i want you to hit me as hard as you can . after the debut of x-men in the year 2000
marvel superhero movies really started coming into their own
in 2002 audiences finally got a big-budget live-action look at stan lee's biggest hero of all
spider-man but years later even as the comic book movie genre was skyrocketing
the popularity of marvel's mvp seemed to be moving in the opposite direction
in 2014 the amazing spider-man 2 hit theaters and was met with some pretty dismal reviews it made
a fair amount at the box office and yet is still the lowest grossing film in the spider-man series
now you might be saying wait this is spider-man how could this possibly be considered a failure
it's not the question of the day let's examine the reasons why the amazing spider-man 2
ended this incarnation of the web slinger and unraveled just wtf happened to this movie
in 2002 audiences cheered when director sam raimi brought marvel's most popular character to life
setting box office records with his trilogy a year after spider-man 3 left theaters
marvel began building its own cinematic universe with their available comic book superheroes that
hadn't been sold to other studios but sony held the rights to marvel's biggest superhero and his
related universe and they refused to relinquish their grip on the property in july 2012 a mere
five years after toby maguire put away his red and blues sony's first amazing spider-man film debuted
to pretty decent response even though it seemed like the quickest reboot ever at the time anyway
it earned 758 million dollars at the worldwide box office and the critical consensus was even
if it did revisit themes from the original trilogy the cast and direction made the film
a satisfying reintroduction to the character sony officially had a hit on their hands so a sequel
was immediately fast-tracked with stars andrew garfield and emma stone and director mark webb
quickly signing on to return in september of 2012 the villain of the sequel was rumored to
be electro and two months later jamie foxx was hired for the role that same month we learned
that dane dehaan would play peter's friend harry osborne and then paul giamatti was confirmed for
the role of villain rhino also confirmed to be in the film were felicity jones and shailene woodley
more on those two later the amazing spider-man 2 filmed from february to june 2013 with a planned
release date in may 2014 the plot would find peter parker splitting his time between saving the city
and spending time with his true love gwen stacy he hasn't forgotten the promise that he made to
gwen's father keeping her out of his life as spider-man but things would change with the
arrival of a supercharged nemesis called electro in the return of childhood friend harry osborne
in 2013 reports made the rounds about sony's plans for a spider franchise and why not the
first amazing spider-man had been a critical and financial success and just before its release
audiences were treated to something brand new when marvel's avengers offered moviegoers a big
screen team up of popular superheroes the avengers earned one and a half billion dollars at the box
office and promised a future where famous comic characters could interact in a shared universe
it was a comic fan's dream come true what studio wouldn't want to replicate that kind of success
especially sony who owned the rights to spider-man along with every spider-man story and character
that had ever been told in comics cartoons tv shows you name it sony's intention of launching
a spider-verse certainly appeared to be true when the trailer for the amazing spider-man 2 was
unveiled in december 2013. it was already known that elektro would serve as the primary villain
the announcement of harry osborn naturally introduced the possibility of green goblin
but even with those formidable foes the first look of the film blatantly teased a potential
sinister six it may seem odd to reveal a big secret in a trailer but sony clearly
wanted the audience to know they were on their way to building their own universe
showing the final shot of the film where spider-man fights a fully armored rhino did
make the scene feel less special in the finished movie but spidey fans watching the trailers
before the sequel's release were blown away by the amount of action and classic characters on display
audiences may have been excited for the sequel but after the film was released on may 2nd 2014 the
overall box office was perceived as both great and somehow not so great the movie grossed 709 million
dollars worldwide which is a decent haul by most standards but most standards don't necessarily
include superhero movies the fact that it made over 700 million wasn't the talking point for the
film it was instead that the amazing spider-man 2 was the lowest grossing spider-man film ever
the most recognizable superhero in the world with the possible exceptions of superman and batman was
somehow a box office disappointment the reviews for the film weren't particularly kind either
the sequel currently holds a 51 critical average on rotten tomatoes and a slightly better 64 from
audiences the washington post said the film was an unforgivably long assemblage that never coalesces
into a compelling story the atlantic said the film was overstuffed with plot and consequently
struggles to invest the audience in any of it since there's so much to get through and
so many future films and spin-offs to set up yeah that sounds about right in september of 2014 just
months after the sequel's release andrew garfield blamed sony for removing deep scenes exploring
his character he also lamented in a daily beast interview that the initial script actually worked
very well as a whole and he insinuated that over the entire production the studio removed
various elements garfield makes an important point because it addresses the chief complaint that the
amazing spider-man 2 has just too many different stories circulating the secret of peter's parents
a plutonium theft relationship issues the guilt of gwen's father the emergence of a new main villain
the history between peter and harry potential future villain alistair smythe the death of
gwen stacy the sinister six felicia hardy this is getting kind of sticky but rather than eliminate
some of these subplots especially the ones that ultimately went nowhere instead they removed
portions of each this allowed them to bring down the run time of the film and set up the spider
universe they had wanted but instead audiences were left having seen partially completed subplots
which made a mess in its final product obviously that wasn't the goal after the success of
marvel's avengers the amazing spider-man 2 was intended to begin something unique
sony's own fictional spider-verse that would have continued with two more direct amazing
spider-man sequels and a series of spin-offs that would have included venom in a sinister six movie
how did a film with so much promise become such a colossal misstep let's try to unspin that web on
the positive side the action is mostly well done especially scenes involving spider-man and electro
complaints have been made about garfield's portrayal of the character and while some
choices for peter parker seem odd playing him more rebellious than bookish his spider-man brought a
distinct physicality and the webslinger seems to genuinely value everyone he encounters his
chemistry with emma stone feels authentic probably because the two were actually dating at the time
but still and sam raimi's original spider-man trilogy uncle ben was the anchor to peter's
conscience uttering those words that humanity is all too familiar with at this point with great
power come great dare finish that sentence don't do it i'm sick of it but this time it's actually
gwen's father george stacy played by dennis leary who was introduced then oft in mark webb's
first film and instead of words that motivate peter he's burdened with a warning leave gwen
sure it's not as poetic as uncle ben's mantra but this statement sits with peter parker in
a very unsettling way george stacy's persona haunts peter throughout the amazing spider-man 2
popping up whenever gwen seems to be getting too close but peter and gwen are together at
the climax of the film which also proves to be the end of gwen knowing her fate and the
guilt peter carries as a result of it could have been fascinating ground to cover in a third film
but unfortunately the sequel had more negatives than positives
a huge opening chunk of the movie is spent on peter's fugitive parents who leave him behind
neither seems overly broken up about it later in the film peter sees a recorded message from
his father richard who reveals that the human dna used for the radioactive spider was his own
meaning no one but peter could have been bitten by the spider and survived which destroys that whole
regular kid from queens aspect of his origin story it's no longer that he was in the right place at
the right time or that it could have happened to anyone but it happened to a guy with a good heart
it's now peter parker is the only person that could have ever been spider-man so much for the
relatability that made the character so popular now it's destiny and then there's the villains
harry osborne just materializes in the film with no introduction at all if the audience
was supposed to see these as separate from the original spider-man trilogy then they probably
shouldn't have to rely on those films to have a decent understanding of who harry osborne is
we're told that he's peter's best friend even though he was never seen or mentioned
in the previous film we get caught up on their apparently long-lasting friendship
and history in a one minute conversation hey harry random what ten years is eight
close it takes about an hour for the movie to get to its main villain electro jamie fox's
performance is adequate but there's also plenty wrong with electro that was likely
out of his control the cgi that was used to give him that raspberry blue electro glow
was hard to take seriously and it drew comparisons to zordon from power rangers
his burpee altered voice was an unintentional source of comedy
the soundtrack whenever he chased peter in the film was some weird electronic version of itsy
bitsy spider i hate this song similarities were quickly drawn between electro and some
combination of jim carrey's riddler and batman forever was that over the top i can never tell
and arnold schwarzenegger's mr freeze and batman and robin you are not sending me to the corridor
not exactly the best references for comic movies all the movie's missing plot threads
are frustrating fox's character max dillon has almost no character development reduced
to a few random occurrences that just force electro into existence there's no real reason
he goes from spider-man fanatic to spider-man enemy ultimately we have no idea what electro's
objective is or what drives him to cause such terror sure he explains it in one scene a world
without power a world without mercy a world without spider-man what he describes how
awful his world is but the worst thing we see happened to him before becoming electro was
that the guy from the office made him work on his birthday it's my i mean mr smith happy birthday
when he first appears as electro in times square he seems infatuated with being seen by people
they finally see him but max's desire to be seen is barely mentioned before this moment yeah most
people don't notice other people before this he just seems annoyed with people oh and by the way
those important blueprints never seen again speaking of never being seen again what happened
to that treasure trove of plutonium that paul giamatti tried to steal at the beginning why
was he stealing it from oscorp if he was caught so easily by spider-man and he was stealing from
his company why would harry osborne choose him for the rhino suit and the sinister six
who knows and harry osborne obsessed with putting spider venom in his bloodstream ends up near
death and crawls to a suit that he's never seen before which miraculously ends up keeping him
alive this suit just happens to be in the same room as outfits for five other major villains
convenient and a sinister six film was meant to be the launching pad for future installments in sony
spiderverse it even had a release date slotted in november 2016 but all sony had to offer on
that actual date was billy lynn's long halftime walk not quite the same then there's the cameos
we mentioned earlier the casting of felicity jones and shailene woodley who were hired to play
felicia hardy and mary jane watson respectively now you might be thinking mj she was never in
this movie right you are but she was planned to be and her scenes were even shot shailene woodley
had finished filming her part within the first month of production but mary jane was removed from
the film entirely despite speculation that some thought these future love interests could actually
pass for brother and sister the truth is that director mark webb made the tough decision to snip
the character in the editing room because there were so many plot threads consuming the story
and taking up screen time producer matt tolmak was quoted saying you can't have peter thinking about
gwen every moment and then there's this girl next door who's suddenly there sure makes sense between
harry osborne's introduction and electro loving spider-man then minutes later hating spider-man
this movie was already packed with plot points being suddenly there and of course there's felicia
hardy even though she's only in three scenes and barely speaks at least she made the cut and let's
be honest as messy as every other subplot was she could have become the black cat who
would have noticed in a movie filled with holes that the audience had to fill in on their own
in the end it doesn't seem fair mark webb already had the unenviable task of telling a compelling
story about peter parker that felt separated from sam raimi's trilogy then he was given the task of
introducing and explaining backstories for three new villains and setting up antagonists for future
films and expanding the amazing spider-man films into sony's own shared universe in two movies
webb unfortunately reached the same critical mass that it took sam raimi three films to hit
and we all know what happened next in february 2015 it was announced that spider-man would be
swinging into the mcu in a partnership between marvel studios and sony with actor tom holland
suiting up as the wall crawler squashing mark webb's hopes for his own spider-man trilogy
the announcement was made less than a year after the amazing spider-man 2 was released
so that takes the award for quickest reboot in film but audiences didn't seem to mind
integrating the character into the proper marvel cinematic universe has resulted in two blockbuster
spider-man solo movies with a third on the way and yet sony keeps trying with their very own
spider-verse detached from his spider-man origins the alien symbiote still found major success in a
standalone venom movie that has a sequel coming along with a movie about spidey villain morbius
the living vampire at one point or another there were plans for movies featuring spider-related
characters black cat and silver sable madame webb silk craven the hunter and even a c-lister like
night watch who knows how many of their spider-related characters will actually come
to life but the studio has already started demonstrating the limitless possibilities
of the spider-man universe ultimately we don't really know how much of the amazing spider-man
2 we're missing there was a petition at one point to release a director's cut of the film
but for now audiences are still left disappointed with what ended up being in the promise of what
could have been but with rumors that jamie foxx and andrew garfield will appear in the next mcu
spider-man movie maybe marvel will actually give us a somewhat satisfying end to their characters
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