Directed By – Marc Webb

Release Date – April 17th 2014

Oh Dear.

There’s something not quite right about Spider-Man. Let’s be honest, the guy’s a dick.

Wetter than Aquaman, for me he’s in the bottom echelon of the Super Hero Universe.

Making regular appearances in multiple comic book titles since 1962, he is relegated to inhabiting a lonely New York on the big screen due to being Sony Studios’s only main Super Hero property.

Despite his he is much loved and is starring in his fifth Hollywood blockbuster, with a further two scheduled for the coming years.

There are two main reasons he keeps doing the rounds every couple of years, essentially rehashing the same origins story about his abandonment by his parents, and contamination by mutated spiders which have granted him special powers.

Over 3 Billion Dollars in Box Office takings explain why Sony Pictures won’t let go of this franchise. And to keep to their rights agreement with Marvel they need to release a Spider-Man film every couple of years.

What doesn’t work about this guy is that you can’t see his face. So it’s an inherently flawed concept to put someone with a bag on their head in the starring role of a feature film.

And when he does take off the mask, he’s just not that charismatic.

Sure he’s a teenager caught in that awkward space between being a boy and a man, and teenagers can be annoying as hell.

Unlike Christian Bale’s Bruce Wayne who has an air of menace just below his charming projection, the personality of Spider-Man’s Peter Parker is neither here nor there.

He can’t commit to girl friend Gwen Stacy (Emma Stone), nor can he keep his distance from her, admitting to stalking her daily.

Like spiders themselves, he’s creepy, poisonous and difficult to love.

The Sydney Morning Herald’s Paul Byrnes called movies like this “hollow at best, downright offensive at worst“.

This instalment of the now half century old superhero is little more than a contractual obligation for Sony Pictures to keep their stake in the Marvel cash cow, where they are required to pump out a tile every years.

Bizarrely, given the intensely competitive nature of the Marvel Universe’s film rights distribution, the X-Men turn up fleetingly at the end of this Spider-Man sequel. It turns out that Fox had a contractual hold on Marc Webb, the director of the Spider-Man films. In exchange for allowing him to be available, Fox required Sony to promote X-Men: Days of Future Past during The Amazing Spider-Man 2. (SOURCE)

Noisy, pointless and stupid, it’s not a film that carries much merit beyond Jamie Foxx’s kooky bad guy Electro.

I seem to be in the minority disliking this film when compared to reviews on Rotten Tomatoes for this title, but hey, each to their own, right?

Bring on X-Men: Days of Future Past, Guardians of the Galaxy, Avengers: Age of Ultron and Batman vs. Superman.

2 & 1/2 Stars.