Bipolar

The Amazing Spider-Man 2

Crit

When the eight-legged plot was spinning its ornate web, I kept thinking about the 8-year-old boys sitting in the second row: were they getting all this? Probably: 8-year-olds are more attuned to narrative complexity in comic books than old fogeys are. And in any case, it probably didn't matter. But as a fogey, I got the idea that the filmmakers didn't believe enough in any one plot to let it carry much weight. Electro, for example (Jamie Foxx, wasted as a disturbed, reality-challenged savant before the typical event that conveys superpowers in comic books), is a distinctly unelectrifying villain, so you can understand the impulse to get a little Green Goblin action going too (Dane DeHaan, with hair even weirder than Harry Osborn had in the comic); but the previous Spidey franchise went heavy on Gobby, so you can see why these guys would want to go lean on the Green.

Next time around, we've practically been promised former New Havener Paul Giamatti as the Rhino, and we've also been teased with a couple other single-digit issue numbers' villains, Doctor Octopus (also a veteran of the previous franchise) and the Vulture (who, let's face it, was one of Spidey's all-time least interesting foes).

And another new character is inevitable, too, but to explain, I'd have to reveal that the film did something to a major and ostensibly beloved but undeniably inconvenient character much earlier than the mag did the same thing, and you know how I feel about spoilers.

Anyway, I'm feeling pretty webbed out right now; number 3 is where I stopped in the previous run, and we'll have to see whether this one is any stickier.

Trailers

• A Million Ways to Die in the West--What a brilliant, original idea: a surreally irreverent take on the Western! Can't wait for the beans-at-the-campfire scene!
• Edge of Tomorrow--This is why I carry a notebook: had no recollection of this one. Cruise, Blunt, futuristic actioner.
• X-Men: Days of Future Past--It's about time a film was named for a Moody Blues album!