misstep and a serviceable but claustrophobic script didn’t help either. Mostly, the reboot felt unnecessary with the Tobey Maguire/Sam Raimi version still fresh in our minds.
As a result, I walked into the sequel with my expectations
decidedly low but ended up being pleasantly surprised. The second Garfield/Webb outing is certainly an improvement over the first. Marc Webb (hard to think of a more appropriate name for the director of a Spider-Man movie, right?) has a decidedly more sure hand this time with both the special effects and the smaller human moments, and allows a still-too-busy script (by Alex Kurtzman, Roberto Orci, Jeff Pinkner, and James Vanderbilt) the space to breathe and a sense of fun and exhilaration to reappear. Andrew Garfield, lean and lanky, captures both the geeky
awkwardness of Peter Parker, all tortured and stammering, and the physicality of Spider-Man, many of his poses while in costume coming right out of the comic books. Garfield also plays superbly well off Emma Stone as Gwen Stacy. They are good enough actors that they even almost – but not quite – manage to prevail over one of the worst written break-up scenes (which comes early on in the film) in recent memory. But there’s a physical intimacy and emotional heft to their relationship – not surprising,
perhaps, since they are a real-life couple – which was absent in the first film and which is extremely important for what is to follow in the movie.
The rest of the cast is good too – Jamie Foxx doesn’t overplay his hand (though initially it feels like he’s about to enter Richard-Pryor-in-Superman III territory) as the put-upon electrical engineer Max Dillon who finds himself transformed into the super-villain Electro and Dane DeHaan as Peter’s best friend, Harry Osborn, is appropriately alternately vulnerable and creepy (if you know your Spider-lore from the comics or the earlier trilogy, you know what life has in store for him) though he does have some
atrocious lines to work with and he does unnecessarily chew the scenery a few times. But best of all is Sally Field, as Peter’s long-suffering Aunt May – it really isn’t there in the script but the two-time Oscar winner brings an affecting poignancy to her scenes with Garfield. Felicity Jones (as the future Black Cat) and Paul Giamatti (as the Rhino) will probably have more to do in the next instalment.
The movie also has a quirky edge to it which I liked but it is still a bit bloated, though. The opening sequence filling in the back-story of Peter’s parents, Richard and Mary, feels like filler in the ultimate
analysis and I did find myself glancing at my watch a few times during the film. The special effects are good – particularly the scenes with Peter swinging around town on his webs – but with so many super-hero movies around these days bringing so much computerised mayhem to the big screen (the near-destruction of big cities being almost de rigueur for modern super-hero cinematic fare) there is an element of familiarity to them too so I wouldn’t call the FX superior either.
Also, those of you who know your Spider-Man comic book
history might guess how the movie ends. It’s not your typical super-hero film denouement (which is fine by me) but Marc Webb doesn’t play this key sequence exactly right. I have to be careful here and not give too much away but the director should have taken a cue from the original Gerry Conway/Gil Kane/John Romita comic books in its pacing where Spider-Man’s apparent success turns out to be ephemeral. Hence, this crucial scene doesn’t have the impact it should have and I doubt if it will carry the same emotional resonance over the years that the original comic still does after so many decades.
Cut to chase: Certainly better than the first but you don’t have to rush out to watch it either.
Shaadi Ke Side
The cast does what it can with the script – though Vir Das needs to move on from the slacker, loser persona he appears to have patented - but there’s no real flow to the film, it moves in fits and starts, and the characters are either unlikable or behave like complete idiots. Marriage and babies can give you more than enough comic material to mine but Chaudhary almost completely misses the boat here and instead goes for a completely unnecessary and unbelievable plot twist and resolution. The music is unmemorable too.
Cut to chase: Avoid and go rent the earlier Pyar Ke Side Effects instead.
Khusro Mumtaz blogs at
khusromumtaz.wordpress.com and can be reached at
kmumtaz1@hotmail.com
*CINEMATIC SUICIDE
**FORGETTABLE
***WATCHABLE
****COLLECTIBLE
*****AWARD-WORTHY