After recently being exposed to a thread which slams both Spiderman 3 and The Amazing Spider-Man 2, I found an incentive to review the latter and express my opinion on why I deemed it worthy enough to put on my top 5 favourite comic book movies list. I don't know, maybe they deserve to be slammed, but to the calibre that they do is boardering ridiculous. So without trying to force a proper introduction down your throats, lets get to it...

The Bad

Even though The Amazing Spider-Man is one of my top favourited comic book movies of all time, I'm not blinded to its faults. The script is messy. Don't get me wrong, there were great ideas, but it is a difficult task for many directors to nail a film harbouring multiple narratives. I think Marc Webb tried to set up too much at once. I mean, The Amazing Spider-Man had a simple formular that worked: Teen problems, new powers, villain - and you have your film. With the sequel, we have Webb turning the focus on too many things, its hard to pin point what the main narrative was. Between explaining why his parents left, setting up the antagonists, setting up future installments, and throwing in a little love complication in there, it felt way too cluttered by comparison.

The film started off intriguingly with Richard Parker destroying his research and running away to protect Peter. The thing is, we don't get a follow-up until half way through the film. AFTER it has already been established that Gwen is moving to England and AFTER Peter and Harry had already been reunited. Webb should have left that arc out if it was going to take him this long to explain it again. I'd much prefer the story revolve around Harry and how Oscorp is covering up their experiments. That would have been perfect, in my opinion.

Speaking of Harry, I just didn't like how he was handled. I really really liked the direction his narrative was heading, but there was so little of it that he was overshadowed. Which is why I think they should have focused more on Harry and the whole Oscorp situation. That would have, in my opinion, set up the antagonist more prominantly.

But that brings my negative perspective on the film to an end.

The Good

Is the bad enough to bring the film crashing down? For me, hell no! What is done right is done phenomenally. The action scenes in particular, were beautifully shot and choreographed. Every action scene had me staring with an overwhelming eagerness to cheer my hero on. Every action scene was uplifted by the heroic music. Every action scene had perfectly timed slow motion sequences that allow the viewer to absorb the scene and take a breather. The Amazing Spider-Man 2 harbours some of my favourite action sequences I'll ever see in a comic book film.

Spider-Man was portrayed beautifully. There was actually a key contrast between Peter and Spider-Man, which I appreciated. We see Peter is haunted by the promise he made to Gwen's father. We know that Peter is eager to learn why his parents left him. We see how Peter plans to help Harry cope with the loss of his father. Even though Peter is dealing with these problems, Spider-Man is still cracking wise jokes and saving 10 year olds from bullies. And to me, I love that defining contrast between the two characters. Peter has to stay focused on Spider-Man while he's in the suit, because he is the peoples hero. The only times Peter felt like Peter in the suit was when he was rejecting Harry's request for blood, and when he was desperately trying to save Gwen.

The antagonist was very well written, in my opinion. Not so much Goblin, but with Electro... yeah, I was kind of rooting for him at one point or another. From when he first appeared on screen and told Spider-Man that he was a "nobody", I knew right away that this is a guy with good intentions, but is constantly being taken advantage of. He is socially awkward, and you can see people throughout the film have crippled his self-esteem to the point where everything seems like a personal attack to him. I felt deep sympathy for this character. He even creates a fictional friendship with the web-crawler to cope with this negativity, which is why he felt betrayed when Spider-Man stole the spotlight at Times Square, despite Spider-Man wanting to help.

The relationship between Peter and Gwen was handled fantastically. To the point where I felt a giddy nostalgia from when I first fell in love. Their relationship was heartfelt, and Gwen's death actually had me slightly depressed for the next few days, especially after the whole "I'm following you" speech Peter gave to her. I'd go as far as to say, this is one of my favourite romances in cinema.

So yes, even though this film is filled with reasons for people to dislike it, it is also filled with reasons as to why I absolutely love it, and these are the reasons why it is in my top 5.

Time stamp that shit. I'm outie!