Does whatever a Spider can...

Rating: 6/10 (6 February 2015)

I grew up reading some of the 90's Spider-Man comics, not the "Ultimate" versions, so my knowledge of the sagas might not be the same as the target audience for this movie. I've seen Raimi's trilogy as well and what I can say is that in the end it all comes down to this: if you're older than the expected target audience for this movie you'll probably prefer Raimi's interpretation. Both trilogies have their pros and cons. Personally I think the shy and dorky Peter Parker version of the Raimi trilogy fits the character much better than the "Amazing" version with the modern and outgoing Peter Parker.
The movie was a CGI fest but they went too far with the whole background story about Parker's parents and while you can feel that Peter and Gwen's relationship had more chemistry than the Maguire-Dunst duo (after all Garfield and Emma are together IRL) it gets a bit repetitive after a while. In terms of acting the tension of Peter's struggle between his life vs his responsibilities as Spider-Man was better achieved in Raimi's trilogy as well, here you just don't feel that empathy for the character. The dubious script also brings up some questions concerning Peter's life, e.g. how could he be thinking about going to England with Gwen when he could barely afford college at the time??
Then there's the villains. Electro's story was lame to say the least and being played by an African-American actor was not faithful to the comics. Harry's brief appearance wasn't satisfying and his story was filled with inconsistencies as well, e.g. if he was sent to a boarding school at a very young age and Peter was left with his uncle and aunt and then went to the "regular" high school how could they know each other? It would be highly improbable. His fight with Spidey was too short, not to mention that in the comics Gwen was killed by his father.
The writers and producers should have understood by now that putting more than a villain in a movie is a blockbuster suicide, that was one of the Spider-Man 3 flaws and it seems they still didn't get it. The fact that they made the villains all come out from Oscorp Industries was also one of the points I didn't like. Hats off however for Gwen's death scene, where Garfield performed much better. The jokes were typical Spider-Man as usual but never match the Raimi's trilogy (in the 2 first movies at least...). All in all, another sequel that fails to beat the first movie of a trilogy.