I look at this question in two categories:
One, will ASM2 beat SM2 quality wise as a film.
Two, will ASM2 beat SM2 quality wise as a Spider-man film.
I've never been a huge fan of SM2. When I first saw the film I wasn't all that keen on it, and I used to voice my issues with it when I first joined...though it was a lot harder then to criticize anything Spider-man related (until SM3 came out). However, I always try to stay objective while watching films, and, when viewed purely as a film, SM2 is a very good movie. It sets up a nice theme, the story reinforces it, it has good action, and (for the most part) solid acting.
But I've been a Spider-man fan since I was 3, and the movie made some cardinal sins that I have an extremely hard time forgiving. Spider-man wasn't Spider-man in that movie. Spider-man was voiceless and utterly lacking in personality...which isn't Spider-man at all. The Raimi films almost completely missed the relationship between Spider-man and Peter Parker that should be displayed. In Peter's early days as Spidey, Spider-man should be a completely different persona, in the same way Batman is a very different persona from Bruce Wayne. Spider-man is an outlet for Peter to act in all the ways he wanted to but never could: Cocky, confident, witty and funny. He's a hero who models himself after the quick witted swashbuckling heroes of classic cinema. That's who Spider-man is, and the Raimi films never got that.
Now, the Raimi films did a passable job with Peter Parker, but even then I wasn't a huge fan. They went overboard on the "LOOK AT HOW NERDY PETER IS!" moments, to the point where they still had people throwing paper balls at him in college. I mean, seriously, that's just ridiculous. I never viewed Pete as being a giant nerd, yeah, he's nerdy, but a lot of his social issues came from the fact that he was more of a loner, and by the time he went to college he had opened up a lot.
The next giant sin: Mary Jane. I don't think I need to say much. The SM2 and the Raimi films in general butchered her character horribly. She didn't resemble her comic counterpart at all, and I have a hard time imagining why they would make a wonderful character so incredibly dull and mostly unlikeable. And it's hard for me to get behind a film where the main love interest is completely dull.
Those are the main issues I had with SM2, though there are quite a few others, but mishandling of the main characters is a BIG deal to me. I also think I came down hard on SM2 because I expected it to fix the issues I had with SM1, but it actually made almost everything I had an issue with worse.
Now, I know ASM wasn't as good as a film as SM2, but as a Spider-man film I preferred ASM greatly. Yes, the story had issues, but it got the main characters right, and that to me is a HUGE step. Raimi could have made a SM4 that was oscar winning, but I wouldn't have been happy because his interpretation of the main Spider-man characters was one I wasn't interested in. Now, the ASM films aren't perfect either, I still want them to go farther in developing the Spider-man personality too, but they're much farther ahead on the right track.
Which is why, for me, it wouldn't be all that hard for ASM2 to beat SM2 quality wise in terms of being a Spider-man movie. As a movie however...that could be tough.
Lily Adler🎃 Pumpkin Spice ☕
OnTheAirWakandan Ambassador
