We’re back with an all-new drive-home episode breaking down The Amazing Spider-Man 2! Is the series still living in the shadow of Raimi’s Spider-Man trilogy? Is the tag scene worth risking a ruptured bladder to see? The Breakdown is rolling out!
We’re back with an all-new drive-home episode breaking down The Amazing Spider-Man 2! Is the series still living in the shadow of Raimi’s Spider-Man trilogy? Is the tag scene worth risking a ruptured bladder to see? The Breakdown is rolling out!
Another awesome podcast!
Thanks guys.
Good show, but I have to disagree, this movie was terrible
@Hamid: You’re welcome!
@Henry: Thanks for checking out the show! We’d love to hear your thoughts on the movie. Why did you think it was terrible?
Man I got to say the intro music is quite good, who did the intro music? In regards to the movie the quality sort of depends, for me anyway, what your expectations are going into it. I liked it most of the time. For superhero movie I don’t want to get too excited because we’ve seen quite a number of bad superhero movies which had high expectations. Plus it depends what kind of purpose is behind you watching the movie. If I want to see a high quality oscar drama I have different expecations for it than say an action movie where it is just about being entertained.
Where do I begin?
I noticed you liked the scene in Times Square where electro hears voices in his head and that turns into some dub step music track. I did not enjoy that, a brooding orchestral piece would’ve been better. Plus seeing Jaime Foxx performance in the beginning reminded me of Jim Carey in Batman & Robin. Norman Osborne was totally wasted in this film, he gets maybe 5 minutes of screen time and it didn’t follow the comic where he is the first goblin. Harry’s story arc was bad as well. They go from not seeing each other for ten years and jump back into their friendship in a couple of minutes. I felt the movie should’ve ended with Peter grieving and the scene with Harry and the man in black plotting the sinister six as a mid credit scene. The only thing that I felt was handled well was Gwen’s death.
great show guys. The movie is ok…. imo but I really don’t like jamie fox at all in the movie. I agree with @brent that he just comes off wrong in the begin of the movie. The villian aspect is a bit better but just not enought to get be back in the game. I also agree that the X-men trailer is a big WTF. Don’t get why they put it in at all but to fuck with people.
keep up the great work and I hope to hear the next episode even if I am not gonna go watch gozilla.
Thanks for the great episode guys, however, just like Henry I have to at least partially disagree with you.
There were parts in this movie I really liked: Colorful well-shot fight scenes, creative use of the soundtrack in the time square battle, a funny spidey dishing out massive amounts of quipage. I even liked how they established Peter’s and Harry’s friendship. All those bits and pieces were fun and engaging.
But then there were such incredibly infuriating and downright laughable scenes in this flick, that they caused a form of massive emotional whiplash, because the movie would jump between good and bad so rapidly.
First off: Electro is a horrible villain. He is a flacid, uninteresting goon, who is only in this film to keep Spider-Man busy and has no emotional or narrative merrit beyond this trait whatsoever. And yet, he stays in the movie until the end. And the writers apparently knew, that he was a big flashy pile of nothing, because the final skirmish between him and Spidey is so god damn boring, that they had to put a hilariously stupid doom-timer in there to create forced drama (airplane crash, which btw, as Brent already stated, doesn’t make a lick of sense).
I loathed the romance scenes between Peter and Gwen. I get that their constant, random blabbering is supposed to be cute, but it made me cringe so hard and almost jump out of my seat yelling (GET THE HELL ON WITH IT!). Nobody talks like that and it’s an annoyance that has plagued all movies written by Orci and Kurtzman that I have seen.
The fight against the Green Goblin felt so incredibly tacked on, when the movie really should have been all about him. Thus, the fallout from the final battle left me almost cold, which should not have happened given the events.
Those are the three MAJOR things. But there is so much little shit that bothered me too, which I won’t go into too much detail on now, but may just rattle of in a small list here:
1. Why was Harry dying much faster than his father? That guy was in his, what, late 50’s when the disease finally killed him? Did they omit a scene where he visits a doctor that tells him his condition is progressing much faster for him than for his father? If so, why did they do that?
2. Why didn’t Peter give Harry his blood? He’s already dying, what exactly is worse than that? And btw: At this point in the movie Peter doesn’t know that the spider-venom only works on his genetic material.
3. Why does the guy who built an effin’ web-shooter not know how a battery works? I know this is an exposition scene for the audience, but it’s badly executed.
4. Apparently the Goblin suit can cure physical defects as well, so why did Harry not try out that thing first before going full retard on the spider venom?
5. All the dumb stuff: Secret subway car, airplane crash, Gwen is the only one who can reset the power grid because she is smart enough to…press a big red button that says “RESET”? Wow.
All the things in the list above are nitpicking and I could have very well ignored them, if the rest of the movie wasn’t such a tumbling mess as well. I blame most of it on the script. But man, I had a very uneven time in the movie theater and in my opinion the bad points outweigh the good ones by at least a ton.
Wish you guys would have touched on Norman Osborn in the film. I also think he was a wasted opportunity.
One thing that bugged me about the film is that half of the scenes in the trailer were different or missing from the final movie. I understand editing changes can happen during production, but I didn’t really like the changes.
Example; in the trailer Harry tells Peter that Oscorp has been following him. Not in the movie. In the trailer Harry talks to Norman about Peter. Not in the movie.
It seems like there was a totally different plot in play that they decided to scrap.
Love the show, fellas. Godzilla is gonna be freakin amazing. Can’t wait for it.
I’ve just read this review by Film Crit Hulk that goes into great detail on most of the things that bothered me about this movie as well.
If anyone here has a lot of time on his/her hand, this is a highly recommended read.
http://badassdigest.com/2014/05/06/film-crit-hulk-smash-hulks-237-burning-questions-for-the-amazing-spider-man/
I had low expectations for this film but this really wowed me. Other than some terrible CG animation, the acting from Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone was excellent, and the action scenes themselves were awesome! I knew Gwen Stacy was going to die at the end because I had it spoiled for me but it still broke my heart at that moment. I still feel surprised by how they handled it. The scene is grounded and for a movie which typically caters towards younger audiences, I was shocked when they included blood.
This felt like Spiderman though. He was joking around but as Peter Parker, he was upset about his past.
I agree with you guys that this movie that this is the best movie adaptation of Spiderman and right now, I’m actually looking forward to the next movie. One fear I have with it, however, is Mary Jane. I do not want another love interest in the series. She would ruin the legacy that Emma Stone’s Gwen Stacy has left.
Very great podcast guys. I truly enjoy listening to your opinions on these films, new and old. I have to agree with all your Pros and Cons for The Amazing Spider-Man 2.
As to the post credits WTF X-Men moment, I recently saw an Easter-Egg video on IGN that explains why the clip from Days of Future Past was there. According to the info given, it’s actually a bizarre deal between Fox and Sony. Years ago Marc Webb signed a contract with Fox to produce 2 films, one being 500 Days of Summer, but then Sony stepped in with The Amazing Spider-Man 1, and Fox agreed that they would let go of Webb if they promoted X-Men for free. weather or not this is legit is to be seen or revealed.
Though I do like Brent’s explanation better.
Very entertaining episode once again!
I have to say, I like the chemistry between Andrew Garfield and Emma Watson and I enjoyed the film but, as you mention, it was not without its faults. One that I really noticed was how quickly Peter Parker goes from happy go lucky in the beginning to breaking things off with Gwen outside the restaurant. I understand what they were trying to do, the moral struggles he goes through, but I believe it was too fast.
Another thing that was, I feel, a bit too rushed was the appearances by Green Goblin and Rhino who seem to only appear for one specific shot each.
All in all, it was quite enjoyable but I still think that, as far as Spidey movies go, Spider-Man 2 is the all-around best, followed by Spider-Man 1, Amazing 2, Amazing 1 and with Spider-Man 3 being last and hardly worth mentioning.
After listening to the show I am looking forward to the movie. Luckily I have not seen a trailer yet. The first one was ok but I did not like the villain.