Andrew Garfield, Emma Stone, Dane DeHaan, Jamie Foxx, Sally Field, Campbell Scott, Paul Giamatti

Marc Webb

You wouldn’t think that it’d be possible to overpromote a movie, but Sony has done just that with “The Amazing Spider-Man 2,” spoiling virtually every major moment during the course of its marketing campaign, including the appearance of several characters that would have been a far better treat were they kept a secret. But while the knowledge that there would be multiple villains in the film left some fans dreading another “Spider-Man 3” fiasco, that’s only part of the bigger problem, because the movie is bursting at the seams with so much material that it borders on excess at times. “The Amazing Spider-Man 2” is the rare comic book movie where the action is the least interesting element, but for all the things that the film gets wrong, it does just enough right to keep you entertained, even if it fails to capitalize on the promise of its predecessor.

Peter Parker (Andrew Garfield) has officially graduated from high school, but he has much bigger things on his mind than worrying about college, like how to ensure the safety of his girlfriend, Gwen Stacy (Emma Stone), when he spends his days fighting crime as Spider-Man. After growing tired of Peter’s indecisiveness about their relationship (due in part to the vow he made to her dead father), Gwen takes the initiative and dumps him for good, leading Peter to fill that void by diving back into the mystery of his father’s disappearance. But he’s soon distracted by the arrival of his childhood friend, Harry Osborn (Dane DeHaan), who returns home to assume control of Oscorp after his father’s death, only to learn that he’s dying from the same disease, which he believes can be cured by the spider venom that gave Peter his amazing powers.

Read the rest of this entry »

Channing Tatum, Jamie Foxx, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Richard Jenkins, James Woods, Jason Clarke

Roland Emmerich

Twenty-five years ago, Sandra Boynton wrote a greeting card where a cat tells his or her paramour, “What I lack in finesse, I make up with raw enthusiasm.” It’s a cute sentiment, and it also serves as a shockingly good description of director Roland Emmerich’s filmography (“2012,” “The Day After Tomorrow,” “Independence Day”). His movies are not what one would call subtle, but they’re infused with a relentlessness that carries them through even the darkest plot hole and corniest joke.

None of Emmerich’s movies, though, works as hard as “White House Down.” This is a script that feels like it was born from a weekend binge session of caffeine and ‘90s-era Jerry Bruckheimer movies, capped off with about 30 minutes of Wikipedia searches on the layout of the White House and the succession of the chain of command during wartime. And yet, somehow, it (mostly) rises above its shortcomings to deliver an entertaining shoot ‘em up. Channing Tatum should get the lion’s share of the credit for this, thanks to his effortless charm, but it doesn’t hurt that he and Jamie Foxx have good chemistry as well.

Former soldier John Cale (Tatum) is trying to land a job with the Secret Service, and he brings his estranged political junkie daughter Emily (Joey King, who looks like the little sister of Alia Shawkat) with him to his interview at the White House in the hopes of buttering her up. While they are there, a group of goons infiltrates the grounds and dispatches with White House security rather quickly. John and Emily were apart when the attack takes place, and as John looks for Emily, he winds up locating and rescuing President Sawyer (Foxx), though both are still trapped inside the White House. Cale and Sawyer try to sort out why the siege is happening and who could be responsible, but more importantly for Cale, he needs to find Emily.

Read the rest of this entry »