Extremely disappointing; such a shame.

Rating: 4/10 (2 May 2014)

A group of friends and I were fortunate enough to catch this film at an advanced screening in Toronto last night. Going in, we were moderately excited, but didn't want to overhype the film at all, so we watched it as a standalone film, without wanting to compare it to the other Spider- Man films going in. However, upon further review when I got home, after watching the film, I compared it to its predecessor for quality.
Rarely do sequels surpass their original films, but what ensued was honestly one of the worst filmgoing experiences of my life. Clocking in at 2.5 hours, the movie feels dreadfully long. I found myself periodically checking my watch, only to see that 10 or 15 minutes had passed, when it felt like a half hour at least.
Normally, I enjoy longer movies. My favourite film of all time, Casino, is 3 hours. But that film doesn't feel like 3 hours; it feels like 2 (to me, anyway). Amazing Spider-Man 2 felt closer to 4 hours, and it was mostly because of the shoddy dialogue between the two main leads, the pointless drawn-out romance scenes, Dane DeHaan's acting in general, and Electro's cheesy lines. The one that comes to mind is "It's my birthday; time to light my candles!"
Don't get me started on that ridiculous scene on the plane of Richard and Mary Parker, the disastrous shaky cam, and the unlikelihood of uploading a 30 second video while plummeting to your death. Talk about exposition and deus ex machina for future events: Peter is feeling angsty, decides to break his father's stuff, and discovers that in his father's calculator (of all places) were TOKENS from the D-Train he supposedly took to work every day. The D-Train platform was actually a SECRET laboratory where SECRET experiments were going on, SECRETLY. What a bunch of malarkey.
Another problem: Gwen Stacy magically knows how to stop Electro, all of a sudden, and goes along after Peter to "help" (upon further consideration afterward, Gwen does this in the first film as well, with the "antidote" that she knows about to stop the Lizard-ification of New York). That alone is bad enough because it is unlikely, but the fact that she heard Peter yell when to flip the switch, yards away, through electricity, steel, and plated glass, when she cannot even see anything discernible that would let her know visually that it was permissible to flip the switch was hogwash. Having Gwen there was only a way of setting up her eventual death at the end of the film, and nothing more.
Finally, when Rhino is rampaging right at the end of the film, he stops shooting when Spider-Man and the mini Spider-Man were having a moment. He's a killer isn't he? He's a mobster isn't he? Why would he not shoot at Peter to get rid of him while he's monologuing to the kid? I know that wouldn't happen because Spider-Man can't die in a Spider-Man film, especially not at the end of the film, but it was ridiculous that Rhino would even consider stopping shooting, period.
After watching the film, I went home and compared my experience to watching the first Amazing Spider-Man. TASM was by no means a masterpiece, but it was miles ahead of this film in terms of direction, plot, and dialogue. It is a shame that they wasted such potential on this sequel, and decided to flush it all away with that ghastly end result. Now I understand that a bunch of material was cut from the film, but that should be no excuse. In fact, it was as if they cut the WRONG scenes from the film. The scene where Harry tells Peter he is being watched? Not even mentioned at all. Horrible editing job, the film could have been completely different if those scenes were there. After the editing for the first film and this one, I'm convinced the trailers were deliberately made to bait and switch viewers, because both times different information was presented to be the core point of the film, and both times, the films did not deliver on that front.
Overall, this film was a VERY disappointing experience for the whole group of us. If compelled to score the film, I would have to give it a 4 out of 10, and that's pushing it, mostly because I liked the atmosphere of the film in general. Aside from that aspect, the score would most likely be a 2 or 3 out of 10.
Sorry to disappoint, guys. I can honestly say that this film was definitely not worth the hype Sony gave it. Sony over-pumped the tires, and they popped before they even touched the track.