The Carmine Project: The Amazing Spider-Man 2 Review

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Find out my verdict on one of this year's hottest superhero films!

As any seasoned follower of On-Screen will know, this writer doesn't limit himself to the entertainment blog you're currently reading by any means. Indeed, we've relayed posts penned by yours truly from a variety of different sources over the years including Non Specific Action, Doctor Who News Page, Time Out London and more, and that trend certainly won't be coming to an end in 2014.

As proof of that claim, attached to this post is a URL which will take you over to my review of this month's most ambitious motion picture outing by far, The Amazing Spider-Man 2. I've awarded it a 4* score over at The Carmine Project, which (in case you hadn't already heard) is a great online cultural magazine that covers a diverse range of topics such as literature, film, video gaming and many, many more. As ever, please have a look at the review if you get chance, and don't hesitate to let me know your thoughts on either the verdict itself (again, any seasoned reader here will know that this reviewer loves to hear his readership's opinions on his points regardless of whether they're commendatory or critical) or The Carmine Project, the latter of which I'll gladly forward on to the rest of the site's team in due course.

Here's the link to my review: http://thecarmineproject.com/2014/04/23/film-review-the-amazing-spider-man-2/

BONUS CONTENT: RANKING THE SPIDER-MAN MOVIES SO FAR

Let it never be said, however, that here at On-Screen we refuse to offer bonus exclusive content for those readers who take the time to follow this blog moreso than many other entertainment sources. From this point onwards, we'll endeavour to provide additional content exclusive to this site whenever we flag up a link to any of my non-OS related work. Read on below, then, to discover our never-before-seen rankings chart for the Spider-Man franchise's big-screen output so far:

5. THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN (2012, 2/5)- No matter how much it attempted to disguise the truth, the reality of The Amazing Spider-Man was that it turned out to be nothing more than an uninspired retread of the original 2001 film's origins tale, adding very little in the way of a new perspective on those events which we had previously witnessed and only throwing in a poorly-rendered, comically-portrayed Lizard (Rhys Ifans) as a weak form of compensation.

4. SPIDER-MAN 3 (2007, 4/5)- Go back and try Spider-Man 3 again, and this reviewer is willing to bet that you'll find yourself pleasantly surprised by the number of commendable strengths the threequel exhibits in spite of its overcrowded narrative. Yes, this overly audacious final instalment in the original trilogy could have benefited from ridding itself of Sandman in the editing suite, yet its depiction of Peter Parker's corruption at the hands of an alien symbiote is for the most part satisfying, as is its resolution of several plot arcs which had spanned the entirety of the original trio of movies.

3. SPIDER-MAN (2001, 4/5)- It's all too easy to belittle the scale of Sam Raimi's success in following up Bryan Singer's exemplary 1999 genre-kickstarter X-Men with such an accomplished introduction to the world of Peter Parker and his web-swinging alter-ego. Regardless of your thoughts on the somewhat Power Rangers-esque design of William Defoe's Green Goblin costume, to deny that Spider-Man is an absolutely stellar superhero movie is to deny that one gains enjoyment out of fine cinema in general!

2. THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN 2 (2014, 4/5)- As you'll see in my review on The Carmine Project, The Amazing Spider-Man 2 is not without its shortcomings, but it's as strong an improvement on the tepid 2012 franchise reboot as we could ever have hoped for, and that it manages to eclipse the first and third instalments of Raimi's trilogy is testament to Marc Webb's brilliant overhaul of the series' status quo. If this is intended as a clear statement of the series' future trajectory, then The Amazing Spider-Man 3 can't come soon enough...

1. SPIDER-MAN 2 (2004, 5/5)- Of all of the franchise's entries so far, Spider-Man 2 marks the production which comes closest to matching the quality of The Dark Knight (the superhero film which, for me at least, re-defined the genre upon its release in 2008). Alfred Molina's performance as Doctor Octopus steals the show here, proving (if nothing else) that it was possible for talented successors such as Tom Hiddleston and Sebastian Stan to craft satisfying, multi-faceted antagonists rather than descending into the generically traditional pantomime-esque portrayal exhibited by the stars behind the villains in films such as Thor: The Dark World and Captain America: The First Avenger.