12 Awesome Performances That Saved Underwhelming Films

The Amazing Spider-Man 2 was such a misfire that it stopped a franchise in its tracks. It's not terrible in fairness. It's got great action scenes, the cinematography and special effects are brilliant and it's definitely a watchable blockbuster. But if you move away from the spectacle, it bears all the unfortunate hallmarks of a film ruined by studio interference and turned into a 2 hour advert for all those Sony Marvel movies which never happened.

It's over-cluttered, it lacks heart, Andrew Garfield is not a good Spider-Man and the film falters as a story. Inexplicably they did the Spider-Man 3 formula all over again and the film has 3 underdeveloped villains. It's still one of the weakest Marvel films.

Only Gwen Stacy, the superhero genre's greatest ever love interest (Aside from Steve Trevor in Wonder Woman), allows the film to work dramatically. Emma Stone's charm, dramatic chops and chemistry with Andrew Garfield are terrific, and thankfully she's much better than Kirsten Dunst's awful Mary Jane Watson in the Sam Raimi trilogy. She is the heart and soul of the film, and the central romance is the one thing everyone loved in the movie.

Whatever your view on the film, one thing that we can all agree is that Gwen Stacy was fantastic and her death at the end was brutally hard-hitting. It's a good job they cancelled the remaining movies, since how could they have carried on without her? Even better, after this we got Spider-Man: Homecoming.