Above: Emma Stone and Andrew Garfield return as Gwen Stacy and Spider-Man
“Who am I? You sure you want to know?” With those words, Peter Parker (Tobey
Maguire) initiated the “Spider-Man” series.
And for many years, I answered his query with a resounding, “Yes!” Not only did I want to see my favorite geek
superhero triumph in battle; I also kept watching in the hope that he would
find happiness and true love. For the
soul of the story lay not in Peter’s (exquisitely) death-defying acrobatics,
but in the images of him hovering above New York City in his spider-suit, lost
in his own isolation.
I wish I could say that “The Amazing Spider-Man 2” (the
second installment in a new trilogy of Spidey adventures) mined some of that
sweet sadness. But watching the film
unfold, I couldn’t help feeling that something had been irrevocably lost. Much has changed, especially since Mr.
Maguire has left the building and the swaggering Briton Andrew Garfield has
(quite effectively) donned the mask.
But more importantly, the series no longer feels like Peter’s
story. Instead, it has turned into a
color-drenched canvas of crashes, explosions, and finally, death so clumsily
depicted that you’re left your grinding your teeth as well as clutching your
heart.
Fittingly, the new film begins with Peter/Spidey swooping
into the midst of a car chase and trussing up an escaped convict (Paul Giamatti)
up for the police’s pleasure—just in time to swing into his high school
graduation and reunite with his girlfriend, Gwen Stacy (Emma Stone). Yet it soon becomes clear that dangerous,
Spidey-opposed forces are lurking. To
begin, one of Gwen’s deranged co-workers (Jamie Foxx) goes on an electrical rampage
(don’t ask) and then, the wealthy young CEO Harry Osborn (Dane DeHaan) shows
up, making literally bloodthirsty demands that Peter isn’t prepared to fulfill.
Still, there’s something wonderfully lithe and human
about the early scenes between Peter and Harry.
After an embarrassed reunion (they were friends as eight-year-olds), they
take to the streets of Manhattan, sliding down metal railings and bantering
about the increased presence of super-powered heroes and villains in the Big
Apple. “New York’s gotten weird!” Harry
grouses. It’s about time somebody said
it.
Harry, of course, is a beacon of weirdness himself. Burdened by a strange illness, he becomes
increasingly jittery and violent, convinced that his only hope lies in
obtaining a blood transfusion from Spider-Man.
But Peter, fearing for Harry’s safety, denies his request, thereby
triggering Harry’s transformation into the psychotic killer known as “The Green
Goblin.”
In other words, cue Spider-Man to the rescue. Yet title notwithstanding, “The Amazing
Spider-Man 2” doesn’t really belong to its hero. While Harry and the rest of the characters
make life-altering choices (Gwen even contemplates a move to England), Peter
fiddles around, living in a post-graduate limbo where the only thing left to do
is to contentedly bum around in his bedroom and beat up the occasional crook. Part of that is certainly because the film
serves as both a superhero story and an ensemble-toting conspiracy thriller (the
screenplay’s web of treachery and deceit constitutes a lighter echo of “The
Dark Knight”). Yet even so, Peter’s
trials (including his redundant attempts to break up and make up with Gwen)
feel strangely trivial and beside the point.
There is, of course, one moment when Peter does attempt
to make a real decision. At the end of
the film, he whisks Gwen to the top of a suspension bridge, telling her that he
wants to come with her to England. “They
have crime in England,” he deadpans.
“They still haven’t caught Jack the Ripper.”
A
sweetly witty exchange? Absolutely, and one
that reminds you of what the film could have been if it had been anchored more
firmly to the tender chemistry between Mr. Garfield and Ms. Stone. But in the end, “The Amazing Spider-Man 2”
stretches itself so wide that it snaps, failing to delve into the heart and
mind of its hero and, more importantly, the conflicted, good-hearted man behind
the mask.
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