You could probably sue Sony for their use of the word "Amazing" in the latest Spider-Man venture; the finished film was anything but. Marc Webb returned to direct the second installment in this recently rebooted franchise, which features an enthused Andrew Garfield as hero Peter Parker, reprising his role from the 2012 original. But this isn't really a movie in the traditional sense: there's no structure, no clear narrative, nothing to cling to; it's a hodgepodge of half-assed ideas, all crammed into two-and-a-bit hours. Indeed, The Amazing Spider-Man 2 somehow manages to repeat so many of the mistakes that rendered Sam Raimi's third Spider-Man film a mess, the most grating of which concerns its attempts to incorporate too many villains. So here we get Electro, Harry Osborne and Rhino, all out to get our favourite web-slinger, and the movie loses any sense of identity as we flick mercilessly between undeveloped plots. Yes, there's good chemistry between Garfield and Stone, but it's just not enough.
Sam Hill is an ardent cinephile and has been writing about film professionally since 2008. He harbours a particular fondness for western and sci-fi movies.
