The Amazing Spider-Man 2

One of the best things to happen to fans of genre films, comics and novels in recent years has been the steady dispelling of the idea that cartoons and live-action adaptations of them are necessarily un-serious. But that does not mean that all science fiction, fantasy and superhero stories are necessarily literature. “The Amazing Spider-Man 2,” which arrives in theaters today, is the perfect example of a movie that is coasting on the promise of a big pay-day.

The pattern repeats in “The Amazing Spider-Man 2.” The most promising antagonist in the film is Max (Jamie Foxx), a put-upon Oscorp engineer. His life is transformed by an accidental encounter with Spider-Man (now Andrew Garfield), who saves him from an incoming car, and tells Max, “You’re not nobody. You’re somebody.” For Spider-Man, it is patter. For Max, it is a talisman against the anger he feels about Oscorp stealing his generator designs, a boss (B.J. Novak) who disrespects him and his crushing loneliness.

Max’s journey from nobody to super-villain could have been an intriguing exploration of race in New York. Before his transformation, Max is exploited by a large corporation. After he is changed, Max staggers out into the streets of New York in a hoodie, looking either physically or mentally ill. And when he is captured, he is turned into a medical research subject by an unscrupulous doctor. Any one of these situations might have been an interesting way into how black New Yorkers are treated by big companies when they are employees, the police when they are homeless or ill, or the medical establishment when they are sick.

“The Amazing Spider-Man 2″ gestures at these ideas occasionally. Max, who is fascinated by the prospect of being recognized and acknowledged, is wonderstruck when a news camera projects his image on Times Square screens. He dreams of destroying the power grid that was built with his designs, but without credit or financial reward. And Max tells the doctor who imprisons him that “Everyone’s going to know what it’s like to live in my world, a world without power. A world without Spider-Man.”

The idea  is clankingly obvious, both in its connection to Max’s job and his lack of social capital. But give the movie as a whole, the presence of any sort of idea at all counts for a lot. “The Amazing Spider-Man 2″ has two other antagonists to deal with, as well as a back story for Peter’s father, and a romantic subplot that turns Peter into a stalker and Gwen Stacy (Emma Stone) into a flibbertigibbet. It is so crowded that one of the most iconic moments in comics [[major spoiler on that link]], translated onto what ought to have been a grand scale, barely has room to breathe. Everything in the movie suffocates.

“The Amazing Spider-Man 2″ exists mostly to keep the rights to the character from reverting to Marvel. But in a media environment where Marvel and DC have both intermittently set stronger standards for superhero movies, even a commercial play like this one ought to try to swing higher. Peter Parker and his city both deserve better.

Posted in: Entertaiment,Film