Yesterday, I did a bit of a dissection of The Amazing Spider-Man, where I compared the movie to the comics. There's more I could and should add, but thinking of it is giving me high blood pressure, so I'm going to do more with the sequel to The Amazing Spider-Man, the imaginatively named The Amazing Spider-Man 2.
Now, in my last post, I said that a lot of problems from the first movie were addressed in the sequel. However, that doesn't mean that there aren't problems with this movie. Let's begin, shall we?
1) The death of Gwen Stacy. Yes, it's somewhat comic book accurate, but it would have been better if it were more comic book accurate. I mentioned this in my post on The Walking Dead, but I'l repeat it here: In the movie (spoiler alert), Gwen Stacy dies after she fell down in a clock tower during a fight between Spider-Man and the Green Goblin. Spidey fires a web to catch her...and snaps her neck. Oops. Now, in the comic, something similar happened, except at a bridge (the dialogue said George Washington Bridge, the art showed the Brooklyn Bridge). In the movie, at one point, Spider-Man writes "I love you" in webbing on a bridge. Now, if the Green Goblin had brought Gwen to that bridge, and she died the same way, that would have been more sad. Think about it: Spider-Man pulls up the lifeless body of the girl he loves. Dead, because of him. We zoom out to see him crying on top of a bridge, the words, "I love you" still there. Now THAT'S a tearjerker. (And before you say anything, yes, I know, Spidey's web dissolves after an hour but these movies kind of ignore the comics. They can ignore it for this part)
2) The ending. This really doesn't have much to do with the comics, but I feel it need to be addressed. So, after Gwen Stacy dies, Peter Parker stops being Spider-Man for a while. Makes sense; while it doesn't quite follow the comics, it makes a lot of sense, so I'll cut it some slack. Anyway, around this time, the Rhino pops up, pretty much to be present for Sinister Six. Anyway, this causes Peter Parker to become Spider-Man once more. So Spider-Man goes to fight Rhino and...credits. Rhino was barely in the movie, and was only really there just to be established for Sinister Six. Personally, I feel that it would have been better to keep Rhino out of the movie altogether, and just end on Peter Parker giving up being Spider-Man. Screw your plans, Sony. Don't screw up an ending to a movie just to establish a "shared universe". You didn't even need Rhino to establish it; we could tell by the Doc Ock and Vulture easter eggs that you're planning something. Whoopity fucking do.
3) Electro. Boy, did they ignore the comics for this one. And, I will admit, it's not a terrible route to take. In the comics, Max Dillon was a white linesman who got electricity based powers by doing something stupid. In the movie, I personally find the idea of Max Dillon idolizing Spider-Man interesting. And also, I will admit, a tad creepy. I mean, I know I have an obsession with Spider-Man. My room looks like Tim Harrison's wet dream, as I call it. There's Spider-Man everywhere. Spider-Man fan, rug, posters, dartboard, bed sheets, lamp, curtains, and so much more. Compared to Max, that's normal. Max talks to pictures of Spider-Man in a really creepy way. I don't know, I found that a bit odd. And yes, some might argue that his change from "Spider-Man is love, Spider-Man is life" to "SPIDER-MAN MUST DIE" is a bit odd, but I'm guessing that Max Dillon has a fragile psyche and little friends, and after becoming Electro, he must be a bit unstable. So I'll cut some slack there.
4) Green Goblin. I'll say it: Dane Dehaans is, in my opinion, a great Harry Osborn. I prefer him to James Franco in the role. And yes, I know, in the comics Norman Osborn is the first Green Goblin (fun fact: the identity of the Green Goblin caused Steve Ditko to quit being the artist on The Amazing Spider-Man. Ditko set up Norman as a straw man, wanting the Green Goblin to be some random guy. Stan Lee wanted ol' Normy to be the Green Goblin. This led to John Romita becoming the artist for The Amazing Spider-Man). However, I'm not going to bitch about that. I will, however, ask about the armor. From what I gathered from the movie, apparently the armor can heal wounds and such. So why not the disease that killed Norman? I don't know, just a thought. And why didn't the serum kill Harry instead? Wouldn't that make more sense than making him a Goblin thing?
5) Ravencroft and Kafka. Doctor Kafka in the comics was a female who tried to help the inmates at Ravencroft. Doctor Kafka in the movie is some sadist who experiments on inmates. Yes, I know, Sinister Six, Oscorp conspiracy, blah fucking blah, but come on guys. Isn't there a better way to do this than almost fanservice?
I'm stopping here, since I stopped the last one at number five, and want to keep some consistency, but, I have to say, I prefer this movie quite a bit over the one before it. Maybe it's because my expectations were lowered; maybe because they actually read a comic for this movie. I don't know. But either way, I recommend this movie.