Pretty much a dud, sadly

Rating: 1/10 (9 June 2014)

After seeing the first movie of the rebooted franchise, I had such high hopes for the sequel. Instead, what we received was an angst-ridden mess that I've pretty much come to expect from the franchise.
Spoilers ahead.
I guess what bothered me the most, was the whiny angst of Peter Parker when he was pushing Gwen Stacy away through the first hour and a half of the movie. Ridiculous amounts of guilt and suffering because he promised her father that he would break up with her. Never mind that he'd apparently already gotten over it by the end of the previous movie. Here, we have endless scenes of her father staring at him with imagined accusatory eyes. Corny as hell.
Next, the writers and director pick the one thing in the Spider-Man mythology to include, even though they pretty much ignored dozens upon dozens of other equally important plot points: the death of Gwen Stacy.
I'd have bought her dying if it had advanced the plot/storyline is any real way. Sadly, it did not. Instead, it was a way to get a cheap tear out of saps foolish not to see the puppet strings of the movie. Now you have to understand that I'm a pretty sensitive guy. I shed a tear or two during The Secret Life of Bees, one hell of a movie.
Here, I was jeering the entire time, cursing Spider-Man for being too much of a wimp to stop Harry Osborn from killing Gwen Stacy. I kept thinking in my head that if it were my girl who was being threatened, and I had the proportional strength and speed of a spider, I'd twist the guy doing the threatening head's off like opening a bottle of beer. Tough stuff that he's my friend. Friends don't threaten your girl.
Anyway, the end annoyed me off almost as much the two proceeding points. Of course, Harry is still alive, Peter being too "moral" to do anything to the murderer of his love. Manages to unleash threat upon the city to try to bring back Spider-Man who has disappeared. Yeah, that's new. Little kid stands in front of armored suit shooting machine guns everywhere. Complete idiot. I was cheering for the bad guy to shoot the kid. Darwinism at its finest. Sadly, Peter decides to become Spider-Man again because... who knows. Silly sentimentality.
Movie's a mess. Regretted the money spent seeing it. That's on me. Don't waste your time on this garbage. Go see something by Marvel, who actually knows how to write a superhero movie. Their Marvelverse stuff is amazing (minus Iron Man 3).