3D Blu-ray Movie Reviews

Peter Parker’s a recent high school graduate with an awesome girlfriend and—thanks to a bite from an experimental spider—has become the super-powered guardian angel of New York City, and quite the folk hero. But Pete’s good fortune seldom lasts, and the return of his boyhood chum Harry Osborn quickly takes a dark turn—or is that just the new villain Electro sucking all the juice out of the Big Apple?

The mystery surrounding the malevolent Oscorp from the first movie only deepens this time, as the conglomerate’s controversial scientific research is revealed to be increasingly sinister. Their disregard for the law and human life proves so destructive, only the boundlessly pithy wall-crawler can clean up their messes. He faces a total of three baddies this time, and still more are teased as a setup for further sequels. But a better explanation of Amazing 2 ’s girth is perhaps the excess of family drama and quite a bit of chatter about relationships. Some plot points don’t make much sense, either, but all in all, the tale does remain faithful to the spirit of its comic book roots.

With the switch to director of photography Dan Mindel, the franchise regressed to 35mm film and 2D production. Not surprisingly, the dynamic web-slinging scenes are the real stars of this 3D conversion. Many other shots display convincingly layered compositions. The disc carries the de rigueur “Mastered in 4K” logo and boasts exceptional clarity, such that we can appreciate subtle differences in focus, along with outstanding detail and a fine kiss of film grain on the 2.4:1 image.

The surround channels are pleasingly active in this DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 presentation, brimming with rain, alarms, helicopters, and gunfire. My speakers worked well together to render clean directionality for the thwip of webs across the soundstage, and during one of the epic action sequences, an angry song plays like psychotic voices inside a character’s head. Bass lovers won’t go hungry, either, as plenty of big stuff either crashes or blows up, or both.

The Blu-ray 3D disc packs a generous writer/producer audio commentary that’s repeated on the 2D Blu-ray, where you’ll also find a six-part making-of documentary, a look at the score, and an Alicia Keys music video. There are 13 deleted/alternate scenes with optional commentary, some exclusive to Blu-ray and one a bona fide game-changer, but none with Divergent’s Shailene Woodley as Mary Jane.

Blu-Ray 3D
Studio: Sony Pictures, 2014
Aspect Ratio: 2.40:1
Audio Format: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
Length: 142 mins.
MPAA Rating: PG-13
Director: Marc Webb
Starring: Andrew Garfield, Emma Stone, Jamie Foxx