Al's Omniflick: The Amazing Spider-Man 2

Sunday, May 4, 2014

The Amazing Spider-Man 2

Director: Marc Webb, Starring: Andrew Garfield, Emma Stone, Jamie Foxx, Paul Giamatti

I won't bother with a spoiler alert because what could I possible spoil in summarizing a story one could easily discern from the preview. I also won't be verbose (I'll try not to be anyway) because it just plain bored me--my typical reaction to Marvel Comic adaptations.

Peter Parker's problems from the first Spider-Man continue though I couldn't remember what they were exactly and I couldn't tell if I were recalling the Tobey Maguire Spidey movies or the rebooted franchise. Does it all matter? Peter's girlfriend, cash-flow, and Aunt May troubles are the same though the villains are slightly different; this time an electrically-charged bad guy named Electro (Jamie Foxx) threatens the city, Spiderman and the power-grid.

The story involves many things at Oscorp; one CEO dies, the next assumes control, while the company develops or hopes to develop serums and high-tech gadgetry; which all threaten to fall into the wrong hands. All the villains seen in the movie are all connected to Oscorp. If you're like me, you grow sick of hearing the word Oscorp.

Electro is born, develops a destructive contempt for Spider-Man, fights him and blah ad infinitum. In Marvel adaptations, suspense is never really created because we know the hero is indestructible, which leaves him intact for sequels. The villians never really develop an edgy menace because they never have any agenda other than a single-minded hatred for the hero.

And what a weepy hero he is! Andrew Garfield's Spider-Man tears so often I thought the movie was financed by the Oxygen network. I realize he was trying to breath vulnerability into the hero to make him more empathetic but it became a bit much. Even Gwen Stacy didn't deluge us with the water-works. Maybe the radioactive spider should have bitten her instead of Peter Parker.

Aside from one significant twist at the end, nothing in the story is left to the unanticipated or unheralded. One knows where the story and characters are all headed and of course the movie lays the groudwork for the next film. The first Spider-Man series began auspiciously then gassed out quickly. The current franchise has gassed out quickly but the movie studio must sell merchandise and Taco-Bell must sell Spider-Man mugs and there must be a movie tie-in to the U.S. Postal Service and everything else, which leaves solid storytelling and thrills sadly beside the point.

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On DVD

Fury (1936)

Director: Fritz Lang

Though we might normally think of the films M and Metropolis when director Fritz Lang becomes the topic of conversation, less known is the legendary director's work in Hollywood. Having fled the ever-growing menace of Nazi Germany for America in the early 1930s', Lang eventually found himself under contract for MGM.

Though his work in Hollywood is very uneven, one standout is Fury, from 1936. Starring Spencer Tracy and Sylvia Sydney, the film's condemnation of mob justice seems spectacularly daring now, considering lynching was still a reality in Depression-era America. We don't see one black person in the film entire but we know precisely for whom Lang film is sympathetic.

Spencer Tracy plays Joe Wilson, who is arrested in a small town while en route to meet his fiance, Katherine (Sylvia Sydney). Suspected of being part of a kidnapping of a little girl, Wilson is arrested on the flimsiest evidence. While he sits in cell; angry and indignant, Katherine is puzzled as to why her fiance hasn't arrived at their prearranged meeting place.

But Wilson's fortunes take a darker and more dangerous turn when a mob--already on edge--is roused to anger. Egging one another on, the mob moves on the jailhouse where Wilson is being held. As the angry gathering becomes a mass, drawing citizens of the town into their swelling numbers, a lynch-mob begins to form. The sheriff, determined to see due process take its course, refuses their forceful demands. Becoming angrier and angrier and bolder and bolder, the crowd storms the jail, overwhelming the sheriff and his deputies. Unable to unlock the cell doors to reach Wilson, the mob sets the jailhouse ablaze as an alternate method of lynching.

Katherine, having arrived on the scene, faints when she sees flames engulf the cell where her fiance is held.

In spite of the mob acting as a faceless entity, its principle members are brought to trial though the town and the defendants maintain a conspiracy of silence, hoping to escape convictions and censure.

A sure acquittal seems imminent until damning evidence assures their guilt. When the majority of the members receive death sentences, Wilson turns up at his brothers, having survived the fire. Knowing the public is unaware of his survival, he vows to stay in hiding to ensure the mob conspirators are executed.

The scene where Katherine, nearly insane from grief, comes face to face with Joe is a powerful moment in the film. As she slowly recovers from her state, she realizes Joe's vindictive determination to see the mob hang is in itself a great injustice.

The story climaxes during a stirring courtroom scene that brings the fascinating story to a close.

I would have never expected Hollywood to make a statement as powerful as Fury made in 1936. Given the fact that lynchings in America at the time went unpunished, the movie railed bravely, in spite of the main character being white rather than black, against what was then the status quo. The Oxbow Incident would make a similar and commensurately powerful statement seven years later.

The film's willingness to peer into the darker side of American life could be partly attributed to Lang, who co-wrote the story and who was no stranger to exploring the darker side of humanity. Having seen evil flower in his home country, it makes sense Lang would choose to tell this story.

Spencer Tracy and Sylvia Sydney give wonderful, emotionally layered performances. Katherine's near descent into madness is depicted touchingly by Sydney. To see Tracy's mild-mannered Wilson become angry and vengeful is heartbreaking.

Even watching Lang's film on a small screen does little to diminish its power. Weeks after the viewing, I still can't shake its indelible images or its angry indictment of one of America's great crimes. One couldn't devise a better title than one it was given eighty years ago. Fury indeed.