With great budget comes great responsibility!

Rating: 4/10 (24 April 2014)

Spidey would have to be one of the most popular super-heroes of our time. He's been my favourite ever since I saw the Nicholas Hammond movie length TV pilot as a child. Since then, there had been periodic rumours about a Spidey movie, but nothing until Mr. Raimi's Trilogy that blew Spidey fans out of the water.....and many others! (Well, 2 movies of that Trilogy did anyway, but that's another review) Then a new incarnation came along via Mr. Mark Webb.
The Amazing Spiderman was a great re-invention of the Raimi raised franchise, great cast and crew seemed to give us Spidey fans.....and the many others yet another winning Spidey flick to love.......So?.....What happened here? Amazing Spiderman 2 has mostly the same cast that appealed to fans of the first one. It has the same director, who I must say, done a terrific job directing. The problem is not HOW he directed, but WHAT he directed.
The action scenes are the fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants, roller-coaster stuff that we have come to expect (rightly so) and love in modern action cinema. Webb's direction makes us feel, on more than one occasion, that we ARE Spidey, or at least hanging on to him for dear life as he swings his way through the city. It's great stuff and if watched in 3D there are some nice effects thrown in at times also. The action sequences are all done well and raise the heartbeat a little. Exactly what we want in a super-hero flick. Only problem is, these scenes are way too few and far between.
Way too much time is spent on character development. Back-story takes up some time also, but nowhere near as much as the characters relationships with each other. Plus the back-story is interesting to watch, whilst the relationships, especially that of Peter's relationship with Gwen, seem to drag on and hold up the pace of the movie significantly and we are left almost praying for the next action scene to hurry up and grace us. But the action scenes seem to arrive late each time. Yes, they try and make up for their tardiness, but 'Too little, too late' is an emerging motto as this slow paced movie progresses.
Of course character development is important in any film, but not at the expense of the more important elements. This is, after all, Spiderman and super-hero movies are kinda meant to be primarily action based. At times The Amazing Spiderman 2 seems to forget it's a super-hero movie. It's a pity, because it had the potential to be a great sequel to it's great prequel.