The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2014)

What I immediately noticed in part 2 was the additional of humor. The first movie didn't really have any humor, but this one tried to include it everywhere. Usually, I like humor. Here, at first at least, I thought it felt forced, like the test group from the first movie said it lacked humor and so the writers made sure to add it everywhere in this one.

But then I thought: Most of the humor comes from Spider-Man. Maybe the use of humor is to show that he has grown in confidence. If he had to make a choice between being Spider-Man and Peter, he's made the choice: He's Spider-Man. Of course that won't stick. Like the first franchise, this franchise is set-up like a Romance movie, and so Peter (Andrew Garfield) and Gwen (Emma Stone) will need to continue to wonder "will we or won't we"?

Gwen seems to have made his firm choice. She's going to Oxford for 6 months, without Peter. But, of course, Peter makes the decision to stop her. Gwen doesn't put up that much of a fight. Actually, Peter doesn't want to stop her. He wants to go with her, even though he's got nothing set up over there and no reason to be in London, except to be with Gwen.

The backstory of Peter's parents (dad mainly) continues to play out. We also get introduced to an emo Harry Osborn and find out his backstory with his dad. Oh, and there's Electro (Jamie Foxx), too. So, a lot of going on here.

In terms of the conclusion, I have to think they wrote it with The Amazing Spider-Man 3 in mind. Unfortunately, whatever plans there were for a trilogy were cancelled. I wrote in another review that a 5-year window between franchises was too short, but the window between the second and third franchises was even shorter -- 3 years.

Rating: 3.5/5 stars

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