Review: Latest ‘Spider-Man’ film has lots of fun action, a few too many stories

Posted on May 9, 2014

Back in 2012, when Sony released its franchise reboot, “The Amazing Spider-Man,” tossing out the previous three films and starting the story from scratch, I was less than enthused about seeing Peter Parker’s ascension into superhero status a second time in 10 years.

After finding myself enjoying the new movie anyway, I said the filmmakers must have decided that if they were going to reboot a franchise that didn’t need rebooting, they were going to at least make a really good reboot. It helped that Andrew Garfield as Peter Parker and Emma Stone as love interest Gwen Stacey were quite good in their roles and director Marc Webb, despite having a very short resume, managed the massive film with seeming ease.

So now two years later, Sony is back with “The Amazing Spider-Man 2,” and it appears the filmmakers decided that if they were going to make a sequel to said reboot, they would go two for two.

“The Amazing Spider-Man 2” is quite enjoyable, with phenomenal special effects and great performances, especially from Garfield and Stone. That’s not to say the film is perfect, as the story is somewhat uneven and tries to do too many things, resulting in somewhat of a paradox, where the movie at times feels cluttered and at others a bit slow.

All in all, I felt “The Amazing Spider-Man 2” is a satisfying continuation of the new Spider-Man universe, even if the story at times loses focus trying to have its fingers in too many pies, some of which involve movies yet to be made.

The film is rated PG-13 for sequences of sci-fi action/violence.

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