Unfairly Maligned, One Of The Best Superhero Films Ever

Rating: 10/10 (18 December 2018)

Much like with Daredevil, this is a film where I really wanted to bring attention to just how unfairly maligned this film is. Thus, I'm going to structure it in a manner where I will mostly be directly addressing and debunking the various misconceptions and (In my opinion) shallow arguments that are made against it. It's also worth noting that, to date, it's my 3rd favorite Marvel comics film behind Spider-Man 2 and Into the Spider-Verse.
Reason #1: "Electro turns evil because Spider-Man forgot his name."
Starting off with stuff that's just objectively false, we have the complaint that Max Dillon loses it because Spider-Man couldn't remember his name. This is ludicrous. There's a good 2 minutes of very important content between Spider-Man forgetting Max's name and Electro beginning to snap. While Spider-Man, the only person who had shown Max an ounce of compassion or love in his entire life, forgetting his name was definitely hurtful, Max still puts his trust in Spider-Man to save him, agreeing to talk with him in a safe area away from civilians. Immediately upon putting his trust in Spider-Man, Max is shot by a trigger-happy sniper. When Max retaliates, Spider-Man subdues Max and saves the sniper. This leads to the entire city cheering and applauding Spider-Man while jeering, booing and insulting Electro. A man who has been mistreated by everyone he met nearly his entire life gets humiliated in front of one of the most densely populated cities in the United States by the only person he thought he could trust. So we have an abandonment complex, presumed decades of abuse and humilation/perceived betrayal by a loved one in front of a mass audience, and people still think Electro became a villain cause Spidey forgot his name?
Reason #2: "The film didn't know what tone it was going for."
It was going for the tone of the comics; a universe where lighthearted characters coping with dramatic and serious events. Just like the Spider-Man comics it's based on, it perfectly balances cheesy, fluffy comedy with heavy, emotional drama, using the former as a way of counterbalancing against the latter and making its impact hit all the harder. The best Spider-Man comics are the ones that start of amusing and comical and slowly ease their way into something more emotionally powerful and affecting. Peter's silly, goofy quips and cutesy, dorky dialogue with Gwen make the shock and weight of her tragic death at the clock tower all the more hard hitting.
Reason #3: "Gwen is useless and an idiot and responsible for her death."
The "responsible for her death" complaint is just flat out not true. She went to the power plant to stop Electro and succeeded (She's actually even more useful in defeating Electro than Spider-Man is, which pretty much negates the whole "idiot" complaint.) None of the characters, especially Gwen, has any way of knowing about Green Goblin at the time. As for "useless", she has a clear and well paced arc of coming to terms with her feelings for Peter, while still not letting her feelings for him control the direction of her life, and, like I said, defeats Electro in the film's climax. Now compare this to Michelle of Spider-Man: Homecoming, a plot device who solely exists for Peter to have a crush on and save as Spider-Man (And later to make the Vulture twist less shocking.)
Reason #4: "The film has no themes and too many subplots."
While the film has many subplots that may initially seem a bit overstuffed, they are all connected by the themes of the film; those being abandonment and hope. Peter feels abandonment from his parents, Electro feels abandonment from Spider-Man and both Harry and Gwen feel abandonment from Peter. Of all these characters, it's only Gwen who finds the hope and inner strength to push past her own abandonment and move on from it. It's in her death that we see Spider-Man find the hope he needs to persevere beyond his pain and mourning (A brilliant subversion of the "women in the refrigerator" trope inadvertently started by The Death of Gwen Stacy, the comic which the film is heavily based on), becoming the hero we all love and recognize as Spider-Man fans. Now that I mention it, Gwen is almost more the hero of the story than Spider-Man is.
Reason #5: "Peter is a whiny crybaby."
I really don't like this complaint, to be honest, as it reeks of toxically masculine concepts that "men can't cry" which shoulda died out a while ago, but look at what this Spider-Man suffers. He's dealing with a crisis of conscience with his relationship with Gwen, abandonment complexes from his parents leaving him, his best friend dying and the death of his girlfriend. He had every reason and more to cry.
Reason #6: "It spends too much time setting up future movies."
The only example of The Amazing Spider-Man 2 doing this is the scene with The Man in the Hat at the ending and MAYBE Felicia Hardy. That's it. And yes, that includes The Rhino. Rhino represents how Spider-Man's challenges are only going to get harder after Gwen's death, but how he must keep his own hope alive. Because his hope represents the city's hope. That's why Rhino starts the movie off as a common thug and ends it as a supervillain. Meanwhile, Homecoming shoves in/teases the Scorpion, The Prowler, Mary Jane Watson, Betty Brant, the Iron Spider and the Sinister Six, all of which have no connection to the narrative or themes of the movie, and yet it somehow gets a pass.
The Amazing Spider-Man 2 is an emotional, funny and brilliant comic book movie that does a wonderful job tackling very serious real world issues like abandonment, hopelessness and mortality all within the framework of a painstakingly loving Spider-Man adaptation. It's a perfect encapsulation of everything I love about the Spider-Man story and one of the best superhero films ever.