A Troubled Spider Man

WARNING: MAJOR SPIDER-MAN 2 SPOILERS AHEAD

The entertainment industry has collectively decided that we're all out of ideas or cares about what we watch and has rather successfully rebooted a franchise that wasn't even a decade old yet. We got "The Amazing Spider-Man," which was admittedly pretty great and re-established Spider-Man as a franchise. That said, the sequel to that movie had many problems, primarily that is wasn't good at all.

This link illustrates what was wrong with Spider-Man 2, at least for me. You see, I'm a lover of story. I also love action. The recent Dark Knight trilogy and "Man of Steel" proved that you could make a superhero movie without being campy, you can include back story and harmonize it with action, and can even make it intelligent (somewhat). And don't think that I'm biased for DC comics, even though I totally am. But other Marvel films occasionally toss in some meaningful back story to go with the cartoonish, 100% CGI action sequences, humor, and complete nonsense.

Spider-Man, the character, was great in this movie, and Andrew Garfield absolutely kills in that role. But all of the focus on his and Gwen's relationship destroyed any possibility (or room, time-wise) for good character development for the villains. And that's a shame.

Let's be honest; villains are the best part of any superhero movie. Look at it this way; the superhero is the same guy with the same emotional baggage played by the same actor (usually) doing the same shit to bad guys in every movie. The discernible difference between the movies in a superhero franchise is the motherfucking bad guy(s). Of which, there doesn't need to be three. There doesn't need to be two, either, if a single villain is given adequate development (see the Nicholson and Ledger Jokers, Michael Shannon's General Zod, Abomination, Warmonger, Lizard, the first Green Goblin), or if the rest of the movie is bad enough (see Loki, Red Skull, Mandarin, Whiplash).

A lot of superhero movies fuck up perfectly good bad guys by overcrowding the movie with them. I know that they do this in comic books, but it never works in live-action movies. This is the same logic as no one blinking an eye that Wolverine's hair is meticulously crafted to be as ridiculous as his yellow and blue leotard in the comics, but when you see that same hair on Hugh Jackman in an "X-Men" movie, you realize how smart they were to forego the spandex and wish that they'd have omitted the Ace Ventura hair as well.

The Batman franchise really hurt Danny DeVito's excellent Penguin portrayal by introducing Catwoman, or vice versa, to "Batman Returns." That, and mind-controlled rocket penguins. And the Bat Boat, which served only for Batman to crash within a minute of leaving the Bat Cave. But whatever.

The Riddler, and Jim Carrey at the time, were beloved enough to be the only villain in the fluorescent gay circus that Joel Schumacher cruelly turned "Batman Forever" into without Tommy Lee Jones' laughable and embarrassing Two-Face.

Two-Face himself, nearly as iconic a villain as the Joker in the Batman canon, would have been better as a solitary villain in a movie that used the story from the Dark Knight trilogy, with the addition of a little more development.

Mr. Freeze would have been better... well... never mind. I hope Arnold Schwarzenegger suffers an icicle impalement through his leathery taint for that goddamned movie (although, to be fair, everyone involved in that project deserves to be forever isolated to "NCIS: Los Angeles," along with whoever that asshole is that played Robin).

Going back to the previous Spider-Man movies, who the hell ever needed Sandman as a bad guy? Of all the villains you could choose, that's what was agreed upon? And the Hobgoblin? Or James Franco in any superhero movie ever?

Back to the point... Sandman? Are you serious? You had Venom... fucking VENOM, playing second fiddle to Sandman, an altogether ridiculous character that was portrayed by a droop-faced clown whose biggest role prior to that was a retarded airplane mechanic on "Wings." Seriously? What's next? A James Bond movie that focuses entirely on Oddjob? (Note: that would be admittedly awesome)

"Spider-Man 2" clearly displayed the one thing that directors should avoid when making sequels; it spent the whole time letting you know that there will be more sequels rather than focus on the movie you're actually watching. The Sinister Six that they're shooting for is cool, in theory, but they rushed through everything, including what should have been the biggest part of the movie: the Green Goblin reveal. They completely screwed the pooch on him as far as development. Here's the whole movie's villain character development, near-verbatim:

Green Goblin: "Hey look! I'm suddenly a bad guy now because fuck it​! Electro, you wanna work with me?"
Electro: "Sure! Why not?"

How about because he is the son of a bitch owner of the careless corporation that constantly shit on you, up to and including your near-death accident, which they tried to cover up. That, and you just fucking met him. You don't even know him. At all. Why the hell would you trust this guy? He's a 16-year-old rich kid with a gross rash. You have no incentive to help him. You're kind of evil. What you really should have done is melted his face off as soon as he released you. 

They clearly gave up on Electro halfway through the script. How about giving him a real story, besides the lame-ass shitty one he was given?

Electro: "I was a nerdy engineer with crippling social awkwardness until I was electrocuted so badly by electric eels that I became a ​blue-skinned, deep-voiced, melty-eared badass that can fucking teleport. In the span of a few days, ​I died, came back, learned how to use my awesome powers, apparently lost all of my intelligence to make way for revenge-fueled poor decision making, then started working for the man whose only merit is that he also dislikes Spider-Man. This is all because Spider-Man didn't remember me, nor any of the other millions of people that he may have run across in New York City, so I'm going to kill him, work as Harry Osborne's lackey, and destroy New York for it."

You know who else doesn't like Spider-Man? Jonah Jameson, the editor of the goddamned newspaper and the only person in New York who hadn't taken a drippy steamer on your comb-over pre-electric eels. Why not go work for him, since your deductive reasoning is at the same level as my three-year-old, who recently figured out that pissing in a bed makes you wet.

"But surely the Green Goblin's story is better, being one of Spider Man's primary nemeses throughout the years," you ask? Nope:

Green Goblin: "I've been away at boarding school for years, came home the same day that my dad died, and figured out I am sick, too. I somehow deduced that radioactive spider venom is the same exact thing as Spider-Man's blood, which will obviously cure me because everyone knows that Spider Man blood/venom cures cancer, injected myself with it, nearly died, then didn't.

"I found a military-grade sky surfboard that I obviously know how to fly like a goddamned expert immediately upon standing on it (because logic). Then I picked a fight with Spider-Man because even though I figured out a way around not needing his blood anymore, I still wanted to kill him anyway. I also inexplicably know how to fight like Jean Claude Van Damme pretends to know how to do, Though no one has ever been successful in beating Spider-Man ever, I feel like my chances are basically pretty good. Then I killed his main chick because she was just standing there and he was steady whipping my ass.

"I still get my ass whipped, then get thrown in prison where I can organize and run a criminal empire that I'm just inventing right now because the movie is almost over and why not (because it's a prison, that's why).

"I hired a doughy, near brain-dead Russian gangster, also in prison (via a third-party asshole who is apparently allowed to have conjugal visits with super-villains in maximum security prisons), to easily escape (without me because I'm good right here, bro, and because it is easy to break out of prison), and operate a huge, expensive, highly intricate military exo-suit with my company's logo tattooed to it's ass. He's the best candidate to drive the fucking thing, obviously, since earlier in the movie he could barely keep a truck on the road or shoot a gun with any discernible accuracy."

Fuck "Spider-Man 2" is basically my point. The makers took no time to actually make the movie any good and instead chose to dry-hump my eye sockets into submission with fancy CGI and to set up sequels because fuck you, paying customers. You'll buy the ticket anyway because you're an idiot and they plan on dodos like you coming to see the shit no matter what.

Lights. Shiny things. Booms. Pretty girls. At least one black guy (even if he is painted blue). Punch. Kick. New York. That's a wrap. Feed it to the lemmings.

My son Liam makes better plot lines when lying to me about who carved the letter L into my nightstand with a die-cast Thomas the Train.