Remember when I talked about how I enjoyed The Amazing Spider-Man 2 on the opening day back in May 2014 before I graduated NOVA to participate in George Mason? Forget I ever said that. At least last summer's Avengers: Age of Ultron was way more entertaining than this failure (yeah, I said it) despite being so-so. It was that one time that I thought for sure that we finally have the most definitive movie portrayal of Spider-Man of all time as a way to erase the emo-ness/humorlessness/crybabishness of Tobey Maguire in the depressing (that's right) trilogy closure Spider-Man 3 after seeing the 1st "Amazing" Spider-Man, I thought for sure that the sequel would be any better if not so than Sam Raimi's truly spectacular (no pun intended) Spider-Man 2 (maybe like Godfather 2, it should have been the actual end of Tobey/Peter's story). Even though I enjoyed how Andrew Garfield made his Spider-Man more humorous, by wearing his extremely FLAWLESS costume for a decent amount of time without relying on frequently taking his mask off and act like he was taken straight from the comics and brought to life on the big screen, perhaps it shouldn't be too super corny (unlike the 2012 predecessor) for even the comic book fan audiences to cope with thanks to the INFERIOR and distracting soundtrack by Oscar-winning Hans Zimmer (along with the "Magnificent Six") as opposed to the more memorable and heroic soundtracks by Danny Elfman or the late James Horner in the predecessors. As much as the chemistry between Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone is much more sweeter than Tobey Maguire and Kirsten Dunst, it unfortunately takes up a lot of screentime a little too much with all of the unnecessary breakups and getting back together whatsoever. Almost every character, like Felicity Jones' Felicia Hardy (Black Cat) and Paul Giamatti's over-the-top mechanized Rhino (hilariously only seen at the start and the end of the film), that is "crucial" to this so-called Spider-Man Cinematic Universe that Sony hopes to build were absolutely unnecessary that they just ended up having no payoff. Same thing with the villains, particularly Electro (Academy Award-winner Jamie Foxx) who is of course so uber-cheesy, just like the German-accented mad scientist Dr. Kafka, when he starts off as an electrician nerd who wants to be seen by the public and then have only two major fight scenes in both Times Square and the Oscorp electric power plant grid despite being the "main villain" who sadly has no connection with what Peter Parker has to deal with after battling the Lizard in the first film. That is probably what made the overall ASM2 plot a little confusing. And Dane DeHaan. Oh boy, was I wrong to admit how "great" he is compared to James Franco's whiny counterpart who is clearly not a worthy "Green Goblin" like Norman Osborn wanted him to be in Spider-Man 2. Just like Chris Cooper's Norman Osborn, who is suddenly sick and dying (and then we don't see him being alive in the mid-credits scene as rumored), the new Harry Osborn became the [first] Green Goblin (in order to cure his genetic sickness after his offer to Peter/Spider-Man got turned down (obviously)) and then first attack Spider-Man after Electro's defeat only to end up unconscious after a brief fight in the clocktower. And because we're no longer getting an Amazing Spider-Man 3 as planned, all that Green Goblin nonsense (with all of his attack on Oscorp scenes stupidly cut out after the transformation) is but a tragic waste. Except that kind of nonsense resulted in the death of Gwen Stacy. Yeah, I knew that was gonna happen since it happened before in the comics, but I didn't think it would be handled like this. Though it's too bad that Dane DeHaan's Green Goblin (except too human-like) was just simply there to kill off Gwen. So both his and James Franco's Harry the Green Goblins are officially ruined by becoming cheap afterthoughts like Jean Grey's Dark Phoenix in X-Men 3. Guess the studio interference really did a huge number on this potentially wasted sequel to the unnecessary reboot. Now we will never get to see if the whole Sinister Six plot (regarding the "Gustav Fiers" character, who mysteriously first appeared in Dr. Connors' prison in ASM1) will really came to fruition as hinted by the ego-headed producers. That we probably don't need in Amazing Spider-Man 2 (now one of the biggest failed movie franchise starters since Golden Compass and Green Lantern) if it's not going to be a real thing at all. The same can be said for the underdeveloped Peter Parker parents subplot that was supposed to be "an important thing" (hence, the "untold story" in ASM1). Oh, and for the final battle part, it would be better if we don't have the random near plane double collision and the Aunt May hospital scenes since we DON'T CARE ABOUT THEM and mean nothing to Peter and Gwen's fight with Electro.
No wonder reviews from critics, including Spidey fans, were all as though written by J. Jonah Jameson. This is the Spider-Man movie Sony thinks will "earn $1 billion"? I think not, given that there's like a LOT of mediocrity with the poor script (Roberto Orci & Alex Kurtzman, mind you), the characters, the inconsistent tone, and how everything is too commercial like the Joel Schumacher Batman films were. What a pretty poor gamble they had made. It must be why its $709 million worldwide gross is considered a very low record for Sony, which is apparently due to our lukewarm attention towards the once iconic Marvel superhero in his too-soon-to-be-made reboot prior to the massive popularity of the more bankable Avengers after Spider-Man 3 destroyed our anticipated expectations and our long term interest in the web-slinger back in 2007. That must be how this franchise fatigue thing works whenever you reach up to movie #4 or #5. Thank goodness that Sony agreed to let Marvel borrow the Spider-Man universe to better incorporate it into the Avengers world while still retaining half of their creative and distribution rights.
Even though for some reason after The Amazing Spider-Man 2 got mixed to now more negative reviews, opinions (particularly on YouTube) for Sam Raimi's "awful" mistake that is the laughably-horrendous Spider-Man 3 are starting to change by saying that everything in that X-Men 3-type threequel is "better" than the [more tolerable] Amazing Spider-Man films because the action is "decent" ('cept we actually don't see enough Black-Suited Spider-Man action after the Sandman subway fight like we thought) and that Peter being all emo and dancing like an idiot is "what makes him a nerd" (ugh, but isn't the silly humor feeling MISPLACED and oh, FORCED unlike in 1 & 2!?). Why? If Spider-Man 3 wasn't the worst movie of all time by undermining everything that Spider-Man stood for as Spider-Man 2 had established, then Sony would never have considered rebooting the Spider-Man movie franchise we know is just too good to be immediately remade even if we're in the 2010s when next thing they know, they're only damaging the Spider-Man character even further by retelling the origin story in a more lazier way when you don't have Uncle Ben's death (Martin Sheen specifically) being the main factor for Peter's reason to become a "responsible" hero like how it was successfully handled in the 2002 film. It's precisely why I now like the X-Men movie franchise way more when you have time-travel to fix everything and still bring back old characters from the original 3 without permanently ignoring them and then give them a proper happy ending while paving way for a newer timeline that has James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, and Jennifer Lawrence. That should have happened to the Sam Raimi films in order to remove the tainted problems from Spidey 3 and give Tobey Maguire and Kirsten Dunst a proper happy ending like what SM2 actually did and accept that the original Spidey films are better off as TWO MOVIES instead of a "trilogy" that we so greedily kept calling them. This way, we'll always honor the "With Great Power, Comes Great Responsibility" message when we DON'T mention the stupid and immature things that Tobey "Crybaby" Maguire had done when wearing the "Dance-Off" Black Suit or the meaningless revelation that Sandman killed Uncle Ben, which were strangely approved by Sam Raimi and Ivan Raimi in the script (even before the studio's behest to include Venom). Why can't the fans understand that and admit that Spider-Man 3 is a 2007 movie that should be wiped off from the face of the Earth?
The way that Amazing Spider-Man 2 ended with a spider symbol appearing after Peter goes back being Spider-Man (which took long enough after "5 months") to save the people of New York from Rhino, it's a shame that we'll no longer be getting an actual ending for Andrew Garfield's time as our favorite future Avenger if the not-as-successful $709 million gross and a 53% fresh rating from Rotten Tomatoes says so. Perhaps the Sony executives should have learned their lesson on how to not mess with the final product of either Spider-Man 3 or Amazing Spider-Man 2, as well as how to not remake something so classic and iconic (like Total Recall or RoboCop) in favor of low-grade "enhancements" that it will only hurt our feelings towards the superior original works. That is why we must not lose our faith and interest in Spider-Man, the most responsible hero of the biggest Marvel universe that he is already a part of. So for me, whether you Spider-Man 3 lovers like it or not, the only Spider-Man movies in existence are Sam Raimi's Spider-Man (2002) and Spider-Man 2 (2004), and finally Marvel's Spider-Man (coming July 7th, 2017) starring our newest member of the Marvel Cinematic Universe who will help redeem your friendly neighborhood hero once again where Andrew Garfield had failed: Tom Holland. I will await the first full look at his Spider-Man character as soon as Captain America: Civil War draws closer to May 6th this year!
