Sony's marketing campaign

Rating: 7/10 (1 May 2014)

This is another Spider-Man movie. Or is it?
While the original trilogy had a comic book feel. This one seems closer to the cartoons, namely Ultimate Spider-Man, because of it's kind of humor, character treatment and level of inconsistencies. Also, Spidey's suit seem to have been changed or maybe it's just me, but it now seems to have bigger eyes like the one on the before mentioned cartoon, which helps corroborate my theory. But that's not an issue. Let's move on to the issues.
The first thing of note is that it's broken down into parts and sometimes transitions aren't smooth at all. One minute we're on Spidey, then bam, we're back to the other side of the city for an seemingly unrelated part of the story. Spidey just finished a fight and we go back to Osborn offices for a very calm and discussion that has nothing to do with what happened in the last scene. And let's just forget the subtlety of Aleksei's introduction (for those who haven't seen it or don't remember, we're suddenly watching a car chase and he screams for nobody else to hear but the audience "Introducing Aleksei Sytsevich" or something like that).
The second thing, that is actually the first thing I noticed in this movie was marketing. It's so obvious that it hurts. Iron Man had all those Audi, The Winter Soldier had every car turned into a Chevrolet and Spidey has Vaio. Now, I admit I didn't check the release date of the first Vaio and this might be a sign I'm getting a bit old, but how did Peter Parker's dad have a Vaio? Wasn't his crash over 10 years ago? Were Vaio's available then? Let's assume yes, then why did Richard Parker have an old monitor in his super secret tiny lab? Space was obviously an issue, he could just have another laptop there. But it's not just product placement and the brand shining on your face. That laptop was the Hulk of laptops. It was so surprisingly resistant that the bad guy could hold on to it to avoid falling off a plane AND it still worked perfectly and finished the upload.
Moving on. You know what? I'll just make a list: - Harry Osborn (a.k.a. Mr. One Direction a.k.a. I-love-my-hair-and-the- serum-made-me-forget) is a pretty smart guy. Granted, he didn't recognize his best friend's voice under the suit, but he figured out things on his own, which is a step up from the regular villains of movies targeted at kids like this one. However, his father left him tons of projects that could potentially save his life and he couldn't explore more than one. He would die before reading another folder from the device Norman left him. Oh, and did you notice? His hand had a problem. Try to remember that for the rest of the movie when, for example, he's pouring drinks or beating two guards of a high security facility at once. Also, he didn't question why his father was green.

Electro. To enjoy Electro you must forget everything you know about electricity. That's not a problem with the movie. This character was always unbelievable and sometimes you have to just "give it this one" and ignore the laws of physics to enjoy a movie. But, that aside I have to wonder. If Electro can kill with a finger, why does he just throw Spidey around? He was an electronic engineer and yet didn't take power from the backup generator or whatever it was they used to give back power to the city. If he knew it would be dangerous to him, why didn't he stay away from it? Didn't he design the whole thing? Then he knew about the backup. If he's an engineer, he should be smarter. And if (still ignoring the laws of physics, but following the logic of the movie) Electro took power from the generator and the city when out of power, how can Spidey give more power to Electro and power the city at the same time? Should he at least defeat Electro before the city can have power again? Shouldn't all the static electricity undo Gwen's hairdo? Questions, questions...

Let's talk about Gwen and romance and all that stuff. Instead of going back and forth, two VERY smart people would have established ground rules, thus keeping having "fun" and protecting Gwen from her imminent demise. I know, it's just following the comic story, but what I'm complaining is how they got there. "Oh, I want you... No, I don't... Wait, I do... But I must protect you... I love you... I see dead people...". Jesus, that sort of stuff is what leads to people getting killed. If they had enjoyed their time, I'd have felt sorry when she died, instead I was like "well, now you don't have to decide". She was probably tired of being picked up by him. That move has got to hurt.

Peter Parker is not the nerdy Peter Parker everyone can relate to.

New York's ground it way too sensitive. It breaks at minimum impact.

The good stuff: - It was funny in a cartoonish way, which is something the old trilogy didn't explore. - Kinda cool CGI. No problems there. Except, why does Electro materialize with boxers? OK, I get the boxers, but why the catheters? Where did he get the suit? The suit has a small lightning bolt, so it was definitely made for him. - Hairdos always perfect. - Felicia introduced. Doc Oc and Vulture hinted. - I guess there's no Mary Jane. That's good. I guess. We already had that. - Reference to Jameson. - Acting was OK. - Story was meh. If they cut most of the Gwen back-and-forth drama, they could have focused on putting the pieces together with better transitions and perhaps a little more than goblin's "I just came by to kill your girlfriend".