Spider-Man: Every Andrew Garfield Marvel movie ranked worst to best
3. The Amazing Spider-Man 2
Considered to be one of the worst Spider-Man movies ever made, The Amazing Spider-Man 2 expanded on all the problems that Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man 3 had. Instead of learning from previous mistakes, Sony repeated all of them for Andrew Garfield’s second entry as the wall-crawler. Too many convoluted stories were told while not enough characters got a proper arc. And while there are some great positives to gather from the film, the negatives are just too heavy to sink the whole thing down. So what exactly went wrong?
Too many characters
Let’s start with the number of characters that fought for the viewer’s attention. Rhino, Harry Osborn’s Green Goblin, Felicia Hardy, Norman Osborn, and Electro were all introduced in The Amazing Spider-Man 2. Even Mary Jane was going to be part of the movie before her role was cut.
The problem with this relies on the very limited time each one of them got to be developed or even properly presented. Sure, Felicia and Norman weren’t prominent characters, and they could be seen more as cameos. But then what was the point of using them? Sony only wanted to build up for future spin-offs that were never really made.
Besides, the characters that did have a pivotal role didn’t have enough time to develop a character arc. One perfect example of this is Electro. The super-powered villain turned from loving Spider-Man to wanting to kill him in pretty much one short sequence. All it took was for the wall-crawler to take his place as the one being featured on Times Square screens for him to become evil. As a result, it became impossible for audiences to connect with him. Maybe if he had more screen time and better motivation he wouldn’t be such a forgettable antagonist.
A lot of stories with inconsistent tones
The Amazing Spider-Man 2 tried to balance too many storylines with different tones at the same time. Even when that in itself isn’t something bad, what really harmed the movie is how disconnected everything felt.
One moment we were watching how Peter uncovered the truth behind his parent’s murder. On the next, Harry was trying to cure himself of a genetic disease. All while Aunt May was working as a nurse in order to gain some extra money. It was just too much. If you were getting invested in one storyline, then the movie would quickly shift its focus. Worst of all, it felt like every single plot thread had a different tone.
However, not everything in The Amazing Spider-Man 2 was bad. The movie had amazing acting, incredible swinging scenes, superb CGI, and a fantastic adaptation of Gwen Stacy’s death. Additionally, Andrew Garfield gave his all in an arguably impeccable performance as Peter Parker. But while there are some glimpses of a fantastic movie, its many negatives managed to eclipse them. Now let’s hope that both Sony and Marvel learn from it and don’t repeat the same problems again.