The Amazing Spider-Man 2: A vibrant, stylish and often funny superhero movie
Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone star in a vibrant, stylish and often funny superhero movie
Director: Marc Webb; starring: Andrew Garfield, Emma Stone, Jamie Foxx, Dane DeHaan
(12A, 138mins)
It’s all in the word “amazing”.
The new Spider-Man series, which continues with The Amazing Spider-Man 2, is a superhero franchise that celebrates the cool, excitement and fun of having superhuman powers.
As played by the goofy, high energy Andrew Garfield this Spider-Man stands in contrast not just to his angst-ridden predecessor, played by Tobey Maguire, but most other contemporary superheroes.
Captain America has to wrestle with serious socio-political issues, Superman is an earnest bore with the weight of the whole universe on his shoulders in Man Of Steel and Iron Man is a careworn adult.
Spider-Man, by contrast, is practically still a child and he takes a boyish delight in his powers, swooping gleefully through Manhattan, ever ready with a wisecrack as he duffs up bullies and bad guys.
Meanwhile, the issues he wrestles are the stuff of typical adolescent agonizing: daddy issues, friendship issues and girlfriend issues.
All this comes together nicely in the confident sequel which sees Peter Parker/Spider-Man embrace his gifts but grapple with a personal life which threatens to spoil all his fun, including the mystery of his scientist father's disappearance when he was a child.
Most pertinently there's his relationship with the winsome Gwen Stacey (Emma Stone).
She's a bright spark and, as played by the smashing Stone, utterly irresistible but Parker has promised her late father to keep his sticky hands off, for Gwen’s own safety.
It’s their relationship that forms the heart of the picture and provides it with heaps of charm, humour and romantic intrigue as Parker strives to move on. Not easy when Gwen's so peachy.
She also works at the sinister Osborn Corporation where all the bad stuff happens.
It's there that an anonymous employee with a Spider-Man fixation, Max Dillon (Jamie Foxx), is transformed into the principal villain, Electro (Jamie Foxx), after an unfortunate accident with some super-charged electric eels.
The Amazing Spider-Man 2 UK trailer
The shambling nobody becomes a glowing, one-man power station who, in one impressive set-piece, fries Times Square with thunderbolts.
He sounds ridiculous but is kept credible and interesting because he's more wounded soul than maniacal monster, compellingly played by Foxx with more than a touch of his homeless schizophrenic from The Soloist.
Spider-Man's other nemesis, childhood pal Harry Osborn (Dane DeHaan), is also something of a tragic figure, cursed by a family disease, and DeHaan is excellent but the lack of a truly evil mastermind does lessen the tension.
Director Marc Webb handles the multiple storylines and characters with aplomb and the action is vibrant, stylish and often funny.
If you've seen the Sam Raimi films it's hard to escape a sense of déjà vu but aided by Garfield and Stone this is pretty winning.
VERDICT: 4/5
