Superhero Media: The Amazing Spider-Man 2

Relax Rami and MCU fanboys, I'm not going to be defending this one too hard, as The Amazing Spider-Man 2 is genuinely quite bad, though not because it's lazy or doesn't have anything going for it. In fact, there are a number of elements and choices in The Amazing Spider-Man 2 that are pretty great, in of themselves. The whole thing still doesn't come together in any meaningful way, so it's probably a good thing that the series ended here, though a Sinister Six film may have been fun. In this version, Spider-Man has the whole superhero thing pretty much down, being popular with the people of New York and even having a good working relationship with the NYPD, the Daily Bugle "Wall-Crawling Menace" stuff is there in the background but not a focus. As much as I love some J Jonah Jameson, the Rami films did that very well, and a lot, so having a popular Spider-Man is a nice point of difference, and makes for some good scenes. When Peter puts on the suit again in the epilogue and takes over from the small child standing up to Rhino; that's a damn good scene. 

Look, I was born in 1986 and started reading Spider-Man shortly thereafter, so I have never lived in a world where Gwen Stacey wasn't dead (until Ghost Widow came along, but that's a different story). Simply put, I have waited my entire life to see Gwen die on the big screen, so that moment in The Amazing Spider-Man 2 was really great for me the first time out, even if the film wasn't the best. What drags the film down is the continuing Richard Parker story elements from the first The Amazing Spider-Man, which don't add much to the story and almost seem to be from a different genre. Like, when did Richard have the time and money to build a secret science lair in an abandoned subway station, if he had to go to Norman Osbourne for funding to genetically engineer super spiders? Given that Spider-Man is supposed to be the first superhero in the setting, I'm not sure how many "Lair" contractors would have been readily available. 

Jamie Foxx's Electro is generally considered one of the weaker points of The Amazing Spider-Man 2, and he doesn't add much to the plot, but I do like the character in of himself. Sure, the picked-on and downtrodden Max Dillon is a bit much, but once he's powered-up, it makes for a very visually interesting fight in Times Square. Hell, I don't even mind Electro's dubstep inspired theme music, which a lot of people still seem to complain about for some reason? I said in my reviews of the Rami Spider-Man films that I probably wouldn't be going back to them anytime soon, for the Amazing films however, I may come back sooner, as I really enjoyed seeing them again this time around. Yes, they're not as good as the MCU films or Into the Spider-Verse, but sometimes you want a hamburger instead of stake tartar, you know? I hope these films aren't forgotten, as there is a lot to enjoy here, even if they aren't the best the character has seen.