Movie Review: The Amazing Spider-Man 2

First and foremost I cannot believe I got Jenn to go see this with me. But somehow the stars aligned just right and we went to go see The Amazing Spider-Man 2 this past Friday night (opening night for the movie) and I for one am glad we did. We walked over to Big Newport Cinemas after eating some El Ranchito Takeout. When we got to the theater it was buzzing with people and not one but two guys in Spider-Man costumes taking pictures with kids and getting them pumped for the movie. 

I was a fan of the original Amazing Spider-Man far more then the Tobey Maguire trilogy. Granted it was kind of rehashing a lot of the same elements, I think that Andrew Garfield embodies the character far better. As for The Amazing Spider-Man 2 it really is a tricky movie to review. The plot and story elements are mediocre at best. The story jumps all over the place and there are far too many villains in the movie to even begin to care about them. So that's the bad news.

The good news is the movie was still very entertaining. The Amazing Spider-Man franchise embraces the quirk that is Spider-Man. Having watched a lot of the cartoons as a kid there is a level of silliness that comes with Spider-Man that I think these movies embody really well. The fact that the old Spider-Man theme is Peter Parker's ring tone is just one of the nods to the old cartoons and comics. Not to mention the movie was absolutely gorgeous. I still love the bright color palette that this series embodies. Not to mention some of the swinging scenes were incredible. 

I for one was extremely entertained throughout the film while Jenn scoffed and yawned her way through the 2 1/2 hours. The Amazing Spider-Man 2 is far from a perfect movie. It has a lot of problems. But it did make for a very entertaining start to the summer movie season.