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The Amazing Spider-Man - 2 – PG-13
The Story
“Make your life count for something,” says high-school valedictorian Gwen Stacey (Emma Stone). “No matter how bad it gets or how lost you feel, promise me you’ll hold on to hope.” Peter Parker, aka Spider-Man (Andrew Garfield), arrives just in time to get his degree and have serious conversation with Gwen about their future together. He’s been dealing with a runaway 18-wheeler with Russian bad guy (Paul Giamatti) behind the wheel. That’s how it goes in “The Amazing Spider-Man – 2” (TASM2), fifth film in Spidey’s 12-year career on screen: bad guys (four, by my count) to battle and young-adult angst to sort out. Peter enjoys being Spider-Man, but his other life, as he says, “is complicated.”
Will Spider-Man defeat Electro (Jamie Foxx), Green Goblin (Dane DeHaan), Dr. Kafka (Marton Csokas), and Rhino (Paul Giamatti)? Can Gwen and Peter stay together? Does kindly Aunt May (Sally Field) ever discover Peter’s alter ego? For answers, see TASM2.
The Actors
Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone return as high-school sweethearts Peter Parker and Gwen Stacey. Peter, as Spider-Man, fights crime in NYC (“You know what I love about being Spider-Man? Everything!” he says). She, as fatherless Gwen Stacey, is smartest in her class. She knows Peter’s secret and, luckily, aced physics, remembering, just when she needs to, how to reset Manhattan’s electric grid. Sally Field returns as ever-patient Aunt May who wonders why Peter’s wash — when he does it — always turns red and blue.
Others in the cast include Jamie Foxx, Dane DeHaan, Marton Csokas and, unrecognizable, Paul Giamatti. They play, respectively, Electro, Oscorp industrial-accident creation, Harry Osborn, aka Green Goblin, Dr. Kafka, mad scientist, and Rhino, Russian mafioso in a one-man tank. Colm Feore plays duplicitous Donald Menken. Chris Cooper and Martin Sheen appear briefly as fathers of Harry and Peter. Stan Lee is a graduation guest.
Other Comments
TASM2 is comic-book action, conflicted super-hero and multiple bad-guys entertainment. Good news, if you’re a fan, but still diverting for the rest of us. Written by Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci from characters created by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko, it’s directed by Marc Webb who keeps the action going and its many plot lines more or less clear. Father-son themes prevail, especially Peter and Harry’s absent-father issues. Peter’s discovery of his father’s last testimony (“People will say I’m a monster for what I’ve done. Maybe they’re right,” his father says.) is one of the movie’s coolest scenes.
Rated PG-13 for sci-fi action and violence, TASM2 runs 144 minutes. Parts 3 and 4 are in the works for 2016 and 2018, so plan ahead.
Final Words
Reboot number two —
Good news if you’re a fan!
Peter, Gwen, four bad guys —
“Amazing Spider-Man”!
Source:
The Amazing Spider-Man 2: Swing low, sweet Spiderman
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| The Amazing Spider-Man 2 is in many ways a lavish and technically splendid production
The success of the superhero formula—both in comics and on film—rests on the utterly fantastic premise of the hero’s invincibility. Freakishly evil enemies may be plotting to undo them in diabolical ways, but it’s an immutable law of this genre that the hero, untainted by the faintest wisp of self-doubt, always triumphs. Tinker with that elemental simplicity, and you mess with the minds of our caped superheroes and show them up to be all too fallible. Like the rest of us lesser mortals, in fact.
In the latest edition of the Spider-Man franchise, The Amazing Spider-Man 2, director Marc Webb advances that cardinal error—so manifest in a few earlier outings too—and ‘humanises’ the masked do-gooder to the point where, for all his superhero swagger, he effectively stands de-iconised and perhaps in serious need of psychological counselling to redress his existential, schizoid, arachnid angst.
Worse, Webb overreaches himself and packs in way too many sub-plots and villainous characters, so that he becomes hopelessly ensnared in the elaborate web of his own narrative. The plotline, at its simplest, would have sustained sufficient interest. Peter Parker (Andrew Garfield) relishes his Spider-Man call of duty, but it’s murder on his relationship with Gwen Stacy (an adorable Emma Stone). Added to which, he’s anxious to unearth the back story of why his parents abandoned him as a child.
These and other strands — including the re-entry into Parker’s life of old friend-turned-foe Harry Osborn (Dane DeHaan) and the advent of new ‘friend’ Max Dillon (a sub-par performance by Jamie Foxx) who, after an encounter with electric eels (I’ll say no more), metamorphoses into the villainous, ‘power-hungry’ Electro — bind Parker fatefully to Oscorp Industries, the evil corporate empire.
But Webb’s treatment of that plotline doesn’t quite have the tautness and tensile strength of, say, Spidey’s web. Perhaps some of this is born of the nature of the medium: whereas comic books lend themselves to episodic treatment where the narrative can (and does oftentimes) stretch for years, Webb has to condense them into two-hours-plus of non-stop action. But because he over-ambitiously appears to have gone all in, the appeal is less than spectacular.
Which is a pity, because The Amazing Spider-Man 2 is in many ways a lavish and technically splendid production. The CGI special effects are so stunningly real that when Spider-Man leans over a skyscraper ledge or swings through Manhattan, you feel vicariously vertiginous. And the scene in which Electro blacks out Times Square is masterful in milking its mayhem quotient. And although Webb occasionally takes permissible liberties with the plotline, he remains faithful to the comic book effect, right down to Spider-Man’s classical bug-eye contours.
But while there’s enough and more in the film to keep confirmed Spidey fanboys gushing with adoration, it is unlikely to net a new following.
In the final analysis, it may not be Spider-Man, torn though he is by searing internal conflicts, who needs counselling. It’s the franchise itself that needs to be put on the couch.
Genre: Superhero action
Director: Marc Webb
Cast: Andrew Garfield, Emma Stone, Jamie Foxx, Dane DeHaan, Sally Field
Storyline: Spider-Man battles the baddies, goes through more existential angst, and proves that even superheroes have limits
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www.thehindu.com
'Annie' Trailer Appears Online: Watch
Quvenzhane Wallis, Jamie Foxx and Cameron Diaz get the unenviable task of updating the classic musical.
It's a hard knock life -- for die-hard Annie fans.
The first trailer for Columbia's modern-day update of the classic musical debuted Wednesday, offering a preview of what theatergoers can expect come Christmastime.
Like the classic 1977 musical, Annie centers on 11-year-old little orphan Annie (Beasts of the Southern Wild's Quvenzhane Wallis), who has a chance encounter with wealthy businessman Benjamin Stacks (Jamie Foxx), an update on the Oliver "Daddy" Warbucks character. Turns out Benjamin, who's running for mayor, needs a feel-good story to boost his stock; that's where Annie comes in. Meanwhile, Cameron Diaz takes on the mean-spirited orphanage owner Miss Hannigan.
And how do they update the story for 2014? By dropping in obligatory references to George Clooney (Miss Hannigan) and Facebook (Miss Hannigan, again).
Will Gluck (Easy A, Friends With Benefits, TV's The Michael J. Fox Show) directed the feature, which is produced by Jay Z and Will Smith. Rose Byrne and Bobby Canavale co-star. As for the songs, Jay Z has popified and autotuned "It's a Hard Knock Life" and "Tomorrow," so expect more of that when Annie hits theaters Dec. 19.
News Source: www.billboard.com
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