Movie Review -- The Amazing Spider-Man 2

Today we have the latest Marvel movie, The Amazing Spider-Man 2.

The story begins with Peter Parker (Andrew Garfield) arriving late to his high school graduation due to his stopping a hijacking as Spider-Man. His girlfriend Gwen Stacy (Emma Stone) greets him warmly, but he is haunted by the death of her father and the promise he made to him to stay away from her, a promise Peter obviously didn't keep. Meanwhile, unappreciated doormat Max Dillon (Jamie Foxx) gets into a lab accident at Oscorp and turns into a electricity-gobbling monster. He ventures into Time Square and proceeds to drain the power from the area. A police standoff ensues and Spider-Man tries to calm Dillon down. Unfortunately, events quickly spiral out of control and Dillon vows to destroy Spidey.

Elsewhere, Harry Osborn (Dane DeHaan) experiences the death of his father. Even worse, the horrible disease that kills him is hereditary, and the symptoms have already begun to manifest in his son. His only hope is the healing properties Spider-Man possesses. He calls Peter, his old friend, and asks for a meeting with Spidey. Peter returns as his alter-ego, but refuses to give him a sample of his blood for fear it will turn him into a monster like Doctor Connors from the previous film. Enraged, Harry teams up with Dillon (now calling himself Electro) and they come up with a plan to bring down everyone's favorite wall-crawler. Can Spider-Man overcome these odds and protect New York?

The Amazing Spider-Man 2, like Captain America: The Winter Soldier a few weeks ago, is a worthy sequel. It's bigger and better than the previous one which only had a single villain. Not only that, but solid acting enables it to toy with your emotions. The finale, in particular, delivers an emotional kick to the gut that you'll remember for quite some time. Also, I'm glad we finally find out what happened to Peter's parents and why they disappeared. It's nothing shocking, really, but it's good they delivered on it.

However, the movie isn't perfect. Towards the climax there are scenes involving endangered airplanes that I feel distract from the main story. I honestly didn't give a crap about these people since they're only bit characters. Now, if, say, Aunt May was on one of the planes, that would be different; we might actually care about what was going on. But she's not, so I didn't. Also, fans anticipating the fight between Spidey and mecha-Rhino as teased at in the trailers may be disappointed. It only lasts a few minutes at most and the film ends on a cliff-hanger before the web-slinger can launch a single attack.

Still, I feel The Amazing Spider-Man 2 succeeds as both a sequel and a comic book movie. You should give it a watch.