Highly anticipated superhero sequel The Amazing Spider-Man: Rise of Electro released in South Africa this past weekend. Today, we want to hear your thoughts on the flick. Much better than Amazing 1? Overstuffed with villains? 3D that actually delivers? Fantastic on IMAX? What did you think? Provide your mini review here now.
The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of Critical Hit as an organisation.
Last Updated: April 30, 2014
DarthZA
April 30, 2014 at 11:08
SPOILER-MAN! SPOILER-MAN! I thought the IMAX was incredible. The 3D was also used very nicely. There were many things I thoroughly enjoyed about the movie. I was extremely happy with the way they showed Spider-Sense in the first fight with Electro. I thought they did the original death of Gwen Stacey justice with not only the outfit, but just the heavyness of her death. I thought Dane Dehaan was truly spectacular. But as a whole, I feel the movie dropped quite a few balls. I didn’t like the pacing, I didn’t like the way Electro was done, or rather, how his character went from nothing man to evil man. The sub-plot with his parents, while, his dad, didn’t show us anything that wasn’t already painfully obvious by the main plot. I got that Oscorp was evil, we didn’t need the sub-plot to show us that. And where was Connors? The first movie portrayed Connors as the research partner of Parker, not Osborn. In the end, I enjoyed the first one a lot more than this one.
Wayne Bossenger
May 2, 2014 at 20:13
In short. I really enjoyed it. In long…
The ASM2 makes great use of 3D for which I have not seen for a very long time. The soundtrack was quite fantastic, especially the backing track for Electro and Harry Osborn.
I thought the villains were well thought out, and it never felt like there were too many around, even though the Goblin and Electro could have headed their own movies in their own right. I liked the way the Goblin is handled. Any man would go insane knowing the only cure that can save your life is being withheld from you, pushing into desperation and madness. Electro was perhaps a little rushed in his development, but it’s easy to see his fall from sanity as well. After being ignored and passed over for years, all he looks for is respect and recognition, and once he gets a sliver of that, he latches onto the kindness so that he never loses that again, causing an obsession to fester. These two individuals both desperate for their obsession, rely on each other to get what they want, which makes the alliance all that much believable in the end.
The death of Gwen Stacy was displayed beautifully. Those in the know immediately recognised its coming from her outfit alone, and were quite drawn in by the end of it. There was a sense that it wouldn’t happen since she fell quite a few times from Spider-Man’s reach. I was kinda hoping it wouldn’t happen, just because Gwen and Peter’s chemistry is quite palpable, but her leaving was being built up throughout the film, the fact it was her death that did it, shocked everyone! It was wonderful to hear everyone gasp when it happened. A superhero failing to save someone, especially someone close to them, is a huge point for the franchise and sets the series in reality once again.
As comic book films go, this is arguably the most realistic, if that is even possible. Peter’s humour in this film was again just fantastic! I also loved how Peter tinkers with his web shooters and applies real physics to their upgrade. It shows just how smart he really is and in a believable manner, something the previous film franchise severely lacked. Another improvement between film franchises, which was displayed much better in this film, was Peters spider-sense. It really was a ‘sense’ that alerted him to any threat in the vicinity, than some slow-mo cam that never worked as well as it should have. Perhaps a touch ridiculous when he is quite some distance away in the final third of the film but there was more than just his ‘spider-sense’ that alerted him to that danger.
The origin of Spider-Man’s powers was interesting to see. I liked that it was his blood that helped him become who he is. Makes him more special. From the trailers it looked as though the film would take a different turn, since in the trailer Harry tells Peter that Osborn has been observing him his whole life, and that was cut out completely. A similar situation happened in the first film so I’d be intrigued to find out why the sudden change, again!
All in all it was a rather entertaining and amazing experience (hehe!). Great, solid film for comic-book lovers and action fans. Looking forward to the 3rd instalment, that is for sure!