Every Sony Marvel movie ranked from worst to best
By Wesley Bell
10. The Amazing Spider-Man 2
Much like with Spider-Man 3, the main issue with the movie is that it suffers from too many ideas and plotlines. Not only do we have Spider-Man facing off against Electro, but we also have the introduction of Green Goblin, the death of Gwen Stacy, and a random side story where Peter is still investigating his parents’ deaths. It gives more context to something that would have been better off remaining a mystery.
Deviating from the source material, so that instead of Peter’s abilities being the result of a random spider, they were due to his father’s research using his DNA to alter the spiders (including the one that eventually bit him), was an unnecessary change that stripped the character of the aspect that makes him so interesting.
Furthermore, Electro feels like a cartoon villain, but not in an entertaining way. He goes from being a bumbling Spider-Man superfan to falling into a vat of eels and gaining electricity powers. Despite Jamie Foxx being a great actor and more than capable of playing the character, he feels miscast as this version of the villain. The role allows for none of the actor’s natural charisma and personality to come through, which makes him boring to watch for most of the runtime.
The film’s other villain, Harry Osborn, isn’t much better. His introduction as Peter’s former best friend feels unearned when he wasn’t even mentioned in the first film, and the subplot of him battling a genetic disease that he believes Spider-Man’s blood is the cure for (but that Peter won’t give him for some vague reason) just isn’t compelling enough to justify how much of the movie it takes up.
Although the film is incredibly flawed, there are some positives. Gwen’s death at the hands of Goblin gets handled relatively well, and Andrew Garfield delivers a fantastic performance that sells the emotion of that loss. The VFX are also great and still hold up well, even beating a few of the recent Spider-Man movies in that area. While it is disappointing that Andrew Garfield never got the chance to complete his trilogy, maybe it was for the best that the franchise didn’t continue in the direction it was heading.