Spider-Man is Spider-Man, at last!

Rating: 6/10 (16 November 2014)

Spidey has been my favourite superhero for as long as I can remember and though I never grew up reading the comics, I absorbed the 90s "The Animated Series" as a kid, which included a great roster of characters, villains and stories from the comics themselves.
"You wanna know what I love about being Spider-Man? Everything." Yeah, you said it Andrew Garfield because you are THE Spider-Man. Sony have given Spidey the big treatment; Spider-Man is as Spider-Man as Spider-Man can usually get, he's witty, quippy, strong, agile, his web-swinging looks better than ever and the filmmakers made the right choice in listening to the fans and changing the suit, giving us a Spider-Man that is a lot more comic-book accurate (or in my case, something that's a lot more in line with the Spider-Man I know from the 90s cartoon).
The visuals look great, especially with Electro present on screen and everything seems a lot more vibrant and lively which is refreshing after the filmmakers had made the wrong choice in making the first installment too dark and realistic for the character of Spider-Man and his world.
The cast is incredible and having not seen him in a movie before, Dane DeHaan really stands out and was a pleasant surprise for me.
However, the film suffers A LOT from poor writing and a lack of narrative direction. There is a jumble of sub-plots that ultimately tie in to "Oscorp" but there is no linearity, no real sense of progression in the story, leaving you a little bored and uninterested in all the little threads that are meant to somehow tie together. While I like the attempt at being more lighthearted, most of the comedy drags on a little and is only really funny the first time around.
Jamie Foxx was a waste as Electro and pushed it a little too far in playing a goofy Max Dillon that we are meant to sympathise with. Yes, it's easy to understand Electro's motivations but the film does that in too much of a silly manner and this 'main villain' is locked away for a good chunk of the film before having some kind of purpose towards the ending.
**SPOILERY PART** As I said, while DeHaan's performance was great, it doesn't help that his character, Harry Osborn, was rushed and became the Goblin way too soon, only really being introduced for the purpose of killing off Gwen at the end of the film and trying to stay somewhat accurate to the comics.
While her ending was probably best left for the sequel, leaving room for a bigger build-up to the event, it still had a huge emotional impact due to Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone's wonderful chemistry on-screen, again, throughout the film. Andrew Garfield's reaction to her death was heartbreaking and this film was the first film to ever leave me in quite an emotional wreck; a testament to how great the casting has been for the rebooted franchise, especially Garfield's presence in these movies.
"The Amazing Spider-Man 2" had the potential to be probably the greatest Spider-Man movie out there, they hit so many great notes such as Spider-Man's characterisation, bringing Hans Zimmer on board to score the film (which he did excellently for both action scenes and very emotional moments in the film), an excellent cast and the potential to move anywhere they wanted in terms of the story after having covered Spider-Man's origin in the predecessor.
However, all is let down by poor writing, leaving bad pacing, a jumbled story and frankly, a film that tries to achieve too much in too little time, suffering from having to kinda resolve the "Untold Story" about Peter's parents from the first film and then introducing two other villains (Rhino doesn't really count and I'm not bothered by his appearance at the end of the film, it worked well).
It also doesn't help that, once again, Sony are looking to the success of other films, trying to copy the Marvel Cinematic Universe and create an expanded Spider-Man movie universe before firmly establishing other characters/villains that could lead into interesting spin-offs that the general audience will want to see. Sony have wasted their attempt at proving that the Spider-Man reboot was initially a great idea with the mistakes they made in TASM2, some mistakes that also cropped up in Spider-Man 3 (surely they would have learned by now). This film was the make or break for this franchise and has led people to wonder whether Spider-Man is in the right hands. Does that mean he should go back to Marvel, so that he can appear alongside the Avengers? No, not really, it just means that Sony need to step up their game and focus on making their own, decent Spider-Man film and not looking at how successful other franchises are doing.
"The Amazing Spider-Man 2" has some great elements which really shine, hence my generous score for the film, but a poor story that holds the film back from being anything more than just your average Spider-Man film.