Caught in web of success
The great irony of the age of Marvel is that casting and performance are even more important than in the days when the sets were made of cardboard and actors dangled on strings.
This is because visual astonishments afforded by CGI have become as commonplace as a keyboard click.
Superheroes leap from aeroplanes and buildings and nail the landing every time, battleships are so vast they block out the sun and entire cities are transformed into wrestling rings. Yet audiences now greet movie magic with all the excitement of a dad doing a card trick.
Which is why the special effect generating the most interest is the actors Marvel entices into its universe, such as Robert Downey Jr, who managed to inject wit, danger and sexiness into Iron Man, and Andrew Garfield, who sent Marc Webb's Spider-Man reboot soaring into the box-office stratosphere even though the film was dismissed for being too similar to the original.
Indeed, Garfield brought a vulnerable humanity to the role of Peter Parker, the budding photographer still struggling to come to terms with the death of his parents as well as the immense changes happening to his body. He's more physically capable than Tobey Maguire yet more likely to fall apart under the pressure of being Spider-Man.
Garfield is again the main reason to see The Amazing Spider-Man 2: Rise of Electro, which again struggles to justify its existence so soon after the trio of Sam Raimi-directed Spider-Man movies.
Even when it goes over old ground Garfield is such a fearless, committed performer that we only have eyes for him despite the eye-popping new monsters threatening to destroy New York.
Astutely, Webb and his writers flesh out more of the orphan-hero's backstory, beginning with an intriguing flashback in which his father races against the clock to upload data before the plane on which he is travelling is destroyed.
The exact nature of Richard's research doesn't become clear until later in the movie but it further deepens the mystery of Peter Parker's origins, suggesting his parents might have been involved in something sinister.
The sins of the father also loom in the subplot involving Peter's childhood friend Harry Osborn (the talented Dane DeHaan taking over from James Franco in the original Spider-Man), who is suffering from the same disorder that early in the movie kills his father, a billionaire scientist who lost the battle to prolong his life through genetic mutation.
Of course, Harry will morph into the Green Goblin but before Spider-Man can deal with his arch-nemesis he must confront a new villain, Electro (Jamie Foxx), a nerdy Oscorp engineer who accidentally tumbled into a tank of giant electric eels and was transformed into a high-voltage monster who gets stronger every time he plugs into the power grid.
Harry Osborn/Green Goblin and Max Dillon/Electro are two of the more interesting comic-book movie villains because they are not inherently evil but victims; one condemned to an early death because of his father's lust for power, the other a dork who loved Spider-Man and was turned into a monster while doing his job.
Unfortunately, Webb and his writers miss the opportunity to give these characters a tragic grandeur and give the showdown with Spider-Man more emotional kick. Rather, they pile on the characters and subplots in typical modern action-movie style and rush past the most interesting part of the movie for the inevitable by-the- numbers climax.
Actually, the ending is not quite so by-the-numbers because Webb gives us something we rarely get in a Marvel movie - the death of a major character.
Critics have complained nobody of significance dies in the Marvel universe and therefore nothing has any weight or meaning. Webb and co correct this in a scene that will send many fans to the exit reeling and wondering where the franchise goes to next.
While a couple of the action set pieces are very strong - the first confrontation between Spidey and Elecro in Times Square has a wonderfully grounded grandiosity, as if it was shot by Michael Mann - the strongest scenes in The Amazing Spider-Man 2 involve Peter and his girlfriend Gwen Stacey (Emma Stone).
These sexy nerds are made for each other - some of the cutest scenes involve Peter answering her phone calls while saving New York from another giggling maniac - but the demands of being a superhero and her professional ambitions cause a strain. They're just another modern couple trying to balance romance and career.
This is the fifth Spider-Man movie since 2002 and while all have been more or less entertaining they now all blur into one, despite the tasty Garfield/Stone pairing. It feels like a franchise caught in its own web.
