This weekend was super-charged with superheroes. I watched Guardians of the Galaxy (fucking incredible), Captain America: The Winter Soldier (second viewing, still my fave of the summer), and The Amazing Spider-Man 2.

The Amazing Spider-Man 2; a movie I should fanboy gush all over. For fuck’s sake, a quarter of my arm is the cover of Web of Spider-Man #8. I’m biased, right?

Sorry, no. Not even the most willfully blind of fanboys can ignore that Amazing Spider-Man 2 is a wholesale piece of garbage. Like Man of Steel, it goes out of its way to pretend what makes the characters involved so great are worth being revised or excised or ignored.

That, my friends, is fucking bullshit.

So what is this rant?

Let’s break it down. Here are my thoughts on Spidey’s reboot sequel.

What I liked:

• Peter and Gwen: I love the relationship. They took everything that was awful about Tobey Maguire and Kirsten Dunst’s chemistry/lines/story and actually make them worth caring about. I WANT Peter and Gwen to be together forever.
• The Osbornes: There was some potential with the Osbornes. I felt the hints dropped regarding Harry and Norman’s relationship was much better than what Raimi provided. I also really liked Harry. He felt like a good guy scumbag and that worked.
• Spider-Kid: What a great scene when Spidey helps a bullied kid and what an awesome little payoff. Loved Spidey thanking the kid for keeping the seat warm. Quintessential Spidey right there. That was a perfect scene.

Notice anything about what I liked? Let’s move on to what I didn’t like.

What I may have fucking despised with the fury of a thousand suns:

• Electro: Ugh. Fucking hell. EVERY SINGLE SCENE was a garbled mess. What a waste of a potentially interesting character. Don’t even get me started on the mugging and the itsy-bitsy spider scene.
• Green Goblin: Where did this shit come from? It felt like the readers needed to justify that little scene where Harry tells the weird fedora guy that he needs a small group to rock all the little experiments in his dad’s lab. As an aside, how the fuck does a Rhino suit, metal octopus arms, or a glider going to help stop your debilitating and lethal disease from killing you?? The movie seemed to imply all those projects were for that sole purpose. Anyway, Goblin was shoe-horned in as was Gwen’s death. All of that could have easily been in a third film.
• Rhino: Useless, unnecessary, and stupid. He was upstaged by a kid in a Spidey Halloween costume. While I loved that scene specifically for the kid and Spidey’s interaction – Rhino could have easily been some random thug with a handgun and held as much weight.

So let’s see. I enjoyed everything in this movie that did not involve a costume.

I think we can see the problem. You call a movie Spider-Man and all the scenes with Spider-Man are fucking garbage. That’s a massive, massive problem. If they really want to fix this we need a few things to happen.

• No more bullshit mysterious history for Peter. Seriously, how much subplot do we fucking need?
• ONE VILLAIN AT A TIME. Unless other villains are thugs for the main villain. Cut it out. Toy lines can have random characters added for no reason. People won’t give a fuck.
• Better designs. The new Spidey suit is perfect, but holy shit were the villains awful. They all looked like something Joel Schumacher’s people half-assed.
• No more z-plots. An NYC blackout and the best you can come up with is airplane drama? It’s fucking NYC, read about the ’77 blackout. Spidey would have had his hands FULL. That would have been awesome too. Having to get to Electro but being constantly sidelines by looting, riots, and random crimes. Street level Spidey is best Spidey.
• Don’t kill the best actor you have in the movie. That really could have waited.

Overall, I have a feeling we’ll be seeing another reboot soon. Sony’s tone deaf attempt to emulate the Avengers formula has already failed before leaving the gate. (Seriously, Google how they teased the Sinister Six and immediately issued a statement that what they teased wasn’t really the lineup…A DAY LATER.)

Ah, Spidey. One day. One day you’ll get the movie you deserve.

Oh yeah. Go see Guardians of the Galaxy (again, and again, and again).

Be easy,

Angel