After reading review, after analysis, after hatchet job on this thing, it seemed about time to finally watch Mark Webb’s corporate-mandated follow-up to 2012’s rather poor Spider-Man reboot. This might be another case, like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles earlier this week, where rock-bottom expectations braced me for a pummeling that turned out to be less disastrous than I had prepared for.
Going into TAS:2 fully aware of its many, many flaws (including: a bloated, nonsensical and stitched together plot; a protagonist without an actual arc; questionable performance choices by Dane DeHaan and Jamie Fox as the villains), the viewing experience became much more about looking for those places Webb, and vilified writers Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman, went right, instead of pointing out the very obvious ways the whole thing is a giant mess.
In many scenes of TAS:2 you can tell there was a nugget of an interesting idea that’s been buried by the shaky structure of the project. There are these fleeting instances of things I’ve never seen in a superhero movie, ones that actually seem progressive by the standards of the genre, regardless of studio. But they stand out for their novelty by also being anomalies, as TAS:2 still has to be the clanking mass of CG spectacle and setpieces that is the modern superhero movie.
An example: there’s a lot to Jamie Foxx’s Electro that’s really half-assed (2014: the year we proved evil German scientists are still a thing), but his first action scene with Spider-Man is a minor-revolution for resisting being an action scene for so long. When he and Spidey first meet in Times Square, a lengthy amount of time is spent with Spider-Man acting as a negotiator, trying to talk down Electro before he goes ballistic. Of course, he inevitably will, but before they square off, the film does take the time to show how Spider-Man’s power lies in being a mediator and a friend, not just an ass-kicker.
Peter Parker is a non-entity in his own movie, as he does nothing but try to fight the changes in his life. For a blockbuster, a hero without a well-paced story is usually a killer. Yet, a smaller Spider-Man movie in this vein could be a revelation. There’s never been a superhero movie focusing on day-to-day life of superheroics; the latest threat to the world and all existence is always waiting right around the corner. TAS:2 is narratively spineless, which accounts for why so many scenes have no idea what tone or visual style to maintain, but a picture about Peter Parker’s sacrifices to be Spider-Man that’s 75% character study, 25% superhero film, could bring a set of fresh eyes to the genre.
And the last big thing that TAS:2 does right, against all odds, is maybe the most depressing thing about it. There’s finally an interesting female lead role in one of these things, and its overwhelming incompetence in other places overshadows that fact. With Gwen Stacey, we’ve finally got a superhero love interest that isn’t just the love interest. Her entire conflict with Peter through the film is about her having an internal life and existence outside of her boyfriend; yes, it would be pretty life-changing to be dating a superhero, but just like Peter, life itself doesn’t get put on hold. Gwen spends most of the movie making independent decisions for herself, even when it comes time for the action-packed finale. When Spider-Man is fighting goons by himself, the film is mostly generic, but by having Gwen as treated as an equal participant and partner, there’s a dynamic and a character type at play in TAS:2’s finale that elevates it substantially.
Of course, adherence to comic book lore means that TAS:2 is probably the last we’ll be seeing of Gwen, and that’s a real shame. There are blatant structural and exposition purposes for why she plays as big a role as she does, and some might argue that the time invested in Gwen is what prevents the film’s protagonist from having his own arc. But the reason the Peter-Gwen scenes have always worked best in these Webb films is because they get to the heart of the Spider-Man character better than any action scene can. Responsibility, compassion, and foolish youth are what define this character, not spandex and a spidey sense. You can tell that Webb, and maybe even Orci and Kurtzman, know this too. It’s just a shame that making a film dedicated to those qualities scares studios, who instead trade on cloying sentiment to cover up plot holes, all so that you can shove popcorn in your mouth while New York gets blown up for the 10,000th time.