Trailer Trashin’: Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man is Back in The Amazing Spider-Man 2

We’re another week closer to Christmas, and I was very happy to see Frozen take the top spot at the box office this past weekend. In the meantime, this week’s new Trailer Trashin’ examines yet another of next year’s big upcoming films – The Amazing Spider-Man 2.

Premise: Peter Parker (Andrew Garfield) continues to struggle with balancing his life as a high school student and his crime-fighting responsibilities as Spider-Man. When Peter begins to investigate more about his father’s past, with the help of his friend Harry Osborn (Dane DeHaan), he realizes that the new threats of Max Dillon/Electo (Jamie Foxx) and Aleksei Systevich/The Rhino (Paul Giamatti) both have one thing in common – OsCorp.

My take: The most feedback I’ve ever received for an installment of Trailer Trashin’ is still my column from early May 2012, where I examined the final trailer for that summer’s The Amazing Spider-Man, which I had a pretty negative outlook on. That was the moment when I felt I had become a legitimate online film journalist, because I now had anonymous people saying horrible things about me because they disagreed with my opinion of the trailer for a movie none of us had seen. When the movie did come out, it got mixed reviews from critics, and the general consensus seemed to be that it was well-made but unremarkable. For that reason, I still haven’t been moved to see the film. But even before the film came out, the Sony brass announced that a sequel was already in the works, and that second film is coming to theaters next summer. The first trailer for The Amazing Spider-Man 2 is now out, and while I’m not completely on board yet, it’s definitely piqued my interest.

Even though I wasn’t interested in the first The Amazing Spider-Man, I did think it had a pretty awesome cast, and that’s again the case for the sequel. Back from the first film are Andrew Garfield as Peter Parker/Spider-Man, Emma Stone as Gwen Stacy, Sally Field as Aunt May, Campbell Scott as Richard Parker, and a few others. The chemistry between Garfield and Stone was one thing I saw consistently praised in reviews of the first film, so I’m sure they’ll again do a good job with that. Among the new characters, the most prominently featured is Dane DeHaan as Harry Osborn, who clearly becomes some version of the Green Goblin during this story. DeHaan is a great young actor, but with Harry being introduced and going bad all in one film, I wonder if it will have any impact. And is it just me, or does Harry have the exact same hair that Tobey Maguire had as “emo” Peter Parker in Spider-Man 3 (2007)? Jamie Foxx plays Max Dillon/Electro, who surprisingly doesn’t get a ton of screen time here. That said, Foxx is a great actor, and after his amazing work in Django Unchained (2012), I have absolutely no problem with him getting what’s hopefully a nice paycheck for playing the villain in a big superhero film. We also only see a little bit of Paul Giamatti as Aleksei Sytsevich/The Rhino, but from comments Giamatti has made, it sounds like the character will be a lot of fun to watch. We also get to see a bit of Chris Cooper as Norman Osborn, Harry’s dad and the head of OsCorp. Cooper is a very talented actor and I think he’s a perfect choice for this character, but it’s going to be a real shame if he’s ailing and bedridden in all his scenes.

I have to say, I really do like how much more comic-booky this film looks compared to its predecessor. Spider-Man’s suit looks a lot better this time, and I think the new design might be my favorite live-action take on Spidey’s costume that I’ve seen so far. While I’m still a little bummed that they didn’t even try for Electro’s classic costume, I’m okay with them borrowing more from the blue-skinned Ultimate Marvel look. Hopefully, Electro won’t be wearing that stupid hoodie for very long. I was a little disappointed at first with this approach to The Rhino, having it being a robot suit instead of a costume, but I’ve warmed up to it now, and it is more following the precedent of the Ultimate incarnation of the character. We don’t get to see much of this new take on the Green Goblin, but so far it seems like a pretty good amalgam of the classic and Ultimate versions of the character.

But there are still some things here that I have issues with. The scene where we first see Harry, which is supposed to be these two friends seeing each other for the first time in years, seems way too stilted to me. If they’re supposed to be good friends, shouldn’t they run up and hug each other or something? Peter and Gwen’s exchange about him being stuck in a traffic jam involving machine guns is funny, but shouldn’t they be speaking more quietly so someone doesn’t overhear them? Even in New York City, you’d think talking loudly about that would draw someone’s attention. Some of the CGI also looks really rough, especially in the final moments of Spider-Man jumping off the pillars being blasted by Electro. Obviously, there’s still time for the effects to re refined before the movie comes out, but is it really a good idea to put out something that clearly doesn’t seem finished out for public consumption? And while I thought the brief glimpse of what have to be Doctor Octopus’s arms and Vulture’s wings was cool, it does seem like they’re kind of – if you’ll excuse the phrase – blowing their load in terms of Easter eggs for where the series could go, and not leaving anything as surprises in the actual film.

At this point, my interest in the film could go either way. I love the character of Spider-Man, and I really want his movies to be awesome. Ultimately, whether I end up seeing it or not, I’ll be waiting to see how The Amazing Spider-Man 2 turns out when it’s released next May.

P.S. Just to let you know, dear readers, I’m starting a new job soon which will take up a lot of my available time. While I’ll do my best to keep releasing new Trailer Trashin’ columns on a weekly basis, there’s a chance that some of the coming weeks might have the column showing up late or just not happening. Please bear with me for the time being.