The biggest fear that everyone had about another Spider-Man film was that it would be too messy and convoluted for its own good. The early teaser posters certainly did nothing to reassure fans with them featuring three villains. Everyone held their collective breath and hoped this wouldn’t be another Spider-Man 3. Sadly, that’s exactly what we have here. There are far too many plot conveniences and retconning and not enough pausing for thought. This is a film that would have benefitted from one villain – especially with the other plot about Peter’s parents (which in this film becomes a very tedious Cats in the Cradle verse) taking up most of the EPIC run time.
There are some positives, Andrew Garfield is once again excellent (and horribly wasted in this schlock) and Dane DeHaan is a fantastically creepy Harry Osbourne, though he isn’t given enough to do (and his best line from the trailer about Oscorp keeping tabs on Peter Parker is for some reason missing from the finished film).
The biggest problem is the villains. Electro is just plain boring and offers little to no threat. While Jamie Foxx is a talented actor, he is given nothing to work with here. He also has a back story that feels like a retread of Edward Nigma from Batman Forever. The Green Goblin feels very much like Venom in Spider-Man 3, he is shoe-horned in (to the detriment of the film) and therefore doesn’t do any justice to the character. They are trying to set up a “universe” here, but it isn’t being handled with the same panache as the Marvel guys.
Gone is the excellent (and probably expensive) practical Spider-Man swinging from the first film (that looked great) and in is the soulless CG – though it must be said that some of the swinging moments are excellent, it’s just a shame that they play second fiddle to the tedious love story that is playing out in front of it. Also gone is the excellent James Horner score from the first film, we now have a Hans Zimmer score that sounds highly derivative and forgetfully bland. He has composed a Spider-Man theme that sounds exactly like something you’d hear at World’s Strongest Man. A real shame as Horner had come up with an excellent Spider-Man theme.
One of the main criticisms directed at the first film was that it was too dark for a Spider-Man film, well be careful what you wish for, as this film borders on camp for the most part. Some acting is very bad and the action scenes are peppered with slapstick and shit gags.
This may need another reboot.
In the meantime, we should all watch Captain America: The Winter Soldier again.