H H 1/2

PG-13. 140 minutes. Groton, Stonington, Westbrook, Lisbon.

If there's a tie that binds most of the characters of the Marvel Universe together, it's the mutability of the supposedly immutable human body. Characters are poisoned by radiation, zapped by electricity, bitten by spiders or broken, crushed, ruined or whatever. And as Spider-Man cracks in "The Amazing Spider-Man 2," just "shake it off. It's just your bones, muscles..." But the real world doesn't work like that. That's one reason this comic book world has such a lasting appeal. Bullies are foiled, criminals are caught and great wrongs righted with supernatural intervention by supernaturally augmented humans. "Amazing 2" is kind of about that. It's a violent film, with blood and death in between the digitally-animated brawls. Human bodies are tortured and broken, and there's not always a web slinger there to stop that flipping police car, that hurtling bus, that Russian psychopath or that jet that's about to crash. It's not an altogether pleasant experience. Things tend to drag as director Marc Webb has problems with focus, keeping the many story threads straight and continuity (watch Gwen Stacy's outfits). Many otherwise faceless extras pop off the screen as if he's about to give their nameless characters the same significance as Stan Lee himself - who always has cameos in these Marvels. But Andrew Garfield finds his voice as the character, making his second try at Peter Parker a caffeinated wise-cracker, enjoying his notoriety, talking to himself just like the guy in the comic book. Peter almost misses his and Gwen's (Emma Stone) high school graduation, dealing with a villain named Aleksei (Paul Giamatti). Jamie Foxx is an ignored, humiliated electrical engineer who has an accident involving electric eels and power lines.

- Roger Moore, McClatchy