The Amazing Spider Man 2 (2014)

[Baneofdemon22]

@thenam I agree with you, but did you think I was talking about ASM2, or were you trying to explain the contrast? Either way, good explanation! The villain's just aren't that interesting to me, unfortunately. Although you don't need always need a good villain to tell a good story. The Death of Jean DeWolff is my favorite Spider-man story because of the dynamic between Spider-man and Daredevil, I love Nothing Stops the Juggernaut because of Peter's awe-inspiring will-power, and the Kid that Collects Spider-man is powerful just because of a conversation between Peter and a child.

I liked how they "grounded" Thor, but I know that upset a lot of fans. I'm surprised how many people hate his outfit, but I thought they did a decent job. I'm sure it's better than any redesign I could come up with!

 

[thenammagazine]

@thenam I agree with you, but did you think I was talking about ASM2, or were you trying to explain the contrast? Either way, good explanation! The villain's just aren't that interesting to me, unfortunately. Although you don't need always need a good villain to tell a good story. The Death of Jean DeWolff is my favorite Spider-man story because of the dynamic between Spider-man and Daredevil, I love Nothing Stops the Juggernaut because of Peter's awe-inspiring will-power, and the Kid that Collects Spider-man is powerful just because of a conversation between Peter and a child.

I liked how they "grounded" Thor, but I know that upset a lot of fans. I'm surprised how many people hate his outfit, but I thought they did a decent job. I'm sure it's better than any redesign I could come up with!

More or less, I was just talking about the concept Raimi brought into his SM movies from the comics that made his villains work that aren't here in this series. Venom is the only exception to that, but that's mainly because the studio forced him to shoehorn the villain into the story. Every other villain, Goblin, Doc Ock, Sandman, hell, even Harry, at least had some redeeming quality. Webb tried in the first one with Connors but then the whole "turn everybody into lizard people!" completely undermined that. ASM2, not a single redeeming quality in any of them.

 

[Khev]

There's only three comic book film villains that pulled off the sympathetic angle well, Doc Ock, Magneto and Penguin.

Do you not consider TWS a villain? I thought it was outright tragic watching Cap break his one good arm. I felt the pain of both guys in that moment.

You guys make good points about Max and Harry in ASM2 though. Other than his accident we don't see Max living that horrible a life. He gets saved and praised by Spider-Man and then we watch him interact with two employees at OSCORP (BJ Novaks and Gwen Stacey) and one of them is actually very nice to him! Everything after the accident was just Max causing trouble for himself for the most part.

And they were really on the verge of making Harry sympathetic but it just seemed like such an abrupt escalation of his character for him to kill Gwen. They almost did a straight repeat of the "butter fingers, tee hee" Doc Ock moment from S2. Where did that come from? Gwen was nice to him too!

 

[karamazov80]

I don't consider TWS a villain, though maybe it's a technical distinction--he was brainwashed, not evil or insane. Not much different than Hawkeye being mind controlled.

Can't really think of a truly great villain from Marvel outside of Loki in the first Thor. The first lot you mentioned were just evil because, the second lot at least tried to give them some motivation with mixed results.

Best villain in the Marvel Studios U, so far, is Red Skull to my eyes. Despite that movie's other faults, that was a pitch perfect Red Skull. Though I think lots of their villains are good. Magneto is probably my favorite comic villain of them all, followed by Skull and some of the Nolan characters, and then Stryker from X2. In the Raimi films, Doc Ock and Green Goblin V1 were both good (though Goblin's costume obviously detracted from that), but I don't personally rank either much higher than, say, Stane or Pierce. Once Doc Ock went insane, there wasn't much to distinguish him from other typical villains.

 

[Uncanny Web-Slinger]

Best villain in the Marvel Studios U, so far, is Red Skull to my eyes. Despite that movie's other faults, that was a pitch perfect Red Skull. Though I think lots of their villains are good. Magneto is probably my favorite comic villain of them all, followed by Skull and some of the Nolan characters, and then Stryker from X2. In the Raimi films, Doc Ock and Green Goblin V1 were both good (though Goblin's costume obviously detracted from that), but I don't personally rank either much higher than, say, Stane or Pierce. Once Doc Ock went insane, there wasn't much to distinguish him from other typical villains.

That's a good list.

 

[Baneofdemon22]

I don't think the Winter Soldier was a villain, but if you do count him, then I loved him! I wish they would have kept the focus on him more, because that was my biggest problem with that movie. I'm sure I'll enjoy it much more when Cap 3 comes out.

I thought Red Skull was the weakest part of the First Avenger. I shut the movie off the first time I watched it, because he was so boring. He looked great, but I wish they would have played up the Nazi angle. That would have him, and the movie so much better. I'm a big fan of him from the comics too, especially from JM DeMatteis and Mark Gruenwald. I think X2's Magneto and Fassbender's Magneto are excellent. They just nailed that casting with Fassbender! Stryker was great as well. My favorites are the Nolan movie villains, and those are also my favorite comic book movies. I know a lot of you guys thought the Dark Knight Rises was garbage, but despite it's problems, I still think it's a great movie.

 

[Khev]

The Red Skull is one of my favorites as well. Despite my bias I really like so many little characteristics they gave him.

Like giving Zola the keys to his car. Another villain that was "pure evil" could have easily shrugged when he saw that he had no room for Zola and left him to fend for himself. He even makes it clear that his car is very important to him yet still is willing to let it go to save his ally.

Also after their initial encounter on the catwalk RS says, "I embrace it proudly, without fear!" to which Rogers replies, "Then why are you running?" And as the elevator doors close in front of RS you see him give this subtle smile in response as if to say, "Touche Rogers, you got me there." I was just very happy with how he was portrayed.

 

[RIDDICK]

Actually Harry was the only character of this terrible film I could understand.
He's a spoiled rich boy who never new affinity and the only person he had good relationship with was Peter. Naturally when heavy burden of big business to rule and potentially incurable disease to fight struck simultaneously Harry felt lost and helpless. And eventually lost it when everyone's hero refused to help and his own employees betrayed him.
Also liked DeHaan in the role.

Everyone else felt either one-dimensional or oxymoronically convoluted.

 

[DiFabio]

The Red Skull is one of my favorites as well. Despite my bias I really like so many little characteristics they gave him.

Like giving Zola the keys to his car. Another villain that was "pure evil" could have easily shrugged when he saw that he had no room for Zola and left him to fend for himself. He even makes it clear that his car is very important to him yet still is willing to let it go to save his ally.

Also after their initial encounter on the catwalk RS says, "I embrace it proudly, without fear!" to which Rogers replies, "Then why are you running?" And as the elevator doors close in front of RS you see him give this subtle smile in response as if to say, "Touche Rogers, you got me there." I was just very happy with how he was portrayed.

This is why I desperately want Mein Red Skull to return. I thought he was brilliant, but too downplayed. He had great reveals too. Loved the painting "what do you think?".

 

[karamazov80]

Skull oozed menace, and unapologetically took glee in his evil deeds. That's what Red Skull has always been about to me, and he did a great job of it. It's the most basic type of villain, but not one we see done justice very often IMO. Ronan and Malekith were just evil bastards, but treated their pursuit of bad deeds as if it were a chore. It's as if they felt this grave responsibility to be evil Not Skull. Thanos has a shot of bringing more of the same. Hopefully he does.

 

[Baneofdemon22]

They really have done a great job casting in all the Marvel Studios movies. I can't think of any I don't like.

Oh and I completely forgot about Loki. I really liked him in the first movie, but the movie wasn't very good.

 

[Khev]

Skull oozed menace, and unapologetically took glee in his evil deeds. That's what Red Skull has always been about to me, and he did a great job of it. It's the most basic type of villain, but not one we see done justice very often IMO. Ronan and Malekith were just evil bastards, but treated their pursuit of bad deeds as if it were a chore. It's as if they felt this grave responsibility to be evil Not Skull. Thanos has a shot of bringing more of the same. Hopefully he does.

Yeah Skull had all the token evil villain elements (Looks cool, kills underlings that fail him, tries to persuade hero to join him) but underneath it all had his own personality that still showed through from time to time.

A couple other awesome moments:

When Skull is blasting the Nazi officers in his lair with the laser cannon just that little cringe of annoyance he does when it takes an extra shot to hit the one guy. Priceless!

And also his subtle irritation at his bomber prop scraping the side of the convertible as Tommy Lee Jones drives it up along side him.

 

[Bardoon]

Nam makes a good point about the villains in ASM 2, though Marvel Studios also has some pretty evil, unsympathetic villains (Red Skull, Stane, Malekith, Ronan). I think the problem with ASM 2 was that they seemed to want to make at least Harry and Elektro sympathetic characters on some level, and failed because they did odd things like making Elektro seem like a comedic character at times instead of a tragic one, and glossing over Harry's relationship with Peter in a way that didn't feel natural to the narrative being told. When Marvel tries to make a villain sympathetic, or at least to make the audience understand how they became corrupted (Loki, Vanko, Pierce) they usually do a good job.

They tried to treat Electro like Jim Carrey's Riddler from "Batman Forever". He's dorky/nerdy/craves attention and then suddenly turns around to be evil and "cool".

I would've liked to see more of Harry and Peter in ASM2, but they rushed it all to get to the ending. Franco's Osborn has THREE movies to develop, grow and evolve...so to do it with Dehaan's Osborn (though Dehaan is still a great actor) in the span of a few minutes, sadly didn't have the impact otherwise.

Once again, it goes back to ASM2 trying to be "all over the place" at once. if they just focused on TWO villains, Peter's personal life, and Spidey scenes...it would've been fine.

But whatever...we'll see what happens next.

 

[Uncanny Web-Slinger]

Actually of the various supervillains to use the Edward Nygma character trope Electro was the least similar.

Edward Nygma aka The Riddler:
Idolises Bruce Wayne the Man not Batman the hero. Wants to be in business with him and is rejected. Starts his own company. Goes on to become all suave and villainous. Blows up Batman's vehicles and kidnaps Bruce's girlfriend.

Basically he wants to be Bruce Wayne.

Aldrich Killian aka The Mandarin:
Idolises Tony Stark the Man. Wants to be in business with him and is rejected. Starts his own company. Goes on to become all suave and villainous. Blows up Iron Mans armours and kidnaps Tonys girlfriend.

Basically he wants to be Tony Stark.

Buddy aka Syndrome:
Idolises Mr Incredible the Hero not Bob Parr the Man. Wants to be in business with him and is rejected. Grows up to become all villainous. Starts his own company. Captures Mr Incredibles wife. Kills off all Supers in order to build a Super robot, plans to unleash the robot and be the only one to stop it so that he can be the best Superhero.

Basically he wants to be Mr Incredble.

Max Dillon aka Electro:
Idolises Spider-Man the hero not Peter Parker the Man. Imagines months of time as the BFF of Spider-Man as he is an unhinged man with possible un-diagnosed mental problems. He become mutated and is rejected by Spider-Man when Spider-Man doesn't respond as this (imagined) long time friend. Goes on to plan to kill Spider-Man while depriving New York of power so they'll love him when he gives it back to them.

Basically he wants to be appreciated and loved like Spider-Man.

_______

The Riddler/Nygma archetype has Six main parts (Idolises hero, is rejected, becomes Suave and cool, starts tech company, kidnaps/captures girlfriend or wife of the hero, wants to be the Man)

Riddler - 6/6
Aldrich Killian - 6/6
Syndrome - 6/6
Electro - 3/6

Electro doesn't become suave looking, he doesn't start his own tech company, he doesn't kidnap/or capture the girlfriend.

 

[jye4ever]

S3 sucks.

But when Harry buys it at the end, I had a lump in my throat.

 

[karamazov80]

Electro doesn't become suave looking, he doesn't start his own tech company, he doesn't kidnap/or capture the girlfriend.

The one key difference you don't factor in is the fact that both Electro and Riddler are portrayed as extremely over the top, surrealist characters that wouldn't exist in the real world. That's the main thread that connects them in my view, and separates them from other villains. The fact that both had a crazy experiment warp their personality and turn them from geeks to bad guys is secondary.

 

[jye4ever]

I think the real world has over the top people that puts those 2 you mentioned to shame.

 

[Uncanny Web-Slinger]

Outside of a few corny lines I didn't see Electro as OTT. He looked goofy as Dillon sure but so did Killian

 

[Niltusk]

The one key difference you don't factor in is the fact that both Electro and Riddler are portrayed as extremely over the top, surrealist characters that wouldn't exist in the real world. That's the main thread that connects them in my view, and separates them from other villains. The fact that both had a crazy experiment warp their personality and turn them from geeks to bad guys is secondary.

Exactamundo. But some people can only see the connections they see.

 

[thenammagazine]

I see someone desperately clutching at straws to justify liking the movie.