My Spidey Sense Is Tingling. The Amazing Spider-Man 2

Remember 'Spider-Man 3' from way back in 2007? A film that was such a muddled anticlimax that it forced Sony to reboot the whole franchise. Remember the problems with that movie: it was too long, too convoluted, it had too many villains, too many sub-plots, too much soap opera, too much "me time" for the big name stars, too much stupid dancing. Well, guess what folks, here we are in 2014 with the first reboot sequel and all of those factors still apply - except for the dancing. They've at least ditched the dancing.

First the good stuff. As I've said before, Andrew Garfield made a wonderful Peter Parker in the first film. Here, he makes a really good Spider-Man. This film really nails the character. He's as quick with his wits as he is with his wisecracks and reflexes. He's heroic and inspirational. We see him endeavour to put people out of harm's way, we see him sweat the small stuff, he stands up for the little guy. He's the friendly neighbourhood Spider-Man we know and love out of the comic book. He's fast, funny and acrobatic and the early sequences where he swings through the city are the most exhilarating we've yet had in any of the films. The action scenes are average but there's good use of "bullet time" and a really strong sense of what our hero's strengths and weaknesses are, what his powers are and how he uses them.  He's super strong and cockily confident but you still get the feeling that he's out of his depth as he squares up to Electro. You worry for him, but that's a good thing. Emma Stone is spot on as the gorgeous but normal Gwen Stacy and she has good on-screen chemistry with Andrew Garfield. They make a believable, watchable couple.

So we have a great Spider-Man, a good Gwen .... but also Jamie "overrated A-list star" Foxx as Electro. He plays it pantomime. He's Dwayne Dibley via Mr Freeze. He looks like Luke Goss in 'Blade 2'. It's a disappointment. Electro should be manic; fizzing with energy and lunacy. Instead we get a moody, intimidating thug in a hoody. I can see one of those at any bus stop in town.

This film has Spidey encountering three of his greatest villains: Electro, The Green Goblin and Rhino (I think Rhino was meant to be a surprise but he's been in all the trailers so...there was no surprise). Electro didn't scare me (although he will probably frighten little kids) and I was never sure or convinced of his motivation. The Green Goblin (again!) is stale (Dane DeHaan is much scarier as Harry Osborn than as The Goblin) and as for the Rhino (!)... well...they've tried hard to realise Rhino for a movie audience and done it as well as it could be done but at the end of the day it's just another baddy in an exoskeleton suit and a laughable one at that. The villains talk the talk but don't walk the walk.

As before, one film is too much to contain three villains, even a film with a two and a half hour running-time. We have to get all of their back stories and their character arcs. They just chew up too much screen time and the cumulative effect is wearisome. On top of this there is all the main character baggage we have to carry. We get Peter and Gwen's relationship woes, we get the tedious absent fathers trope again for Peter, Gwen and Harry Osborn. There's some "uncovering a big secret from the past stuff" that bored me. We also get the obligatory "me now!" show off scene where Sally Fields has to sit at a kitchen table and cry in order to show that she's still, you know, a really good award winning actress and is taking her character on "a journey" and not just slumming it for a box office paycheck. There's a lot to cram in; lots of villains, lots of talking, lots of big character moments. It's a real chore at times I can tell you. It's never bad exactly, but it's not a whole lot of fun either and the action is only adequate where you want something really special.

The really big emtional scene in the film (that any fan of the comic knows is coming) happens but it sort of just gets lost due to the awful way the film is structured. It exists to pack a real punch and should have been the natural (albeit downbeat) ending for this narrative. Instead the film shoehorns in another villain for no other reason than setting up the scenario for the next film. We have to dust off and move on really quickly; much too quickly. The tone jumps straight from pathos to a really goofy, Saturday morning cartoon ending.

Women are clearly a problem for this franchise. Much time is spent on Parker brooding on his missing father but we don't see him pining for his mother much because she isn't involved in the "big mysterious conspiracy thing that is actually really boring" and therefore she is not very important. We don't see Harry's mother at all. Gwen gets to talk science and push buttons but she still gets webbed to a car to keep her out of the way and then frees herself only to end up little more than a damsel in distress. She makes choices but those choices lead to her doom. Aunt May gets to argue about laundry with Peter and make him sandwiches...and has to go out and get a job as a nurse.

Speaking of sandwiches...it's hard to know what this movie is about other than being an overstuffed middle bit. You'll munch your way through it but you won't find it particularly filling. You do walk  away thinking that you've wasted two and a half hours even though it's not that bad. There's just something missing, like there's not much point to it all, even though the film goes out it's way to make sure you know everything that's happening is actually a really big deal. I won't be giving this one any repeat viewings. It's a shame because I'll sit down and watch the first two Sam Raimi Spider-Man films any time.

It's not hard to see where Sony is going with this; presumably the next film will incorporate The Sinister Six. That's going to mean introducing at least another three villains into the fold.  I don't know which foes they will pick but I guess Dr Octopus, The Vulture and Mysterio are the likely suspects. If it's big name stars playing them then it will be a fight for equal and lengthy screen-time. That's going to be some marathon endurance test to sit through. I'm up for it, but they've really got to step up the action scenes to make it work. Personally, I'd like to see them include Kraven the Hunter,  just for the high camp factor involved and the surrealism of wild beasts running around the city. It's not going to happen but that's where we are with this franchise. It's more exciting to think about what the villains might be, how they might look, who will play them than it is to actually see it all play out. Very strange.

Maybe it suffers from coming out just after 'The Winter Soldier'. Maybe I'm just too familiar with the material and superhero cliches. Maybe it's just disheartening to see the mistakes of the past repeated so soon. Maybe it's just that I have zero interest in the Richard Parker thread and all that Oscorp intrigue. Maybe I miss the Daily Bugle and J. Jonah Jameson. Maybe I'm just a grumpy old man but I can't hand on heart say I enjoyed this. I didn't hate it by any means but because it is so obviously just a part of a greater whole it never satisfies in it's own right. In this era of trilogies that shouldn't be as big a problem, but it is. It's on target,like Spider-Man's shooting web, but it's all slow motion, reaching out like a grasping hand, almost closing, almost there, but ultimately failing to connect.