I watched this movie tonight since it was the only thing on TV besides the awful NBA Finals matchup and I've been popping in to read this thread from time to time so I figure I might as well comment.
I definitely think people exaggerate how bad this movie is. I agree it has some pretty major flaws but I think people get alittle carried away with the hate. I think it's an average comic book movie overall. That said, this movie was a pretty big disappointment because ASM1 is by far my favorite Spider-Man movie and coming off of that I had really high hopes that this franchise would be great. I'll try to stay away from bashing the Raimi movies as much as possible but I thought ASM1 was a massive improvement in every way. Andrew Garfield was basically perfect as both Peter Parker and Spider-Man to me, I'll never understand some of the negative comments about him being rude, aloof, *****ey etc. It really feels like I was watching different movies than the people who make these claims. Garfield and Emma Stone were both really great in these two movies. I'll always be disappointed that the sequel didn't reach the potential it had so that this series could have continued with Garfield as Spider-Man.
Alot of people say this movie suffered because of the change in tone and I definitely agree with that. Most say it was because they were trying to copy the success of the Marvel movies but I think it was also the studio reacting to Raimi fans complaints about the movie and that they tried to add elements to mimic the Raimi series and the MCU. Whatever it was they definitely failed because the change in tone really ruined what I felt like was a great table setting from the first movie.
The biggest flaw in this movie was the villains. Jamie Foxx was absolutely terrible in this movie as both Max Dillon and Electro in my opinion. Admittedly, maybe I am biased, because I've never thought he was a very good actor. He's OK in comedies and he does a great Ray Charles impression but overall I think he's a very mediocre actor. I'll never understand what people see in him. That said, I won't put all the blame on Foxx, the dialogue and motivations for his character were awful. Personally, I think alot of it had to do with the Studio and/or Marc Webb trying to make Electro into a blend of a Raimi/MCU villain. On top of the bad dialogue for Electro, I thought that his line delivery was simply awful. His character "turn" from completely docile invisible loser to over the top, super confident but incredibly cheesy villain felt very illogical to me. None of Max's original character traits carried over except for his desperate need for attention, which is basically his entire motivation for his actions once he turns into Electro, which I think is probably the weakest villain motivation I've ever seen. He hates Spider-Man based on one scene where he delusionally feels Spider-Man is trying to steal his spotlight in the Times Square fight. I understand the helpless loser becoming drunk on having power over his life for the first time but instead of developing that they just completely changed the person he was in an instant. It was incredibly poor writing.
As for Harry Osborn/Green Goblin, I thought that Dane DeHaan was great during his two "sane Harry" scenes, where he reunites with Peter and they talk on the beach and his death bed talk with Norman. But from that moment on, he becomes an irrational petulant child with yet another set of poor motivations and storyline. His "turn" was rushed and his dialogue/line delivery as "Green Goblin" was every bit as awful as Foxx's Electro. This movie would have been infinitely better had they simply removed Dillon/Electro from the movie entirely and focused on Chris Cooper's Norman Osborn. Talk about wasted potential. Cooper could have been a very impressive Norman had he been given the chance and written within the same tone as the first movie. Not a sympathetic villain like the Lizard was, but more serious, dastardly, less over the top villain. They had already set up Norman's character as a heartless bastard willing to do anything to survive, so his turn would have been more logical. DeHaan would have made a great non-villain Harry Osborn and they could have really developed both of those characters into a good storyline. If they had spent the whole movie setting up Cooper to become Green Goblin as an attempt to cure his disease and simply have Harry be the unwanted Son back from boarding school/childhood friend of Peter's the movie would have been more streamlined and the villain would have had much better development.
I didn't have a big problem with the Parents storyline as most people have. Personally I think it's natural given how they wrote the story that Peter would have alot of questions about his Parents. To me that's basic human nature and it made sense, who wouldn't want to know more about their parents in that same situation? The storyline wasn't great by any means but I like the idea behind it. I think it would have tied in better to the story had Norman been the one to use the serum, given that it was him who turned on Richard Parker and it would have been far more ironic if he was the one to be mutated into the Goblin because he didn't know that Richard had used his own DNA to create the serum so that Norman couldn't use it for dangerous purposes. It definitely could have been executed better but the idea had potential. I do understand the complaints about Uncle Ben being glossed over alittle but I don't think it was a glaring weakness. A couple more lines and replacing two of the four Captain Stacy visions (I think it was 4, IIRC?) with visions of Ben would have fixed that.
I thought Peter and Gwen's storyline was mostly well done and as usual both gave very good performances. Gwen's character was basically the opposite of Mary Jane in the previous movies, where she was anything but the damsel in distress, constantly trying to throw herself into the action. I thought that was a good dynamic to add to the Peter/Gwen relationship, all though that, combined with the Captain Stacy visions did foreshadow the ending alittle too much. But it was hard to run away from that anyway given Gwen's fate was always inevitable.
Overall I think the movie had some good moments, Peter/Gwen, Peter/Aunt May, Peter/sane Harry, Harry/Norman, Spider-Man and the turbine kid, Spider-Man and the mini-me Spider-Man at the end, some of the action scenes were good. But overall the villains were just terrible and the CGI did get very video game like to the point where it just didn't look good or real. The story just had one to many sub-plots and focused on the wrong villain characters. The villains were way over the top and their dialogue was incredibly bad. Which again I think stems from them trying to copy the MCU/Raimi villains. The movie's story just wasn't cohesive enough. I don't think it's as bad as alot of people claim but the villains really drag this movie into a hole that the rest of the movie just doesn't make up for.
With SM3 I wasn't happy either, but that reboot was a lot easier to accept. It felt like we got a full story to me. But with TASM3 not happening, there are just soooooo many plot threads still dangling that will now never be resolved. Every piece of news that comes out about the new movie gets me even less interested in it and as of now, it will most likely be the first Spidey movie I don't see in theaters.
