The Amazing Spider-Man 2: One hot mess of a movie

I love superhero movies.  I really do.  I find it in my heart to love even bad ones at least a little.  I focus on soaring moments or bits of action and give my love to those.  So, I tried really hard to love this one, and I'm still trying, but I'm not there yet.  The best I can do is to say that I disliked it the least of any of the folks in the group that went to see it with me. 

This movie makes every type of mistake it can.  At one or more points in it, the film's creators treated us to bad plotting, bad line-by-line writing, bad acting, bad special effects, bad pretty much everything.  Each time I'd start to get into it, the movie would find a way to pull me back out. 

I honestly didn't hate it, because I so love the character and so wanted to enjoy it, and despite all its failures, I still had a decent time watching it.  I just kept wishing for it to do something, anything, really well. 

The Amazing Spider-Man 2 is a steaming hot mess of a film, a stew of ingredients that could have worked but that ultimately never came together.  If you, like me, are a superhero film fanatic, then by all means check it out.  Otherwise, though, save your money.

What I owe Spider-Man

In 1966, I was eleven years old, and a great deal of bad shit was going on in my life. I didn't think I could handle it all.

My biggest and often only source of escape was reading. I read everything, including comic books, which I still love. In particular, I read superhero comics--Marvel, DC, and every other publisher I could find.

Along came issue 33 of The Amazing Spider-Man. You can find it in some Marvel collections, and you can also preview a few pages of it online here. Spidey is trapped under a collapsed building, and though he is incredibly strong, he's not strong enough to lift all the weight off him. He begins to fall into despair.

He doesn't, though, give up. Of course he doesn't; he's Spider-Man. I knew he wouldn't stop. Stan Lee's purple prose, though, convinced the young me that Spidey wasn't sure he could do it, that our favorite webslinger had to talk himself into going on, as he does in this passage (in which the em-dashes indicate pauses as Spidey struggles for breath):

Anyone can win a fight--when the odds--are easy! It's when the going's tough--when there seems to be no chance--that's when--it counts!

Reading it now, staring at the pages, I know the scene and writing are juvenile, purple, and actually rushed, but back then, it worked for me. My memory of reading it is still vivid. So is my reaction: If Spidey could lift a building, I could find a way out of my troubles (as I did), even if it took years (as it did).

This comic wasn't the only thing that kept me going; far from it. But this issue mattered to me. It still does.

So, I owe Spider-Man, and Stan Lee and Steve Ditko and Artie Simak, and I hope never to forget the debt--or the lesson.