Even though we not-so-secretly wish Spider-Man would become part of Marvel/Disney again so we could see him as a member of The Avengers, we’re not unhappy he still gets solo movies either. Next up for the web crawler is The Amazing Spider-Man 2, the sequel to the reboot from two years ago.
Sony has released the first trailer for, the film and we’ve got it for you, just like everyone else. Still, that doesn’t make it any less cool.
The sequel brings back Andrew Garfield as Peter Parker/Spider-Man and Emma Stone as Gwen Stacy. This time around, your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man goes up against a cadre of villains including Jamie Foxx‘s Electro, Chris Cooper’s Green Goblin and Paul Giamatti’s Rhino. Dane DeHaan, Sally Field and Denis Leary also star in the Marc Webb-directed movie.
The Amazing Spider-Man 2 debuts in the U.S. on May 2, 2014. Trailer is after the break.
Silly, silly fun. There’s not much of a plot — The Croods are a family of cave-dwellers whose home is threatened by earthquakes; the dad Grug (Nicolas Cage) is over protective; the daughter Eep (Emma Stone) is curious; they meet up with a smarty-pants guy named Guy (Ryan Reynolds) who teaches them the secret of fire, among other things; and they set off to find a new home.
Grug, whose mantra is “Always be afraid!” immediately dislikes Guy while Eep is immediately attracted to him, and in the background are the rest of the Croods, who have their moments but are played for jokes; maybe they could have been something more, but before they can, the earthquake chases them off. There’s two running gags that persist the entire film, and there’s some ugly character design, but those are the biggest flaws.
And they’re easy to overlook because everything else looks so good. Granted, this doesn’t need to be in 3-D, as the lusciousness of the backgrounds, from crags to forests to plains to dried-out oceans encircle and captivate on their own, without added gimmicks. More fun is the creature designs, which must have had even the animators laughing. Each one is a Darwinian nightmare, conjured by a gaggle of mad scientists.
There’s flying turtles, land-whales, two lemurs attached by a single tail and a flock of birds that look like toucans, though their mouths open right below the eyes. Cute at first, then they swarm on one of the land-whales and pick it clean.
Despite that, the emphasis is clearly on the visuals, as are the gags. The talents of Cage, Stone, and Reynolds, as well as Cloris Leachman and Catherine Keener, aren’t necessary. None stand out, but then there’s little the film requires of them. Of course we have the requisite familial tensions and affirmations of love between those who need to hear it — they aren’t earned and slow the movie down considerably whenever they’re brought up, but they’re not often and don’t last long.
Gangster Squad! doesn’t actually include an exclamation point in its title, but it should. It really, really should. When you open your film with a guy being gorily drawn and quartered and then savaged by wolves, you’ve earned some punctuation. And since the rest of the film is as messy as that poor sap’s goify innards why not let that silly excess spill out onto the poster?
Yes, it is a mess, but a pretty fun one that gets more enjoyable with its bouts of seriousness than its more frequent inanities. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Josh Brolin is Sergeant John O’Mara, a good cop in post-WWII Los Angeles. Sean Penn is Mickey Cohen, the bloodthirsty Jewish gangster who controls the LA underworld. Ryan Gosling is Sergeant Jerry Wooters, who flings his Wooters at every dame in sight, and Nick Nolte is a dead ringer for Mark Wahlberg in 30 or so years.
Less importantly, he’s the LAPD police chief who wants Cohen’s empire brought down and recruits O’Mara to do it. O’Mara is a war vet with experience fighting in occupied territory. He has to work undercover and basically has the authority to kill indiscriminately, which I imagine is pretty useful in situations like this.
Even though the movie opens in January, traditionally a time when studios dump the movies they’re less enthusiastic about, we’ve still got a bit of hope for Gangster Squad. But then there’s that rather lame title too. Maybe if it was called Gangnam Squad instead, then they might have something.
Anyway, we know, the studio changed the release date for other reasons, not because the movie sucks. Still, you always have to wonder . . . if only a little bit. Good thing the new trailer looks pretty good, otherwise it would probably be curtains for Gangster Squad — at least in our eyes.
Look for Gangster Squad, with Ryan Gosling, Emma Stone, Josh Brolin and Sean Penn, to arrive January 11. Check out the trailer below and let us know what you think.
For almost every Spider-Man fan under the age of 30, Mary Jane Watson has been the primary yin to Peter Parker’s yang. So it was a bold move by Sony and Marc Webb to go back to Spider-Man’s first love, Gwen Stacy, for The Amazing Spider-Man. A move that properly introduced a character whose ultimate fate might be as important to the web-slinger as Uncle Ben’s murder was.
With the Spider-Man reboot a general success, Sony wants to move quickly on a sequel. Variety is reporting that things might be getting sticky for Parker’s new/old flame with casting rumors of a new prominent female character:
It looks like Mary Jane Watson is back in Peter Parker’s life, as “The Descendants” star Shailene Woodley is in early talks to play the redheaded love interest in Sony’s “The Amazing Spider-Man 2.”… Character breakdowns have gone out to talent agencies, and Electro is rumored to be one of the villains the filmmakers are considering for the next installment of the hit comicbook franchise.
Shailene Woodley is a fine actress, and even though she probably looks a bit young to be Garfield’s Mary Jane, she is one of the better choices for the role. If you are going to skew younger, at least you get the one ABC Family actress that has award nominations and discernible talent. It is sort of like finding another Anna Kendrick among the Twilight muck.
Also note that it looks like Electro might finally be getting his time to shine in the sequel, and it looks like Peter’s best friend Harry Osbourne is also going to make an appearance in the sequel.
Check out a more spoiler heavy prognostication for what the Mary Jane rumors mean for Emma Stone’s Gwen Stacy after the jump.
