked better for me as a storyline then them trying to remain friends, there’s a cute conversation they have about being friends but I’d rather see Peter Parker in a steady relationship and not moping about. After she dies I can accept him moping (I did warn you about the spoilers).

I stick by what I said earlier, there’s a lot of story here that is rushed through. I do think they are trying to build a franchise with the legs similar to what Marvel are doing with their movies. They can do it with the right people, but don’t short change us next time. The way that Green Goblin is handled in this film is a great example. Dane DeHaan is really good here and I would have liked to have seen more of his Harry Osborn as a friend to Peter Parker and not as an enemy.

This is a good film but it’s one that is there to move the series along and build up to the Sinister Six. We don’t need so many plot lines in the next film, give us some decent focus on exploring individual characters and relationships as well as Spider-Man saving the day.