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“The Amazing Spider-man 2” was a mess of a movie.
The movie confounded me with the choices that the film makers were making as this series has pretty much devolved into a series of origin stories without a good story to help keep me engaged. I feel like at this point in the life span of the super-hero movie genre, we would understand that we honestly do not need to hear the back story of every character ever put on screen, especially for characters that we already know. Spider-man is a teen who got bit by a spider and got super powers. I got it, you can move on; however, the movie (I refuse to call it a “film”) keeps trying to dig deeper and deeper into the origin of this character that needs no further introduction.
Marvel’s own “Guardians of the Galaxy,” which prominently featured a talking bi-pedal raccoon and a tree person didn’t delve into the origin of these characters and frankly, we didn’t need to.
Not only do we not need any further information about the “how” of Spider-man, but the movie actively pulls me out of the fantasy by asking me to stretch my ability to suspend disbelief to the breaking point by making every single plot point in that story thread something that was happening by design no matter how impossibly convoluted and convenient.
In order for the movie to work, I am asked to believe that Parker’s father worked for Oscorp and developed a super spider to cure his dying partner. We are also asked to believe that Pete’s dad made the spider only compatible with Parker’s DNA so when the spider bit Pete in the first movie, only he could have had the super heroic reaction it did to Parker. This idea places us firmly on shaky ground because in the first movie, Peter accidentally finds those very specific super-spiders by stumbling into them.
If it sounds confusing and a little dumb to you, don’t worry because it is. In fact, this is only a portion of that overall story arc and it only gets more ridiculous. Aside from that, they still didn’t resolve anything by the end of the second movie.
I’ve only really touched the surface of the “A” story line so far, believe it or not. The movie also has the origin of Elektro as its “B” storyline, which is no less convoluted; however, it found a way to be far less believable. The “C” storyline is where we are introduced to Pete’s boyhood friend Harry Osborne and the origin of the Green Goblin. There is a “D” story line where Pete and his on again/off again girlfriend Gwen Stacy decide to go on again and off again. There is an “E” story that touches on the Rhino’s origins, and finally there is even an “F” storyline where Aunt May is hiding the fact that she is having a career change.
I’m not sure about you, but once we have six different concurrent stories, where four are origin stories, and the only one that was really interesting or engaging is the one you ended – you have a problem.
The stink of ambitious Sony executives is all over this movie and it’s frustrating because it seems like they just have no idea how or why world building works but they want to take a go at it anyway.
My advice to Sony is simple: Make a film with a compelling and well told story first. Once that first step has been completed, sprinkle in the clues and callbacks to past and future movies in the context of that story without distracting from it. This process cannot be rushed as excitement needs to build over time. This type of world building needs to have that lift hill that brings you to the peak and lets you see what may be coming ahead of you, but not at the expense of the overall ride. A launch from zero to sixty miles per hour is a valid way to entertain someone but without the substance and elements that keep the excitement up, no one will want to take the ride again.
