Prole Hole vs Spider-man

For the Spider multiverse movie, they should also have alternate MJs in there so we could get a cameo from 52 year old Lisa Loeb. Maybe in her universe Mary Jane is a Grammy Award-winning singer-songwriter. In fact, Lisa Loeb should write the movie's theme song.

The only thing I remember about it was Michael Clarke Duncan, who played Kingpin in the Ben Affleck Daredevil movie, voicing Kingpin on the show.

The Amazing Spider-Man (2012)



So we leave behind the Sam Raimi / Tobey Maguire movies and move in to a new phase of Spider-Man films which are, it says here, Amazing. But are they?

Pre-Existing Prejudices:
Some and none. I’ve never seen either of the Andrew Garfield versions of Spider-Man so in that sense I’m pretty prejudice free. But on the other hand I’m aware that these two films are very much regarded as the runt of the litter, stuck between the traditional stylings of the MaguireVerse and the return of the character in the MCU. Beyond that there’s a few solid actors in the cast here so let’s see what happens!

What’s It All About Proley?
Origin Story: The Motion Picture. Peter Parker, an awkward high-school student, gets bitten by a radioactive genetically modified spider and… eh, you know. Web. Power. Responsibility. Dead Uncle. Mentor. Bad Guy. Oscorp. This movie’s bad guy – The Lizard! In an attempt to find a way of helping people and “eliminate weakness” Dr Curt Connors develops a technique to regrow limbs but gets it wrong so instead of just getting his damaged arm back it has the unintended side-effect of turning him into a rampaging CGI lizard. He decides this transformation would be ideal for all people so tries to convert everyone via a cloud of gas. Peter stops him. The end.

Any Other Business:

• We kick things off with a whacking great Chekov’s Gun as Peter is left at Uncle Ben and Aunt May’s with a whole bag chock-full of exposition.

• Then we’re off for some high-school shenanigans with Peter, Flash Thompson and Gwen (yay, Gwen!). Andrew Garfield is appealingly dorky as Peter – it’s a very different energy to Maguire’s performance. Maguire was simply a bit shy, Garfield is a proper high-school nerd and looks genuinely like a teenager, something Maguire never did.

• Then we get all the usual material that the movie simply does not need. That’ll be the spider-bite, the powers coming through etc etc – it’s all basically identical to the first MaguireVerse movie but with a taller, younger, bigger-haired dweeb. And it’s simply not interesting.

• Still waiting for something exciting to happen…

• The bully gets his come-uppance at the hands of the kid he bullied. Eesh. It’s a well-shot sequence, with Peter on the basketball court and Flash getting his ass handed to him but it’s also a crushingly obvious direction to take things.

• Ok so this movie’s Uncle Ben is Martin Sheen, an excellent choice. As a quality actor drafted into a comparatively small part to deliver the goods Sheen reliably delivers. He’s got a good rapport with Garfield, even when they’re arguing, and though you know it’s coming his death hits in all the right ways, at least in part because it’s impossible not to want to see more of him in the role so his absence has a real sting to it.

• This movie’s Aunt May – Sally Field. Another good choice, and if she’s not quite up to the standard of Rosemary Harris that’s more because Harris was so fantastic rather than any problem with Field.

• The CGI in this movie is a bit variable. The regrowth of limbs on animals or humans works pretty well, but The Lizard isn’t just quite perfect. It’s a good effort, and I don’t doubt that it’s the best possible version 2012 could have brought us, but it’s still visibly Some Guy Replaced By Graphics. Some of Rhys Ifan’s features have been incorporated into the face which ought to help a bit but mostly draws attention to the uncanny valley.

• Oh right, Connors / The Lizard is played by Rhys Ifans. He’s good enough, if never quite outstanding.

• Stan Lee’s still doing That Cameo Thing, but really, I’m done talking about Stan Lee cameos.

• One good thing about this movie is it doesn’t waste a lot of time with the whole “secret identity” shtick. Gwen finds out fairly early on that Peter is Spider-Man (a pleasingly awkward dinner scene precedes this which gives Dennis Leary the chance to do That Thing He Does) and The Lizard figures it out pretty quick too, albeit by the slightly stupid way of reading Peter’s name on a camera he used to take pictures of The Lizard during a fight a bit later on.

• Yes, a fight! At last! On the Williamsburg bridge, no less! It’s all done well, the image of the cars hanging off the bridge suspended by webs is a good one, though rescuing the small boy from the falling car feels a bit corny. It’s not terrible but not really vital either.

• Peter’s webslingers are mechanical here, not biological. *shrugs* It’s never been something that bothers me one way or the other, though I know there’s lots of fans that feel differently. If I was forced to make a choice I probably prefer the biological version but really, I’m not getting bent out of shape either way.

• The sewer battle between Spider-Man and The Lizard is pretty great, and the image of Spider-Man sitting in the middle of a web feeling vibrations is both striking and memorable, and makes you wonder why it’s taken till Movie 4 to see it. It takes too damned long to get to this battle but at least when we arrive there it’s a good ‘un.

• It doesn’t take Captain Stacy long to get to find out who Spider-Man really is. As Gwen’s tough and rather overbearing father Denis Leary does a good job (not as good a job as Gwen, who’s simply fabulous) and his death scene / request to Peter to stay away from Gwen feels fairly earned in a way that Harry’s not-a-million-miles-away death in Spider-Man 3 didn’t, really.

• Yes, Papa Stacy doesn’t make it, though does help Spider-Man stop The Lizard, who is both returned to normal human state and also doesn’t die (so he can pop up in a mid-credits scene).

• Ah but the course of true love isn’t going to be stopped by a dead father, oh no! So maybe Peter will end up dating Gwen after all.

In Conclusion:
It’s too long and it’s too dull. That’s the TL;DR version of this review. Running at a hefty 136 minutes the movie feels like every one of those minutes. Covering simply acres of ground we already talked about in the first MaguireVerse movie, The Amazing Spider-Man insists on telling us what is a functionally identical story for no reason other than that because the series has been rebooted there seems to be some sort of obligation to begin in the same place. This is fundamentally wrong, so watching Peter going through exactly the same steps we’ve already seen him go through is simply tedious. As with the first MaguireVerse movie it all takes far too long to get things moving, it’s already overly-familiar material, and it simply doesn’t matter all that much – it’s incredibly frustrating sit though simply because it’s redundant. Even without having watched Spider-Man recently it’s fucking Spider-Man! We know how Spider-Man comes to be! Watching Andrew Garfield carefully place his webbed boots in the footprints already left behind by Tobey Maguire doesn’t do anyone any favours, least of all the audience. Oh sure, there’s some attempts at variety, so here there’s a greater focus on Peter’s school-life rather than it being a peripheral detail as it was in the MaguireVerse, which at least changes the texture if not the actual nature of the material. That gives us the chance to encounter Flash Thompson – not a part of the previous movie cycle – as played by Chris Zylka. And he’s good in the role but you know. It’s a high-school bully, written as such and with little else to him. Peter’s take-down of him is satisfying in a sort of circumstantial way but it’s still the same underlying structure we had with Maguire’s version. Powers discovered, dicks about with them a bit until Uncle Ben gets offed, then takes up the mantle of being Spider-Man. Yeah. We’ve seen this. The details may vary but the story remains the same. And with the same mistakes as well. The first section of this movie is interminably dull and runs a real risk that, by the time we get round to some proper webslinging, the audience simply won’t care any more. It’s a fair thing to try, building up Peter’s life so that when things happen to him we are invested, but it just doesn’t require the sheer volume of screen time devoted to achieving that. It can be done in five minutes flat. Not forty-five minutes flat.

So if the introduction to the character is dull, what of the character himself? Step forward, Andrew Garfield, our second live-action, 21st century Spider-Man. And you know, he’s pretty good. There’s a very different feel to him from Maguire. The Maguire version of the character always felt a bit more like an adult, or at the very least an adult-in-waiting, as if that Peter Parker couldn’t wait to cast off the vestiges of childhood and get on with the business of being a grown-up. Andrew Garfield’s version, by contrast, is still fully engaged in being the dorky adolescent that Peter Parker is when he gets his power. That means high levels of social awkwardness, a skateboard-and-backpack combination that stands in for teenage characteristics, and of course a school bully and an unrequited love interest. In all of this, Garfield really embraces the younger, more nerdish side of Peter to surprisingly good effect. A lot of the early material might be unnecessary but Garfield does a solid job of inhabiting the role, and he brings just a tiny streak of arrogance from time to time as well that helps shape out the character in interesting little ways. And praise be, this Peter Parker has some rapport with his leading lady! Garfield and Emma Stone, as Gwen, have some proper chemistry, and because Garfield looks a bit awkward and like he’s driving a body that’s slightly the wrong proportion for him his initial shyness around Gwen rings true. She’s beautiful, he’s gangly, it pretty much works. When they do finally get to spend time together and kiss it also works, and it is, again, refreshing not to have the secret identity withheld artificially. Where Garfield is let down is his Spider-Man, who’s a little… well, indistinct is too strong but the script struggles to find an angle on the character that gives Garfield something to work with. Well, actually, that’s not quite right. During the big high-school fight when The Lizard has found out who Spider-Man really is, there’s an excellent sense of the character working. There, Spider-Man is quippy without feeling forced and is firing off one-liners as often as his webs. This is, of course, a core part of the character, and Garfield is good at delivering on it when he’s given the chance. The problem is that’s the only time during the movie that this particular approach is used, and the rest of the time it’s pretty standard superhero-has-a-fight material. It’s not that Garfield is bad at doing the Spider-Man bits – and he’s physically clearly up to the task – it’s just that the script never really gives him much to work with. Except the one time it does, which just highlights the absence elsewhere.

And for the rest of the movie it’s pretty much the same story. The script leans hard on Peter-as-a-nerd and Peter-as-an-outsider when it needs to, then conveniently forgets all that when it doesn’t. There’s a potentially interesting story in there, and because Garfield’s Peter feels so much younger than Maguire’s there space for a real distinctiveness to open up but it never quite arrives. Ditto The Lizard, who’s Another Bad Guy. I mean, obviously he looks distinctive, but something about him doesn’t quite convince. The motivation is clear, the plan is comic-book-makes-sense and his defeat is logical but there’s something ever-so-slightly underwhelming about The Lizard. That means that, for all the flash-bang of the battle scenes, one never quite gets the sense that this is a bad guy worthy of Spider-Man and a dastardly plan isn’t going to make up the distance – ludicrous plans are pretty much par for the course. What’s weird about The Lizard is how tremendous emphasis is given to the whole “eliminating weakness” angle but almost nothing is done with it. The idea that Connors wants to use his tech to regrow the limbs of people who have been injured makes sense and gives him a real anchor in humanity. And the “eliminating weakness” element is classic comic book villain material, usually accompanied by a sudden lurch into Nazi ideology. But the idea of eliminating weakness never connects with anything else in the script. The Lizard basically goes mad and decides to convert everyone because… that’s what he does. There’s a faint suggestion that he’s being driven by his own disability but there’s not nearly enough groundwork done to make this resonate, so there no build from a self-hate angle and certainly nothing political. It’s fine that they don’t immediately go to the Nazi implications of the phrase like “eliminating weakness”, that could easily have become a cliché, but at the same time it needs to connect with something, and it doesn’t. It just sits there, a line rattled off by Connors from time to because it is. The script can’t find a way of building that into the rest of the story or have it connect with anything meaningful. It’s why The Lizard feels a bit slight – Doc Ock’s plan made little sense in Spider-Man 2 but we have a movie-best villain in the role to hold our attention. Here we have the inverse – a plan that’s clear and unambiguous being executed by a slight shrug of a bad guy.

So look. The supporting cast are all fine, there’s nothing that’s actually wrong with the movie and, beyond the obvious lack of necessity when it comes to the origin story, this film doesn’t actually get anything wrong. But it also doesn’t really manage to get much right either, and that’s ultimately why it feels really rather dull. This is, at best, studied competence repeating something we’ve already seen, everything assembled in approximately the right order, made up from approximately the right ingredients, to give us approximately the right results. But there’s never really a sense that anyone’s heart is in this. And for a character like Spider-Man that’s terminal because he’s basically all heart. It’s all fine, but “fine” just isn’t good enough. For all that Spider-Man 3 is a bust there’s still a sense that Raimi had a vision and was making a sincere effort to execute that. Sure Venom was a studio-imposed one-too-many villain but it was still clear that effort was being made, even if it didn’t work out. Here, Garfield aside, there’s a going-through-the-motions vibe that’s fatal to any attempt at building excitement or suspense or sustaining interest. There are highlights, to be sure, and Garfield does his absolute best with the role. Gwen works way better than MJ ever did in the last three movies, and there’s a low-key charm to the movie that, had it been allowed to grow, could have worked but gets squashed under the weight of all the movements the script has to go through to get the origin story to work and an over-extended running time that just makes it impossible to hold interest. Is this better than the last outing? Yes, it probably is, but not by much and it replicates too many of the same mistakes to really be anything close to a triumph. The Amazing Spider-Man is perfectly OK, and fractionally better than its immediate predecessor. Technically. Which is also pretty condemnatory.

Script v Length: More Or Less?
Less again, I’m afraid. This has all been covered really so I’m not going to overly repeat myself by so much of the origin story can be jettisoned and it just weighs the early part of the film down so much. It’s interminable and it does a real disservice to Garfield. Get rid of a good thirty minutes of that, give a bit more space for us to invest in Dr Connors before he goes all scaly, and maybe find a way of making him connect to the rest of the script beyond the fact a superhero movie needs a super villain for the good guy to fight. It would also give that low-key charm a chance to flourish because Garfield is pretty charming in the role and he’s a likeable presence that needs a bit more space in the film to have that come across.

How Convincing Does This Webslinger Look?
The size of the spider of Garfield’s suit is getting beyond a joke. It’s starting to look like Peter Parker is compensating for something, in fact – if he gained the strength and abilities of a spider, did he also inherit their genitals and is now making up for the fact with a massive spider on his chest? Well, the costume leaves little to the imagination so please feel free to stare at Andrew Garfield’s crotch relentlessly to figure it out for yourself. Beyond that, though, this Spider-Man’s costume is starting to trend towards that textured rubber-suit super-material looks. It’s not my favourite look though it’s an obvious direction to take things in. So not the best, not the worst.

Villainometer – How Does This Movie’s Plan Seem And How Goes The Costuming?
This villain has a plan! He wants to convert everyone so they will be just like him. I mean, imagine New York, of all cities, full of violent people out for themselves… That aside at least The Lizard has a clear aim, and a clear sense of what Spider-Man needs to do to stop that from happening. What the logic behind that is, beyond he’s a bit nuts, is hazy at best but at least it’s an unambiguous thing which needs Spider-Man to prevent. Which, dutifully, he does. And just as dutifully, Captain Stacy dies in the process. Leary is fine in the role as Captain Stacy but The Lizard killing him off feels like one more box ticked on the list of things the movie needs to do rather than having much of an emotional impact, and of course it mostly happens so we can have a moving death speech rather than because The Lizard cared one way or the other. And, yes, it’s yet another occasion where someone sacrifices themselves to bring down the bad guy and save Peter. Again. Still, it’s to the movie’s benefit that Connors isn’t simply killed off, and at least the shape of having him be returned to the person he was rather than simply eliminated makes sense. As for the costuming… Well it’s pretty clear some real effort has been made to make The Lizard look convincing and there’s at least some weigh to the CGI so it doesn’t just feel like Garfield is exchanging dialogue with a tennis ball on the end of a stick. But at the same time, there’s definitely an uncanny valley at times, emphasised because it’s clear part of Rhys Ifans’s performance is incorporated into the CGI. It’s more than a mite distracting, though it’s also hard to know what else could have realistically been done. So let’s say – if it’s not perfect it’s probably as good as it was ever going to be.

What Else Happened In 2012?
Yes, it’s not great timing to have your superhero movie released the same year as The Avengers, the widely-praised, multi-superhero-starring crossover that surely could never be topped in scale? Ahem. Anyway it’s unsurprisingly the biggest movie of the year, with our webslinging hero coming in at a surprisingly high 7th biggest of the year. Bond has a good year too, with the excellent Skyfall taking the Number 2 position, and The Dark Knight Rises gruffly growling it’s way in at Number 3. Quentin Tarantino’s off to the Wild West with Django Unchained and the Oscars are all about Argo. Drearily self-important idiot-fest Prometheus fucks up the Alien franchise (not as much as its sequel) and Ang Lee gives us Life Of Pi. Inexplicable board game crossover Battleship fails either to use the most obvious line (“you sunk my…”) or engage interest in any other way but fear not because instead we have excellent Nazis-on-the-moon documentary movie Iron Sky to keep interest going. Prole namesake Christopher McQuarrie does his best to make the Jack Reacher(ound) series seem interesting – with limited success – and Kathryn Bigelow makes her mark with Zero Dark Thirty, but far more importantly for this forum and it’s memes, Pirates! In An Adventue With Scientists! is released. And is fucking excellent.



Rankings:

1. Spider-Man 2
2. Spider-Man
3. The Amazing Spider-Man
4. Spider-Man 3

I really hesitated over the positioning of the bottom two and which is better. There’s clearly more love in 3 than there is in Amazing, but Amazing is more proficient, if not by much, and the villain has an actual plan. Normally I’d take a passionate failure over bland competence but 3 is also largely dull and clearly just runs out of steam at a certain point and that rather snuffs out the love. Ultimately their positions are pretty interchangeable.

Next Time On Prole Hole vs Spider-Man…
It’s two-and-through for the GarfieldVerse as we reach the second and final movie in Andrew Garfield’s interpretation. That should spark some interest…

Jeffrey Wright would be an excellent Curt Conners. And sorry for missing Flash in the first movie, for some reason that must have passed me by - I should have said "significant presence" I guess. 

I think with Maguire vs Garfield Peter, they're just different kind of nerds. Garfield's is a mumbly hipster that fits in with "nerd portrayal" circa the start of the 2010's and Magure's is an over-earnest bumbler which fits in with nerd portrayal around the beginning of the 2000's. They're different but both era-appropriate and I like both of them though so far Maguire's had far the stronger material to work with in terms of bringing his Peter into definition. I'm curious to see if ASM2 builds on this, and though I can't say I'm brimming over with optimism I think at the moment Garfield has a lot of potential that really isn't being worked with. I also don't mind that they're trying a different flavour of nerd because ASM1 is already far too bloody similar to SM1 and I don't need even more similarities to drag this one down.

A Spider-Gwen movie would be awesome. So, indeed, would a Mike Morales Spider-movie.

Hey, no need to judge the creative talents of my people! You're not wrong though, that's what I mean when I say it feels like nobody's heart is really in it. 

Someone from Ye Olde Country commented that Gwen Stacy was only notable for her death. Peter was romantically involved with lots of chicks over the years - Betty Brant, Liz Allen, etc - but we remember Gwen Stacy because she was the one whose death hangs over Peter still (though I also don't actually remember her since she died long before I was born and I've never bothered reading the old comic books). Otherwise there's nothing really notable about Gwen. She's the dead girlfriend stuffed in a fridge except decades before Kyle Rayner was created.

I am, sadly, old enough to remember the 1978 Spider-Man and accompanying TV series where Peter is basically middle-aged and, sadly, this was my first real exposure to Spider-Man. Check out this collection of hip'n'happening cats!




Mmm, feel the polyester! So yeah, the teenage thing only really bothers me when they aim for teenager and miss, which I think is the case with the first Maguire movie, though the other two he's probably early 20's and that's fine. Garfield both looks like and plays a teenager so it's all fine there, and same with Holland.

The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2014)



Last time out things were rather less than special so can Andrew Garfield’s second Spider-Man movie turn things around?

Pre-Existing Prejudices:
I’ve seen the first one. That’s fairly prejudiced, given how mediocre that particular effort was. So more of the same is definitely not something I am looking forward to. Hopefully this will be something of an improvement though. We otherwise have the same core cast back, all of who were fine, and Jamie Foxx stepping in to our lead villain role. Foxx is great so this could be a decent bad guy? Fingers crossed and all that…

What’s It All About Proley?
We start with a bit more of Peter’s parents on their jet, getting killed, so that’s cheerful. After saving Some Guy during a battle to stop Aleksei Sytsevich and letting loose a few careless words, Spider-Man is essentially stalked by Max Dillon who, after an accident at work involving some electric eels (!) becomes Electro! After graduating Gwen calls off her relationship with Peter while Harry attends his dying father. He begs Peter to help him locate Spider-Man because he thinks Spider-blood might cure his father but – for understandable reasons – Peter really isn’t down with that. After being forced out of Oscorp, Harry teams us with Electro so Electro can get Spider-Man and Harry can break back into Oscorp for some tech to help him get Spidey's blood. Meanwhile Peter locates his father’s secret subway lab (ok…) while Gwen has been offered a place at Oxford so is leaving the country. This finally (finally!) gets Peter to admit his love for her but before he can do anything about that, Electro attacks. Gwen helps defeat him but, thanks to a newly Green Goblin-ised Harry, dies in the process. Heartbroken, Peter quits being Spider-Man but, five months later, sees Gwen’s graduation speech and is inspired to return to the role. And just in time as Rhino – Aleksi in a big-ass suit – attacks New York…

Any Other Business:

• The opening preamble on the plane, whereby Peter’s father uses the last moments of his life to send a video file via a conspicuously placed Sony Viao that will help Our Hero later on in the movie is a fairly solid opener.

• But that Viao… man there is a lot of product placement in this movie and it’s all for one company. Starts with S, rhymes with pony…

• Gwen continues to be extremely likeable and her graduation speech, which really ought to be pretty corny, comes off well here. Emma Stone is fantastic in the role and feels very genuine.

• Man, putting Jamie Foxx in a balding-wig is quite the look. Who would have guessed he could look so schlubby?

• But he’s a great choice for Electro. Foxx really gives the role a spark (heh) rather lacking from the Lizard last time out. It helps that it’s a lot easier for Foxx to actually express with his face.

• The whole death-bed thing, where Norman is a dick to Harry even as he lies there dying is quite pleasing in that the movie doesn’t compromise on how unpleasant a person Norman is, even as Harry struggles with his dislike of his father and his desire to live up to his expectations. And the "his greatest work" twist with the gizmo telling Harry (too late) where the hidden lab is works too.

• The “genetic illness” (unexpanded upon) also gives Harry some proper motivation, both personal (in the sense that he also needs Spider-blood to survive) and general (in that Peter refusing to help him dooms his father). That motivation really makes a difference to the credibility of what Harry does.

• Doctor Kafka is always hilarious when he’s on screen. I’m not really sure if he’s meant to be, but he always raises a smile with that accent.

• The first battle with Dillon / Electro in Times Square is really nicely done. The battles in general are a big improvement on last time (and they weren't bad then), and Electro makes a convincing nemesis.

• Sally Field, as Aunt May, gets very little to do this movie. That’s a shame because she was one of the better aspects of the last film and there’s a sense she could do something with the role but the film declines to give her the chance.

• Gwen’s Oxford placement as a plot beat is fine, but her wandering into an absurdly baroque stone hall and speaking with someone who has an “English” accent that comes from no actual part of England is just really obvious and a bit lazy.

• Peter’s a bit stalker-y in this upon occasion, but his final declaration of love, standing atop a bridge with the Manhattan skyline works really well and Garfield brings through Peter’s sincerity in the moment nicely.

• When Harry eventually makes his way into Oscorp’s secret underground lab to discover the Green Goblin gear, in one tank you can see Doctor Octopus’s mechanical arms.

• Then we’re off to not one but two battles, firstly Electro then the Green Goblin (again). This Goblin is wholly different from Willem DaFoe’s star turn but works really well – Harry intuiting Peter is Spider-Man because of Gwen’s presence and the fury that drives him to makes the character look properly smart and properly motivated again. It’s really good work, that.

• The make-up for the “corrupted” version of Harry as the Goblin is really good and a pleasing change from just being a mask. It lets Dane DeHaan act properly in the role.

• Electro’s battle and defeat is also very pleasing, as is Gwen being given an active part in taking him down. Unlike MJ in the MaguireVerse movies, there’s no sense of Gwen being a peril monkey – she does the right thing to stop Electro despite her fear and the danger. It’s a far better piece of characterisation than poor old Kirsten Dunst ever got.

• Of course the Big Point here is Gwen’s death. It’s handled excellently, she’s not fridged (more on this below) and both Stone and Garfield are excellent in the moment. Even Spider-Man can’t win every time.

• Even Gwen’s funeral isn’t mawkish, and of course the film ends with Spider-Man returning to the fight in a scene which is genuinely sweet and charming despite, you know, the Russian Mafia guy in the huge Rhino battle-armour.

In Conclusion:
A vast improvement over The Amazing Spider-Man, the first thing to say about The Amazing Spider-Man 2 is that is solves a lot of the issues the first movie had and, while it’s not perfect, this is a hugely entertaining, enjoyable film that knows how to play to its strengths and keeps on doing that. Instead of the never-quite-right threat of The Lizard last time out we have Electro and he’s just immediately a better character and that's the first lesson learned - have a villain that's properly motivated and have him be someone it's easy to care about. Of course, having someone like Jamie Foxx and his near-limitless amount of screen presence and charisma helps – the suit might not be the traditional green-and-yellow affair from the comics but Foxx’s Electro is a hugely credible villain for Spider-Man to face off against. As, indeed, is the Green Goblin. Previous entries have felt overstuffed when they’ve gone with more than one bad guy per movie but The Amazing Spider-Man 2 is deft in its handling of both the Green Goblin and Electro. But “learning from past mistakes” is one thing that The Amazing Spider-Man 2 has done and if a few flaws remain the course correction is both highly visible and highly welcome. And the thing they’ve sorted out best is Peter.

Because though Garfield gave it his best shot last time out, there was something off about the way the script landed the characterisations of both Peter and Spider-Man. Here there’s a real sense that those details have been rectified. During the big battles throughout the film, this Spider-Man really feels like Spider-Man. He’s funny and quippy without feeling irritating, the effects make great use of the character as he gets thrown about and there’s just a great pleasure in watching Spider-Man really be Spider-Man. In all of this, Andrew Garfield is clearly in his element and having a whale of a time bringing the character to life. While never bad in the previous movie he’s moved up a whole level here, engaged and active and just relishing the chance to be a super-hero. Its a rather charming performance all round, but the movie also doesn’t forget that that Spider-Man isn’t just about stopping the big villains. He’s a friendly neighbourhood Spider-Man too, which means we get to see him stopping a kid from being bullied or whatever – low-level, normal problems that exist in the real world but which most super-heroes simply wouldn’t bother with. It’s what makes the character of Spider-Man so appealing and the film never forgets this. This is the best characterisation we’ve had of Spider-Man since Spider-Man 2 in fact and it just feels authentic. Peter, too, has come much more into focus here. The script slightly mishandles the way Peter pursues Gwen – occasionally tipping over into the you-think-this-is-romantic-but-it’s-creepy territory such as following her around – but because Garfield gives real heart to his Peter this time out, and because there’s a genuine spark between him and Emma Stone, the movie pretty much gets away with it. There’s a proper sense that the relationship between these two characters is complicated and messy in the way that real-life relationships are for characters like these, and that makes everything that happens between them feel realistic. The whole emotional core of the movie resting on Peter and Gwen is only going to work if we actually think these two people care about each other and have that extra something, and thankfully they absolutely do.

And oh yes, we absolutely have to talk about Gwen this time out. Because she’s been the best-handled female character across all the movies so far covered. She’s independent, has career and life ambitions which don’t simply follow in the wake of either her boyfriend or family, she’s brave and committed to doing the right thing regardless of consequences, and she’s also extremely likeable and easy to be around. She is, in other words, a proper, fully rounded character in a way that Mary Jane simply hasn’t been up till now. Her desire to go to England to study could seem contrived as a way of getting Our Hero to swoop in and beg her to stay as it might be in any given rom-com but in fact it’s played completely the other way – instead of Gwen being asked to give up her ambitions and remain in New York because Peter loves her, instead Peter says he’ll come to England and be with her there. “They have crime in England, right?” asks Peter, and it’s just so, so refreshing to see a character like Gwen being written with agency and for the movie not to fall in to the usual lazy “couple in love” clichés. And this is perhaps no more true than when it comes to Gwen’s death, because the character is allowed to be brave and resourceful, help defeat Electro, and yet still loses her life because in the end the Green Goblin was just one obstacle too many for Peter to be able to deal with. What’s most impressive about this is the fact that Gwen is absolutely, categorically not fridged. It would have been easy to have her death early on and for that to be the motivating factor behind Peter taking on the bad guys. Instead, she’s allowed to stand as a character, do the right thing when it’s required, and though it in the end costs Gwen her life it doesn’t undermine her as a character nor does it make her sacrifice a simple extension of what’s going on with Peter. Even more impressively, although it’s Gwen that motivates Peter to get back in to the Spider-Man game months after her death, it’s not her death itself that motivates him, it’s watching her graduation speech. Peter is, in other words, motivated by her words of hope and optimism and kindness, not by revenge or anger. That’s incredibly well handled and it’s absolutely right for the character of Spider-Man. He’s not a furious ball of grimdark, he’s a friendly neighbourhood Spider-Man and it’s absolutely correct that it’s something aspirational that gets him back to being a super-hero but at the same time the importance of it being Gwen that’s responsible for it is allowed to stand. It’s a simply fantastic piece of writing. Gwen might, in fact, be the best realised character across any of these movies.

Saying that, though, it’s also refreshing to have villains who are well realised as well. Both Electro and the Green Goblin are well constructed and it’s great to have the two principal villains be motivated by something other than take-over-the-world style super-plans, or greed, or whatever. Electro feels snubbed and rejected, terrified of what he’s become but increasingly coming to love his additional power which he uses to correct the perceived slight of Spider-Man. And the Green Goblin is motivated initially by desire to save his father, then himself, then through anger at what he thinks is Peter’s betrayal. As is very much the theme of this movie, these are street-level motivations, not that vast universe-encompassing threats of the MCU, and that feels right for Spider-Man. This is a character far better suited to dealing with the mess of small-scale human emotions, even when those emotions are being projected by villains who can wipe out New Yorks’s electricity supply or come sweeping in on a fancy hover-board. The scale of this film is exactly right – big enough to fill the screen and hold their own against Spider-Man but whose motivations feel like they’re rooted in normal human experiences rather than grand cosmic conspiracies. It’s an extremely impressive balancing act, and in both Jamie Fox (as Electro) and Dane DeHaan (as Harry / the Green Goblin) we have two excellent actors who do a fantastic job of inhabiting their respective roles. Indeed, DeHaan is simply excellent as Harry in a very under-appreciated role, but he really brings life to the character and manages to be both slimy and strangely sympathetic at the same time. Well, until he goes full Green Goblin, at which point he embraces his inner cackling bad guy and goes all out, but DeHaan is fabulous at bringing that side out as well, and the hatred he has for Peter once he works out who Spider-Man is comes from a real place and is scarily convincing. That his character arc is layered throughout the film also allows The Amazing Spider-Man 2 to have its cake and eat it – having two iconic villains but not have them cluttering up the movie by keeping the actual appearance of the Green Goblin to the final reel so that Electro can act as the more visceral threat until it’s time for him to take centre stage. Of course it goes without saying that Jamie Foxx is fantastic as Electro, but it’s really worth paying attention to his performance as the pre-electrified Max Dillon as well. He really inhabits that side of the character as well and brings to life a lonely man given a brief glimpse of hope when he meets Spider-Man, only for that hope to curdle into resentment when Spider-Man never follows up on those few stray words. It’s a convincing character arc and a convincing performance that really helps the character feel real. That he’s somewhat pitiable also gives credibility to his reaction when he does eventually become powered up, and his desire to finally be noticed really does make the character work.

So then we have to ask why this film is so forgotten. Because really, a few minor niggles aside, it just all pretty much works and it’s absolutely not deserving of its reputation as one of the “forgotten” Spider-Man movies. Sure Aunt May could be a little more fleshed out, and yes there's a bit of a one-third-of-the-way-in sag while the plot gets its ducks in a row but really its pretty small fare. In almost any other year this would be the best super-hero movie released, it’s better than 75% of the MCU movies up till that point, although it has the unfortunate bad luck to be released the same year as Captain America: The Winter Solder which was arguably the best MCU movie at the time of release. And maybe that partly explains it – however good this movie is, or however good any superhero movie is, the MCU has arrived, is in full swing, and is essentially the super-hero hegemony until at the very least now (and, we can presume, the coming years). The Amazing Spider-Man 2 is a great film but the truth is that it’s simply eclipsed by a movie series that overshadows pretty much everything, super-hero or not. The palpable excitement surrounding the MCU even by people not inclined towards super-hero movies means those movies become a sheer cultural force and, despite incredibly strong box office, this film simply cannot compete with that. No film can. Of course the critical reputation of Garfield’s first Spider-Man movie had to be overcome as well, which doesn’t help things, but even if this was an absolute perfect movie – which, to be fair, it isn’t – there’s just nothing that’s going to stop Marvel, or even get a look-in (despite the wheezing labours of the DCEU). And that is, ultimately, what leads to the end of the Garfield version of Spider-Man. Tom Holland will pop up shortly and do a whole different take on the character, but Garfield’s version deserves to be remembered as more than a footnote and this film demonstrates just how great his take on the character could be. This is a thoroughly enjoyable film, one that is simultaneously a big action movie and incredibly grounded, one which actually manages to treat its female lead right (it’ll be a while before the MCU sorts that out) giving her agency and intelligence, and overall this is just a blast. Part of the fun of doing a review project like this is finding neglected gems and getting to appreciate them and that’s absolutely what The Amazing Spider-Man 2 is – a neglected gem that deserves way more attention that it gets.

This is really something of an unexpected triumph.

Script v Length: More Or Less?
Less please, although by a surprisingly small amount this time out. Our running time here is 141 minutes, which is a touch excessive, but because this film uses its time to better advantage it never drags in the way its predecessor does. Yes, there are still a few moments where it struggles slightly, but the pacing is noticeably improved, the film doesn’t take interminably long to deliver its action sequences and if it does sag it’s fairly forgivable this time out. Keeping the Green Goblin basically off-screen until the last fifteen or twenty minutes of the movie is the right approach, giving Electro to be the principal villain and get a proper focus, but allowing enough space for the Goblin to provide that crucial extra bit of threat. Basically this is a well-balanced film and though losing about ten minutes would tighten things up a bit there’s really not a lot to complain about here.

How Convincing Does This Webslinger Look?
Well the costume is still leaning hard into that rubber-suit look for the blue parts of the outfit, which… I mean, it looks practical and modern and it’s clearly something someone has thought about in terms of Peter actually being able to do things in it, but I just don’t quite like it. It’s fine but it’s not really awesome. We do, however, get some lovely point-of-view shots of Spider-Man as he web-slings his way around New York (hey again, Spyder-cam!) and those looks really amazing. They have a great sense of kinetic energy about them and feel genuinely exciting. They really help to convey why Peter would love being Spider-Man despite the risks – this webslinging simply looks like its great fun.

Villainometer – How Does This Movie’s Plan Seem And How Goes The Costuming?
Well, as mentioned above, Electro’s traditional green and yellow affair has been ditched for something altogether more contemporary. That’s probably the right move – the original outfit might have looked a bit Adam West Batman in a 21st Century movie. You can get away with that costume in something like Spectacular Spider-Man, which has a retro look to its animation, but up against the far more modern take on Spider-Man it probably would have looked a bit daft. What we have instead in a blue, flickering Electro which, while fairly literal, still looks pretty great on screen. Most of Electro’s scenes are shot in dark interiors or at night so the character really pops on screen and just generally looks like he means business. I’m sure there are some fans the lament the lack of the original costuming but this still works well for the movie. The same can be said for Harry’s Green Goblin affair as well – his armour is darker and a bit more subtle than the MaguireVerse version, but each is a good fit for their respective films. The Willem DaFoe outfit wouldn’t look quite right here – excellent though it is in its own film – and this version wouldn’t quite work in Spider-Man. And praise be for having a well-motivated villain. Harry’s plan – survival and revenge – is straightforward enough to be easy to understand and layered in to the script enough to not feel arbitrary. It’s clear, concise and makes sense. Similarly, Electro feeling wounded by Spider-Man’s rejection of him as Dillon feels credible enough – perhaps not quite as makes-sense as the Goblin but still, Dillon is clearly hurt by Spider-Man’s perceived dismissal and his desire to take revenge after suddenly gaining power makes enough sense for it to work. Two well motivated villains in the same movie? Well I never!

What Else Happened in 2012?
It’s a good year if you like sci-fi and fantasy since every single movie in the Top Ten of that year falls into one of those two genres. Transformers: Age Of Extinction is the biggest movie of the year, followed closely by The Hobbit: The Battle Of The Five Armies at 2, Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol 1 at 3, Captain America: The Winter Soldier at 7 and our own webslinger at 9. The tenth biggest movie of the year is Christopher Nolan’s ambitious reach-beyond-grasp would-be epic Interstellar. Weepy YA drama The Fault In Our Stars comes out in the middle of the year, and Tom Cruise continues his sci-fi run with Edge Of Tomorrow. Wes Anderson is staying at The Grand Budapest Hotel, The X-Men go retro and crossover with Days Of Future Past and Bong Joon-ho gives us Snowpiercer. The Expendables series wraps with its third entry, and Robert Rodriguez follows up Sin City with A Dame To Kill For. Disappointing horror movie As Above, So Below comes out in September, as does Denzel Washington’s take on hokey 80’s TV show The Equalizer. And for a nice Christmas treat, Paddington arrives at the end of November and manages to be absolutely charming and very much capture the spirt of the original. Thank goodness.

Rankings:

1. Spider-Man 2
2. The Amazing Spider-Man 2
3. Spider-Man
4. The Amazing Spider-Man
5. Spider-Man 3

Next Time On Prole Hole vs Spider-Man…
ganews ! ganews is next on Prole Hole vs Spider-Man! I hand you over now to our friendly neighbourhood orange bear as he covers Tom Holland’s first appearance as Spider-Man in the MCU with Captain America: Civil War.

Decent Gwen makes all the difference!

At this point I agree the Platonian ideal of Spider-Man is somewhere between the ASM and Raimi movies. SM2 has been the closest to a straight knock-out so if you swapped out Gwen from this movie and stuck her in SM2 then it would basically be perfect. 

I'm not a massive fan of the everything-has-to-be-linked approach to storytelling, it tends to make the world seem so very much smaller so I pretty much agree that the inclusion of Ma and Pa Parker here isn't adding anything and, indeed, I'm also happy the MCU hasn't gone down this route. I rewatched Captain America: Civil War at the weekend and its whole approach to the origin story is one whole line "I've had my powers for about six months". That's it. Whatever else one may (or may not) think of the MCU they got that so, so right. 

The hair is spectacular and deserves its own on-screen credit.

Holland's combination of being gleeful and then apologetic at meeting and having to fight some of his heroes was fucking brilliant. I have loved him as Peter/Spider-Man since this very first appearance, and he's only gotten better with time.

I have decided that Homecoming is my favorite Spider-Man movie.

This Peter has to be at a different high school than he was attending in Civil War, even if this is supposed to be just a couple months later. He was nailing ho-hum algebra tests before, now he's solving physics problems at a glance? Perhaps Stark got him transferred to a magnet program. Certainly this school is on some kind of island where said physics class is just part of the curriculum for 15 to 16-year-olds, though Peter may just be in advanced classes for his age. Anyway it's small enough that freshmen know and can even party with seniors like Liz (which was true in my little high school but I wasn't in New York). QUEENS is apparently the most racially diverse place on Earth irl and that seems to be reflected by the movie's student body, a notable change from the last two mostly-white high schools. The movie also re-defines what a bully can be: this Flash Thompson doesn't seem like a jock at all, just a rich kid competing with Peter intellectually. There's no obvious would-be physical threat from this Flash.

I went back and watched the "Ned finds out" clip and I'm pretty sure the Parkers are in a new apartment from Civil War. Peter's bedroom door swings the opposite direction from the one he webbed Stark to, and Ned is sitting on a bunk bed instead of a twin bed. Maybe there was some money involved in the Stark kidnappinginternship after all.

This Mary Jane is completely re-imagined from the party-girl of the comics. About the only thing she shares is her attraction to Peter before they actually start dating. Zendaya is good here.

I think the movie uses race as a fakeout for Toomes' identity. It's not malicious or anything, and the movie doesn't try to stick it to the audience for making assumptions, but I think they knew what they were doing.

Michael Keaton and his Vulture are perfect, easily the best villain depiction in any of the movies. He has a clear motive and method, and the vulture suit fits well into the MCU where half the heroes and villains operate powered suits. The character interpretation is also just super-clever, going from "old guy who flies" to "guy who picks over remains".