Some good aspects but mostly poorly delivered in a rushed and messy film (SUGGESTIVE SPOILERS)

Rating: Null/10 (1 November 2014)

I'm not sure why I ended up watching this film since I didn't think they did anything good with the first rebooted film – but I think it did help that I was coming into the film with low expectations. It is disappointing then that even low expectations seemed hardly able to be met. It did not have to be this way; the film has interesting aspects, good aspects and clearly more than enough money than it needs to do what it wants to do. The problem is that it seems to have so much it does what to do that in the end it does none of them well.
I don't know what it is with these films that they need to have so many villains and so much going on, but it is a negative in this case. The plot is bloated and has this stuttering feeling where no matter what it is doing in that moment, it feels like it wants to be doing something different (which it usually does within a minute or two). This ruins a lot of what might have been good. The relationship side is actually nicely done but is not given the time to really be what it needs to be; it is superficial despite the efforts of the lead two actors, and what might have been seen as a brave narrative twist in the later stages is actually horribly misjudged and wasted as it rushes from the key scene into the next bit. This applies to the smaller characters as well – we have no interest in them apart from being able to use them – so the rush is on just to get them to the stage where they are special effects. Electro/Max is one of the best example of this since he is really a tragic figure full of humanity but yet hurt and anger – the film shows us this but then does nothing with it whatsoever. Same with Osborn, the background of Parker's family, and many other details – although of course the total waste of a brave twist involving Gwen is probably the hardest to see.
Visually the film has a lot going on but yet it matters so little. Some of the effects are really too computer-generated for their own good, while too many big scenes are just too big and noisy – rather than drawing the viewer into them, they are aggressive in pushing the viewer away instead. As a result I found it almost tiring that there was so many big scenes but yet I cared so little; the overused slow-motion stuff detracted more than it added and generally I found little of merit beyond excessive spectacle. The cast are mostly lost in the middle of this and the good work many of them do is just wasted. Garfield and Stone are good, but the film doesn't let them build this and when it really gives Garfield something to do, it moves on immediately like it was nothing. Foxx and DeHaan are both capable of so much more and indeed the tragic base of their characters is interesting, but soon enough they are just people jumping around on a greenscreen set.
A third film is on the way and I'm sure on a plane or a wet afternoon or some other dead time, I'll put it on because it demands no effort from my side to watch it. I wish it was not this way but the second of the rebooted Spider-Man films holds out aspects which are good and could have been so much better – but instead loses them with no focus, too much of a rush, and too much stuff trying to be crammed in so it has really no room to breathe.