Each one is approached with clarity, but it doesn’t take long for them to clash with one another, or for the film to buckle under its own weight. The opening scenes establish a handful of narrative ideas. In our continuing look back at Peter Parker on film, we examine where it all went wrong for the reboot’s second (and final) chapter, as well as the few things it got right.

At its center is a version of Peter Parker (Andrew Garfield) who, like Sony at this stage of the franchise, doesn’t learn from past mistakes, and feels destined to repeat them until someone else takes the reins. The film is so weighed down by both past and would-be future entries that it exists in temporal limbo - an ironic result, given its musings on time - and it inadvertently repeats and magnifies the major problems of not only Webb’s noncommittal The Amazing Spider-Man, but of Raimi’s overstuffed Spider-Man 3. At the same time, it’s saddled with the responsibility of setting up numerous sequels and spin-offs, none of which would ever come to be. Like its predecessor, which hovered in the orbit of Sam Raimi’s trilogy (not so close that it felt like a remake, but not far enough to be truly novel), the Marc Webb-directed sequel tries to depart from the first film’s dour tone by employing goofy comedy, but it has no choice but to carry forward some of its darker story elements, resulting in frequent disconnect. History repeats itself in Sony’s The Amazing Spider-Man 2, both as tragedy and as farce.

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