“The Amazing Spider-Man II: Rise of Electro”

Rated PG-13 for sequences of science fiction action/violence

I don’t really understand why we have to go further with Spiderman. Or if they must serve it up to us again, perhaps they could, at least, do something with simple elegance or originality? The BBC series “Sherlock” comes to mind. Old story told with originality and with simplicity. It can be done and is being done. Alas, with this contribution to the franchise we get a pulpy (pun intended) hodgepodge, albeit with occasional glimpses of entertainment and the usual Marvel Comics’ thrills and chills.

In this version we have Peter Parker looking a bit like James Dean (Andrew Garfield) and no fewer than three super villains: Electro (James Foxx), Aleksi the Rhino (Paul Giamatti), and the Green Goblin (Dane DeHaan) not working in tandem, but separately, which adds to a sense of vertigo while watching. (I understand there are two more villains but they go so quickly I missed them — or I may have dozed off.) Then there is the human kind of dastards including one who is a pathetic parody of Dr. Strangelove named Dr. Kafka (terrible, I know) who likes to torture Electro … and then there are the corporate bad guys who are part of Oscorp, which pretty much seem like Hollywood’s megalomaniacal corporate-style stick figures, the usual amoral lawyers and MBAs. Pardon me while I roll my eyes.

There are so many things wrong with this movie that it saddens me. It isn’t a terrible movie; it is just too cumbersome, clumsy and klutzy. There are parts that are really embarrassing. The worst of it being Spider-Man making (pseudo) clever patter while doing his loop-de-loops braining the bad dudes. That chitter-chatter is annoying.

 

This is not the brooding Peter Parker I grant empathy. Instead we have a goofy Peter Parker in love and then — later — with a broken heart; at one time giddy and later self-pitying; callous about his father and then suddenly obsessed about him. This is Peter the schizophrenic. And the movie suffers from the same disorder. One minute it is slapstick and then it is tragic — without an ounce of wit or pathos and nary an artful logical transition from one emotional moment to another.

The actors are wasted “amazingly.” The “web” of unnecessary complexity is “venomous” to the heath of cinematic entertainment. And the character of Electro fails to “charge up” the screen.

OK, I have punned myself into exhaustion.

The very first few scenes of this film — about the death of Mr. and Mrs. Parker — is pretty darn suspenseful, but when it is over, the film lumbers along … and at two hours and 22 minutes there is just too many “and then” “and then” “and then” for it to flow smoothly and effectively.

This Spiderman is a disappointment to the franchise. It does not help that it arrived so soon after the far superior Marvel film, “Captain America: the Winter Soldier.” While that film blows the viewer away with effects, acting and action, “Spider-Man II: Rise of Electro” is the same-old-same-old. “Captain America: the Winter Soldier” is “how-it’s-done” while the “Amazing Spider-Man II: the Rise of Electro” is “what-is-to-be-avoided.”

Perhaps if I had not seen Captain America, Spider-Man II might have been better received by yours truly.

Too much went on in this film and it went in too many directions and the talent is poorly used by director Marc Webb. Since this is supposed to be a bridge episode to Amazing Spider-Man 3, its weaknesses bode poorly for it.

I just may avoid the spider next time.

“The Amazing Spiderman II: Rise of Electro” earns two and a half bowties out of five.