I went to see the 10pm showing last night. Honestly it wasn't any where near as bad as I was expecting after hearing various reactions. I give it an 8/10 overall as far as entertainment goes. Of course I still like TWS a bit more but I honestly don't think TASM2 is as bad as the Batman and Robin comparisons some reviewers have mentioned. At the very least I feel I enjoyed TASM2 more than the first TASM. I'd like to think that I'm a Spidey fan but traditionally I've been more of a Bond/Batman/Indiana Jones kinda person.
I saw SM 2 & 3 on the big screen but skipped TASM, I guess you could call me more a fan of the Raimi films rather than Spidey overall as a character, I watched BTAS on fox and only ever saw a few episodes here and there of Spider-man. That said I was invested in the story of the Raimi films and I guess nothing I saw of TASM really made me think it was something I really wanted to see and I was more looking forward to TDKR and Skyfall in 2012. To tell you the truth I've only ever seen TASM through once and haven't been able to really get into it since although I've seen bits and pieces here and there many times. I'm actually going to watch the first one again later tonight and see if TASM2 has changed any perspectives.
That's a little a bit of what shapes my perspectives, now going into my thoughts on the TASM2. My honest opinion, I liked it. Like I said 8/10. Something interesting, I really feel the marketing job on this film was piss poor. That's where they dropped the ball and revealed far too much of the final scenes of the movie with reveal on the rhino fight and the Green Goblin and one thing that stood out, the way the dialogue from the Times square confrontation was cut in the previews/trailers and BTS stuff really made Sidey come across as a prick toward Max/Electro. It practically made me dislike Garfield as Peter. Seeing it unfold in the final film the effect was totally different and I thought Spidey was very likable in that scene, infact that's the moment where I warmed up to Garfield's take on the character and depending on where things go from here I might wind up liking this version of the character and mythos better overall. That moment sold me that Garfield's Spidey is truly a genuine good guy and they weren't going to make him an unlikable ass.
I think the thing that really sold me on this was the one thing that seems to turn most people off, The cheese and camp. Honestly I guess this shows my vintage, but this movie took me back to stuff like Superman 3 with Richard Pryor from the '80s. I don't totally hate Superman 3, it's IV that's really bad. I have a nostalgic soft spot for those late 70s early 80s style action/adventure films i.e Roger Moore's Bond and the Donner Superman films. I actually enjoyed the stuff at Ravencroft with Kafka(his comeuppence was classic and I like how they cut away to imply that whatever happens with him must have been horrible). His portrayal wasn't as OTT as it sounded in the descriptions, at least for me. I really like the stuff with Electro. Honestly I was surprised with how graphic/gruesome they went with his transformation(that's one thing the trailers didn't spoil). Any kinda of fire burn/injuries are creepy/scary as hell for me and the whole waking up in front of the crematorium evoked memories of me being terrified of the crematory scene from Diamonds are Forever, another nostalgic soft spot for me. I enjoyed the power plant fight with Electro. As cool as Electro was, I wouldn't mind if he's dead, dead. It was a pretty cool "death scene", maybe my favorite of the Spidey films.
Some other things I liked about the film, I thought Emma Stone was awesome, sad she won't be around any more but I thought they handled her character and the historical story arc of her character pretty well. I was surprised by Dane Dehann. I wasn't expecting him to survive the film but I'm interested in seeing where they take his arc. I think he's done more in one film with the character than Franco was able to in the entire first trilogy. I should I have no real issues with Franco's rendition of the character, I just found what they did in this film to be far more interesting. His character isn't an outright villain at first, he's just a character very desperate to save his own life and that instinct kinda consumes him and he becomes truly monstrous. His Goblin is actually really freaky/scary for me. That shot where he's hovering between Gwen and Peter at the Power Plant, his facial expressions combined with transformation and his hissing it's truly demonic. Right now I made another nostalgic connection, The Return of the Living Dead part 2. Yeah there's definitely an '80s horror movie kinda feel to Electro and Green Goblin in this film.
I thought Rhino was all right. He's just a secondary/sub-villain/henchman type character, so I had no real problem overall with how he was used in the movie. I played Ultimate Spider-man on the PS2 in the run up to SM3 back in 2007 so the whole idea of the Robo-Rhino is nothing new to me and I had little problems with it because of that. The only issue was that yeah they did kinda ruin the full surprise of the ending scenes of the film with the marketing. I had no problem with that being the final scene of the film, Sony and co. must have been going for a "the name's Bond, James Bond" kinda effect from the end of Casino Royale. The ending theme "It's on again" is kinda like a Bond theme. Overall I liked the score by Zimmer. So far this year I think I still like Jackman's score for TWS a little better but I loved some of the more tranquil kinda sounds in this film. At some points it really reminded me of the the Spawn TAS score from the first season and even some kinda old school video gamey type parts. For some reason those sounds resonate with me. Speaking of Bond again, I liked how the opening scene with the plane while kinda disconnected from the rest of movie is like a throwback to something from Goldfinger or the opening of Moonraker.
So what would I say was wrong with the film? Aside from the terrible marketing, perhaps a criticism is that TASM2 is perhaps too derivative of other things, it's very by the numbers and you could play a drinking game of the spot the equivalent scene from any number of CBMs, although it's derivative of things I like so that's not an issue. The whole underground train station was very contrived and I still don't understand who built that or why Pete's dad was using that as a secret lab without the government or Oscorp finding out. Perhaps it was explained but I missed it. But yeah that has to be one of the most unwieldy plot development I can remember from recent memory. Very clunky and almost as if they had an idea for the secret station and just had to fit it into the plot somehow. The whole plot with the blood seemed kinda iffy too but that I can attribute to classic comic book style plotting. I really think more people should read more comics, especially the stuff considered average or even bad. It'll give you a new appreciation of the stories in many movies. Things could be a lot worse.
Well that sums up my thoughts on TASM2. Like I said 8/10 for me. I liked it better than TASM and it's better than SM-3 for me. For this year though TWS is still my favorite. That one's 10/10 for me.
I saw SM 2 & 3 on the big screen but skipped TASM, I guess you could call me more a fan of the Raimi films rather than Spidey overall as a character, I watched BTAS on fox and only ever saw a few episodes here and there of Spider-man. That said I was invested in the story of the Raimi films and I guess nothing I saw of TASM really made me think it was something I really wanted to see and I was more looking forward to TDKR and Skyfall in 2012. To tell you the truth I've only ever seen TASM through once and haven't been able to really get into it since although I've seen bits and pieces here and there many times. I'm actually going to watch the first one again later tonight and see if TASM2 has changed any perspectives.
That's a little a bit of what shapes my perspectives, now going into my thoughts on the TASM2. My honest opinion, I liked it. Like I said 8/10. Something interesting, I really feel the marketing job on this film was piss poor. That's where they dropped the ball and revealed far too much of the final scenes of the movie with reveal on the rhino fight and the Green Goblin and one thing that stood out, the way the dialogue from the Times square confrontation was cut in the previews/trailers and BTS stuff really made Sidey come across as a prick toward Max/Electro. It practically made me dislike Garfield as Peter. Seeing it unfold in the final film the effect was totally different and I thought Spidey was very likable in that scene, infact that's the moment where I warmed up to Garfield's take on the character and depending on where things go from here I might wind up liking this version of the character and mythos better overall. That moment sold me that Garfield's Spidey is truly a genuine good guy and they weren't going to make him an unlikable ass.
I think the thing that really sold me on this was the one thing that seems to turn most people off, The cheese and camp. Honestly I guess this shows my vintage, but this movie took me back to stuff like Superman 3 with Richard Pryor from the '80s. I don't totally hate Superman 3, it's IV that's really bad. I have a nostalgic soft spot for those late 70s early 80s style action/adventure films i.e Roger Moore's Bond and the Donner Superman films. I actually enjoyed the stuff at Ravencroft with Kafka(his comeuppence was classic and I like how they cut away to imply that whatever happens with him must have been horrible). His portrayal wasn't as OTT as it sounded in the descriptions, at least for me. I really like the stuff with Electro. Honestly I was surprised with how graphic/gruesome they went with his transformation(that's one thing the trailers didn't spoil). Any kinda of fire burn/injuries are creepy/scary as hell for me and the whole waking up in front of the crematorium evoked memories of me being terrified of the crematory scene from Diamonds are Forever, another nostalgic soft spot for me. I enjoyed the power plant fight with Electro. As cool as Electro was, I wouldn't mind if he's dead, dead. It was a pretty cool "death scene", maybe my favorite of the Spidey films.
Some other things I liked about the film, I thought Emma Stone was awesome, sad she won't be around any more but I thought they handled her character and the historical story arc of her character pretty well. I was surprised by Dane Dehann. I wasn't expecting him to survive the film but I'm interested in seeing where they take his arc. I think he's done more in one film with the character than Franco was able to in the entire first trilogy. I should I have no real issues with Franco's rendition of the character, I just found what they did in this film to be far more interesting. His character isn't an outright villain at first, he's just a character very desperate to save his own life and that instinct kinda consumes him and he becomes truly monstrous. His Goblin is actually really freaky/scary for me. That shot where he's hovering between Gwen and Peter at the Power Plant, his facial expressions combined with transformation and his hissing it's truly demonic. Right now I made another nostalgic connection, The Return of the Living Dead part 2. Yeah there's definitely an '80s horror movie kinda feel to Electro and Green Goblin in this film.
I thought Rhino was all right. He's just a secondary/sub-villain/henchman type character, so I had no real problem overall with how he was used in the movie. I played Ultimate Spider-man on the PS2 in the run up to SM3 back in 2007 so the whole idea of the Robo-Rhino is nothing new to me and I had little problems with it because of that. The only issue was that yeah they did kinda ruin the full surprise of the ending scenes of the film with the marketing. I had no problem with that being the final scene of the film, Sony and co. must have been going for a "the name's Bond, James Bond" kinda effect from the end of Casino Royale. The ending theme "It's on again" is kinda like a Bond theme. Overall I liked the score by Zimmer. So far this year I think I still like Jackman's score for TWS a little better but I loved some of the more tranquil kinda sounds in this film. At some points it really reminded me of the the Spawn TAS score from the first season and even some kinda old school video gamey type parts. For some reason those sounds resonate with me. Speaking of Bond again, I liked how the opening scene with the plane while kinda disconnected from the rest of movie is like a throwback to something from Goldfinger or the opening of Moonraker.
So what would I say was wrong with the film? Aside from the terrible marketing, perhaps a criticism is that TASM2 is perhaps too derivative of other things, it's very by the numbers and you could play a drinking game of the spot the equivalent scene from any number of CBMs, although it's derivative of things I like so that's not an issue. The whole underground train station was very contrived and I still don't understand who built that or why Pete's dad was using that as a secret lab without the government or Oscorp finding out. Perhaps it was explained but I missed it. But yeah that has to be one of the most unwieldy plot development I can remember from recent memory. Very clunky and almost as if they had an idea for the secret station and just had to fit it into the plot somehow. The whole plot with the blood seemed kinda iffy too but that I can attribute to classic comic book style plotting. I really think more people should read more comics, especially the stuff considered average or even bad. It'll give you a new appreciation of the stories in many movies. Things could be a lot worse.
Well that sums up my thoughts on TASM2. Like I said 8/10 for me. I liked it better than TASM and it's better than SM-3 for me. For this year though TWS is still my favorite. That one's 10/10 for me.
