Plot Synopsis: (via IMDB) Frank, a single man raising his child prodigy niece Mary, is drawn into a custody battle with his mother.
My Opinion:
Quickie review! Saw this a good few weeks ago & realized I never reviewed it. Not because I didn’t like it – I’ve just been too busy. I actually quite liked it, as far as family films go. I doubt it’s still in cinemas now but it’s worth a watch at home if you like the sound of it.
I went to Gifted with the hubby and the eight-year-old. I’m enjoying the fact that she’s of the age now where we’re getting to go to more non-animated “family” films. I wish there were more of them! We saw this not long after A Dog’s Purpose (which we all really liked). We all enjoyed this one as well but I think the kid & I slightly preferred A Dog’s Purpose because: Cute dogs. Although Gifted has: Cute Chris Evans. So, they kind of even out.
Chris Evans & Mckenna Grace are the true stars of this and what make the movie work as they’re believable as a single uncle & the niece he has to raise after his sister commits suicide (warning for if you do take a kid, although I don’t remember the topic of suicide exactly being dwelled on & my kid didn’t ask any questions about it). They were great together & my kid really liked Grace & the cheekiness of her character, who is extremely clever beyond her years. Octavia Spencer is also good as the neighbor & friend of Evans & Grace but also very wasted in this small role. Lindsay Duncan plays the mother of Evans, who fights him for custody of her granddaughter once she realizes she has inherited her daughter’s mathematical genius.
What else can I say? There’s not a lot more to this story but the characters were pretty strong and the custody battle was interesting. Evans wants to raise his child prodigy niece as a normal kid in a normal school with a normal life. The grandmother wants to raise her as the child genius that she is, with all the best schooling & training that money can buy (and which the working class Chris Evans can’t afford). So it comes down to which values you believe in (although the majority will be on the uncle’s side because the grandmother is a bitch). I’ll say that the movie has an interesting turn of events & it’s not often that I can’t guess the ending to a pretty simple family film so bonus points for that. I enjoyed the film. All three of us did. Give it a watch with your family on… whatever streaming service(s) to which you subscribe (it was so much easier when you could just say “watch it on home video”). 😉
Starring:
Andrew Garfield
Emma Stone
Jamie Foxx
Dane DeHaan
Colm Feore
Felicity Jones
Campbell Scott
Embeth Davidtz
Paul Giamatti
Sally Field
Running time: 142 minutes
Plot Synopsis: Not much different from The Amazing Spider-Man (2012). And I’m too lazy to write a synopsis.
My Opinion:
I remembered writing a bit about The Amazing Spider-Man (2012) somewhere on this blog. I found the post! I started this blog at the end of 2012 so I just did a round-up of every film I’d seen that year (And ranked them from my favorite to least favorite. Those who know me know I’m anal like that). 😉 Anyway, that post is HERE and it makes for more interesting reading than the very little bit I said about The Amazing Spider-Man, which I ranked as the 18th best movie I went to in 2012 & gave a 6/10. I actually thought I’d liked it more than that! Hmm… This was my in-depth analysis: “Not actually that bad, but… What’s the point?? Do prefer Andrew Garfield to Tobey Maguire, though.”
Well, The Amazing Spider-Man 2 is pretty similar to the last one. As I say at the start of every superhero movie review I do, I’ve never read a comic book so all my knowledge is only of the films I’ve seen. All I’ve really ever known of Spider-Man is what I saw in the Tobey Maguire movies (I still do NOT understand why they’ve done this whole reboot). Anyway, I enjoyed those just fine. Can’t say I’ve watched any of them since going to them, though, and I never really bought into Maguire.
So far, I feel pretty much the same way about the Garfield films – I’ve enjoyed them so far but it’s unlikely that I’ll be re-watching them anytime soon. They’re fun popcorn movies but I don’t enjoy them to the same degree as the Avengers films or the X-Men films. I do still prefer Andrew Garfield to Tobey Maguire, though.
FYI: I casually mentioned on Twitter that I’d seen this movie & ended up discussing the whole Maguire vs Garfield thing for a good couple of hours. I’ll go into detail on this at the end of the review plus there’ll be a POLL! You can vote for Team Maguire or Team Garfield. Go team Garfield! 😉
I do think this second Amazing Spider-Man is a slight improvement over the first one. I thought the villains and the big showdowns were better. They did a good job further developing the Gwen Stacy/Peter Parker romance plus his relationship with his aunt. The villains didn’t feel very developed, though, but this is often a problem with superhero films anyway. And Jamie Foxx was a bit weird as a total Poindexter nerd.
I’m not sure what else to say about this. I do still feel this reboot is pointless but it doesn’t mean these new films are BAD… If the others didn’t exist, people would like the Andrew Garfield ones more than they seem to. To be honest, I just want to start talking about the Twitter debate now because that was pretty entertaining. 😉
The Amazing Spider-Man 2 is fun, as was the first one. It’s not going to change the world but it’s light entertainment. I had fun with it & there are far worse ways to spend a couple of hours.
My Rating: 7/10
ANDREW GARFIELD vs TOBEY MAGUIRE: THE BIG DEBATE
So, after seeing this movie last Tuesday, I casually mentioned to my usual group of Twitter buddies that I’d seen it. Bloody hell – I didn’t expect to spend a good chunk of the rest of the day arguing about who was the better Spider-Man: Andrew Garfield or Tobey Maguire. But it was fun and that’s what I love about this little group of people – I think I enjoyed the Twitter debate more than the movie. 😉
So I’ve chosen just one quote from each person as the debate went on for ages. And at the very end of this post, you’ll find a poll so you can vote for your favorite Spider-Man of the two. If you want to also put your choice in the comments below, I can add you to TEAM MAGUIRE or TEAM GARFIELD here & link to your blog.
I was considering adding the choice of “Team Don’t Give A Fuck” as this is the team Brian declared he was on after spending a good couple of hours making it pretty clear he was very much NOT Team Garfield. Lol! Gotta love Brian. Here’s my favorite Brian quote. Note the time – 7:26 pm. My first post about going to the movie was at 1:50 pm. I think I just wore him out! Bwahaha! 😉
Eric seems to think Andrew Garfield is a teenage girl. This was Eric’s main argument throughout the day. Funny how all the girls are on Team Garfield. I think the boys may just be jealous of Garfield’s lovely big, brown, puppy dog eyes…
In a bit of a “Brian move”, this is the reply I got from Seth when I asked for everyone to choose a side “for the record” as I planned to mention the Twitter debate in my review. Lol!
Melissa was more interested in another conversation that started up in which I reminded Zoe that she should watch the film Never Let Me Go, starring Garfield. I think we’d all like to read the book it’s based on. 😉
Cinema Parrot Disco 