A good extension of the first movie, deepening the history of Pete's father and some great visual moments with introduction to the Sinister Six, but the Electro story is a tad embarrassing and shoddily written.
Tym says
AMAZING 1 redid SPIDEY 1 and 2 better. And AMAZING 2 did SPIDEY 3 right. I cried.
Ciaran says
Missed all the beats of the character in this lackluster sequel.
In Amazing Spider-Man I, Marc Webb combined the best of Raimi's Spidey I and II. In this unfairly underrated sequel, Webb course-corrects most of the pitfalls of Spider-Man 3.
Learning nothing, the studio again hijacked their cashcow here as a franchise engine with greedy mandates. Director Webb though, to his credit, dodges most of these downturns at every twist. Where Spidey 3 jammed up with competing villains, Amazing 2 intertwines its duo more cohesively. Where Spidey 3 spun-out with worldbuilding, Amazing 2 builds infrastructure for future villains within the main story without strain. It still could use some pruning (the nearly-camp Electro), but it tells a coherent and emotionally gripping story that eluded the other.
What's really at issue is... it's telling the most important Spider-Man story ever printed.
In hindsight, everything in Spider-Man's first decade led up to one shocking climax, with the events of Amazing Spider-Man #121 (1973), written by Gerry Conway with art by Gil Kane and John Romita, Sr.. It was seismic, it tore the character and fandom to pieces, and may have capped off the character so decidedly that much which followed became decades of lesser retreads.
In foresight, the smartest move that the film Amazing Spider-Man I did was to reset the timeline; Gwen came first, before Mary Jane. Here is where that set-up paid off. Raimi's Spider-Man I is a fine film, but it cheated out the hero's most important story by altering crucial characters and events in the finale sequence; after that , it was impossible to tell that most important story in those films. Webb's reset is centered around this event coming to place, and the gravity of it is the tension that drives the film. Though a movie based solely around the Goblin without Electro would have been a stronger telling, the power of the ending is undeniable.
