Scene #1: The First 10 Minutes of the Movie
The Amazing Spider-Man 2 opens with something that was noticeably missing from the first installment – the story of Peter’s parents. We meet Peter’s father, Richard (Campbell Scott), while feverishly working at his station in Oscorp. When he’s all done he tries to make his way out, but the door is locked. He manages to sneak out an alternate exit and return home to his wife, Mary (Embeth Davidtz), as well as a young Peter, Aunt May (Sally Field) and Uncle Ben (Martin Sheen). Richard and Mary pack up in haste and rush out the door, leaving Peter behind.
From there we cut to Richard and Mary riding in a private jet. While Richard is busy uploading something important to “Roosevelt,” Mary uses the bathroom and that’s when all hell breaks loose. Richard is attacked by a man that has commandeered the cockpit. Ultimately, Mary finds herself in the midst of the fight, resulting in an extensive struggle going down in very close quarters. The hand-to-hand combat is all well choreographed, but the most impressive elements of the scene comes when a window is punctured and wind rips through the cabin as the plane does a nosedive.
Once the sequence comes to a close, we cut to the Spider-Man logo, which is then revealed to be the back of our main man’s suit. He’s flying high above the streets of New York City when he overhears that an Oscorp truck carrying plutonium has been hijacked. Spider-Man joins the pursuit, chasing after Paul Giamatti’s Aleksei Sytsevich who’s barreling down the street in an 18-wheeler with the aforementioned Oscorp truck attached to the back. After a good deal of car crashing, mid-action quips, and Spider-Man’s rather amusing attempt at snatching up all of the vials of plutonium while they bounce around the stolen truck, the moment makes room for high school graduation with Gwen Stacy (Emma Stone) as class valedictorian, and the two intercut the rest of the way through.
The action of the car chase is quite exhilarating from beginning to end, but by having Peter trying to save the day while desperately attempting to make his high school graduation, it actually manages to ground the high-flying action and Giamatti’s amusingly goofy performance quite a bit.