Are Sony the new Spider Slayers?

Rating: 1/10 (3 June 2014)

Let me get something straight from the start - I LOVE SPIDER MAN. I'm not one of those people who watches a film just so he can slag it off, or worse still, gives a film a bad review without even seeing the movie.
Sony's approach to the franchise seems to be rather like that of a nasty little boy who pulls the legs off spiders one by one to see if they are still able to walk. After the great successes achieved by Sam Raimi's first 2 Spidey films, the studio have interfered constantly, sending the series into a rapidly downward spiral.
I'll admit I wasn't a fan of Webb's first 'Amazing Spider Man', but I'd hoped that the director and studio would have learned from their mistakes and decided to give them another try.
Unfortunately, this one is worse than the first. Peter Parker is portrayed as a self-centred slacker, who seems to have no problem with stalking his ex-girlfriend, or derailing her dreams for the future. So much for your friendly neighbourhood spider-man!
The CGI is poor, and looks very cartoon-like.
The pacing of the film is awful. The film starts with an action-packed opening scene featuring characters we know nothing about, which sets the scene for a pointless subplot, which does nothing other than to slow the film down (and makes Parker act like a dick to his girlfriend and aunt). We then have a frenetic opening sequence where Paul Giamatti is completely wasted.
So far, not so bad. However, that's pretty well all the action you get. Over the next 90 minutes, you get one fight with Electro, surrounded by endless clumsy, slow, embarrassingly-scripted soap scenes. I honestly struggled to stay awake.
But the worst is yet to come.
Eventually we do finally get to a climactic action scene, where Spidey takes down the film's bad guy, Electro. Except, that's not all. All of a sudden, out of nowhere they decide to add the Green Goblin to the mix, wasting one of the Marvel Universe's most dramatic and Iconic moments (the moment when comics lost their innocence)in what amounts to little more than a 3-minute long 'epilogue'.
Then,having completely wasted the Green Goblin for no apparent reason other than to extend the film (and show off a bit of 3D), they then add in yet another bad guy in a very silly final scene. Impressively, they manage to waste the usually-excellent Giamatti for a second time.
Dreadful!
If I was Avi Arad, Kevin Feige, Stan Lee, or anyone with any power at Disney or Marvel Studios, I'd move heaven and earth to try to get the rights back from Sony before they are allowed to destroy the character forever.