10 Things The Amazing Spider-Man Does Better Than The Original Trilogy

9. Romance

What would a superhero movie be without some form of romantic subplot? Probably really fresh and unhindered, but it's one of the those genre necessities, like an impractical suit or dead parents; you can't just get rid of it. Many movies look like they wish they didn't have to - Iron Man seems to find Gwyneth Paltrow as annoying as the rest of us - and to that end both Spider-Man series have done a pretty good job. Boosted by the fact their hero is a teenager, romance provides a central backbone to the character. In the films at least, Mary Jane is the long unrequited childhood love (and remains that for two-thirds of the original trilogy) and Gwen Stacy is that ideal first love, with the relationships between Peter and his respective crush mirroring Spidey's journey. What inches The Amazing Spider-Man ahead is that its relationship goes beyond kissing and getting kidnapped - the logistics of dating a superhero are much more thoughtfully explored than in Spider-Man 3 (shocker). Marc Webb had previously directed (500) Days Of Summer, one of the finest movies about love from the past decade, so what did you expect?