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1) The casting. As you both mentioned, it couldn’t possibly have been better at the top. Moving on.

2) This movie had a heart. From the beautiful, believable Peter/Gwen relationship to the emotional conversation between May and Peter in his room, it had a soul and real values. My favorite little part was when Spider-Man saves the kid being bullied in the alley, fixing his school project and walking him home, “Hey, what’s your name? I’m Spider-Man.” It just made me feel good (as did the kid Tiananmen Squaring the shit out of Rhino and Spidey showing up and thanking him for his bravery… sorry, David. And that theme continued throughout the movie and is a big reason I continue to overlook issues here and there.

3) In keeping with the feel-good vibe, I can’t effectively convey my love for the soundtrack. It was incredible. It was maybe a little much with the dubsteptastic Electro fights but the main score from Hans Zimmer caused me to spend real American money on a soundtrack for the first time since I bought the Halo 2 soundtrack (yeah, I’m THAT guy). It fit perfectly with the characters and the world they were put in. This just felt like a movie that knew it was a comic book movie at heart and that has been missing in recent years.

With all of that said, there were obviously a tremendous amount of holes in this story and I am increasingly nervous about how this series will be executed in the near future. But, as a stand-alone movie, I thoroughly enjoyed The Amazing Spider-Man 2.

To my own surprise, I might be the only person who didn’t dislike the whole Parker parents subplot/conspiracy. I kinda liked that it gave Peter a more personal stake; if we’re going to make Oscorp be behind literally every bad guy, then we might as well go all the way and make him just as entangled with the company and its past. I didn’t even hate the cliched secret base that’s been miraculously perfectly preserved for 15 years; I liked that moment of Peter feeling connected to his father for maybe the first time. They did explain away one logical issue (how do these spiders give such magical powers but no one else has ever harnessed them? Only Peter’s DNA is compatible with them), even though it arguably created an even bigger sin of convenience (sure is lucky that he just so happened to get bitten by one, then). I’m not saying that whole thing was the highlight of the film for me, but I might be the only one who wasn’t off-put by it.

What did get to me: villains. With one exception (to be discussed shortly), the villains were just the worst. Everything with Paul Giamatti in and out of the Rhino suit (which they way overbuilt) made me cringe, and I thought it was a hella weak (and rushed) note to end the movie on. Even worse was Electro. I was excited for the Jamie Foxx casting choice, but he was given utter crap material to build up the “main” villain of the piece. He had a one-note character development (I want to be important!) that hardly worked well for the motivation to help drive the film, and worse, he looked just awful. The Electro CGI screamed of Ryan Reynolds’ Green Lantern outfit.

More positive but still mixed was Dane DeHaan’s Harry Osborne. DeHaan himself literally couldn’t have been better. I was skeptical from the trailers (a main Spidey character sporting douchey hair does not conjure fond memories), but he was easily the pleasant surprise of the movie. He slipped into madness so well that he became the movie’s only good villain. The only thing keeping him from being a great one was the lack of logical consistency in his development. Norman said he developed the symptoms around the same age as Harry is, but Norman lived another 40-50 years after that. Yet for Harry, there’s for some reason an urgency that doesn’t seem necessary. It’s still worth it because of how well DeHaan pulls off deranged, but there seems to be little effort put into making the whole narrative work.

Nor is that an isolated incident. Missing from AMS2 was a Peter Parker who has to juggle things like school and work. We’re thrown some Daily Bugle photos, but nothing is really developed there. And why isn’t he in college? Does this entire movie (up to Gwen’s death) take place during the summer after they graduated high school? THEN WHY THE FUCK ARE THEY WEARING COATS THE WHOLE MOVIE? (Also if so, why is Oxford waiting til then to decide on this scholarship?) It’s a story that desperately wants to focus on its highlight moments and hopes you’ll please ignore the rest.

And that’s why I have little faith in the series to come, now that we’ve lost Gwen. Marc Webb definitely gets relationships, and all the cutesy dialogue and engaging fights that can come with them. Otherwise, though, I’ve seen little evidence that he really gets story structure on a sufficient level to make the series even better (or even just as good) with his best character now dead. Sony is obviously wanting to expand its universe by giving us more villains, and while that’s an exciting prospect in some ways (KRAVEN?!?!), it’s also worrisome if they can’t develop the upcoming Big Bads any better than they did Electro.

The spoiler-heavy ad campaign leading up to the film deprived it of some of its impact; I was well-aware that Norman and Gwen would both die before entering the theater, and I hate that. But thanks to Garfield and Stone’s incredible chemistry, with an assist from the impressive DeHaan, it still worked. The trick will be how to move on from here. The first two films have landed largely by selling us (and executing well) big, emotional deaths. But we’re running out of people to kill — I would be nervous if I were Aunt May right now — and the cracks in the foundation might become gushing leaks without Emma Stone around.