Andrew Garfield is a legend
Just when we thought Andrew Garfield couldn’t get a better intro than the one he had at 2011’s Comic-Con…
After director Marc Webb, actor Dane DeHaan and producers Avi Arad and Matthew Tolmach took to the stage, the crowd was told that Spider-Man would be arriving for the panel, with a camera set up outside to track his entrance. Cut to the giant video screens that are hanging from the ceiling of Hall H, to see Spidey in full costume, dodging, running and jumping his way towards the convention centre (occasionally in first-person). It was a fun little scene that felt true to the wisecracking spirit of the character (apparently even Spidey can’t jump the queues here…)
Then Spidey struts into Hall H, and takes his seat on the stage. Answering questions in character, Garfield proved to be a ridiculous amount of fun (“Sorry I’m late, there was a Chewbacca fight that I had to break up”), and even fielded meta-questions about himself: “Who’s Andrew Garfield? I thought Eduardo Saverin played me.”
As he said himself, the Con is the only place where he feels normal, and he certainly did fit right in.
Spider-Man is enjoying being Spider-Man
Marc Webb explained that, having dealt with the character’s origin story in the first film, the beginning of the sequel would find Spider-Man very much enjoying being Spider-Man.
That was certainly in evidence in the (slightly unfinished) trailer that we were shown. The opening scene saw the police chasing down a runaway villain, before being outdone by a flamboyant, showboating Spidey.
His trademark quip quotient was well-filled too, particularly in the key sequence in which he pulls Jamie Foxx’s pre-Electro Max Dillon out of the line of danger, before sorting our his dodgy combover.
Seems that loner Oscorp-employee Dillon takes a shine to his friendly neighbourhood hero…
Electro will be badass
Max Dillon may be a bit of a wimp, but Electro looks set to be one of the most imposing bad guys of 2014.
Making an early impression at the panel by interrupting the airwaves in the middle of Emma Stone’s video message, Electro’s hushed, gruff whisper is likely to be as impersonated as Bane’s dulcet tones.
He has god-like powers too, according to Marc Webb, which will offer Spider-Man a formidable challenge.
And he can merge with electricity
One little nugget of information that went down particularly well with the crowd was Webb’s admission that Electro will be able to merge himself with electricity, and transport through sockets.
That’s not his only power though, as the trailer saw him using his electrical abilities to levitate, while firing thunderbolts from his hands.
And the trailer closes on a colossal electrical explosion that tears through NYC in burst of destruction.
Electros powers come from a very bad accident
After his encounter with Spider-Man, Dillon seems to obsess over being as powerful as his new hero idol. In the trailer, we’re given a pretty clear glimpse at his transformation into a supercharged supervillain.
While inspecting a huge network of electrical equipment at Oscorp during his day job, he takes a fall, crashing through the power supply system and splash-landing in a vat of electric eels. Judging by what went down at Oscorp in TASM1 , it’s safe to suspect that these might be genetically modified eels.
It also means that there’s a nice mirroring of Spidey’s power source in Electro’s origin story, with mild mannered electrician seemingly gaining his strength (and the villainous alter ego that goes with it) through a chance encounter at Oscorp.
Gwen Stacy loves Peter Parker more than Spider-Man
While the action is being amped up (there’s a nifty payoff at the end of the trailer where Spider-Man saves a police officer for a falling car, Superman-style: “Need a hand?”), it seems the focus on character isn’t going to fall by the wayside.
Not only did Foxx wax lyrical about flexing his acting muscle with the Max Dillon side of the character (before ‘colouring outside of the lines’ with Electro), but there was still a sense that Peter and Gwen’s relationship was going to be key, with one line hinting at the stress that superheroics puts on a couple, “You’re Spider-Man, and I love that. But I love Peter Parker more…”
The trailer also allowed time for a couple of moments between Peter and Aunt May, including a chucklesome exchange about his laundry (seriously).
And there are a couple of new characters introduced…
Norman Osborn is extremely ill
While an ailing Norman Osborn was hinted at in the first installment of the rebooted franchise, we’ll get to meet him properly this time around, with Chris Cooper playing the character who could potentially go on to become the Green Goblin.
Judging from his appearance in the trailer, he won’t be getting involved in anything too sprightly anytime soon, as his brief moment sees him lying in bed, pallid and gaunt, while Harry (Dane DeHaan) keeps vigil. “You lie awake. You see it coming. Not everyone has a happy ending,” Osborn Sr gravely intones.
No wonder his son’s looking a little disenchanted...
Harry Osborn is in a dark place
This trailer didn’t really offer up much in the way of evidence for Peter and Harry’s friendship, and instead showed a glowering Harry dealing with the illness of his father. There was also the briefest glimpse at vials of a green liquid, which could be Goblin serum or something else cooked up at Oscorp Industries.
But Harry and Peter’s friendship will apparently be quite far-reaching, with DeHaan explaining that in this film, the pair were childhood friends who were split up when Harry was packed off to boarding school.
Returning after graduating high school, Harry and Peter look to reconcile their friendship, although we’re guessing that Spider-Man might prove to be an insect in that ointment.
Spideys a terrible back-seat driver
One of the most memorable elements of the new trailer was in the opening moments, as Paul Giamatti’s Rhino charged his way through swathes of police cars in a speeding truck, with Spidey in hot pursuit.
Jumping into the truck’s cabin, Spider-Man controls the course of the vehicle by firing off his webshooters, and he casually disarms the dim-witted villain in the middle of his hijacking of the stolen vehicle.
And, to add insult to injury, the end of the showdown sees Rhino pinned between two walls by Spidey’s webshooters, before having his trousers ignominiously ripped off by the same wrist-based weapon.
Despite the cartoony nature of the showdown, the truck’s collision course showed a real heft to smashes and crashes, suggesting that the action stakes have been raised this time out.
Andrew Garfield wants Spider-Man to team up with The Avengers
Andrew Garfield whipped the Hall H audience into a frenzy when, in answer to a fan question about what Spider-Man comics story he’d like to see in the movies, he responded, “I’d love to see him with The Avengers,” before adding, “I’m not allowed to say that… Wouldn’t that be awesome? Just sayin’.”
Webb went on to add that the films pick and choose story elements from Spidey’s rich comics canon, before adding that he was a big fan of The Ulimates .
From what we saw, it looks like Spider-Man is very much living up to the sequel maxim of going bigger and bolder, while retaining the humour and heart that’s the essence of the character.
The Amazing Spider-Man 2 opens in the UK on 18 April 2014.
