I love the first Amazing Spider-Man and was looking forward to this one but sadly, it was a mixed bag...quite a let down really.
Pros
Fantastic actions and visual effect. The action scenes were awesome, really got my heart pumping, from Spider-Man movement, creative uses of webs, Electro attacking, they were really exciting to watch.
BGM. The BGM fits the movie perfectly, especially that Electro theme.
Gwen's death. The best part of the movie imo. Even though I knew it coming, it hit hard. It was beautifully shot, from the slow motion, subtle BGM and that sound when she hit the ground. Well done.
Cons
Story. What story? From the trailers, I expected Spidey piecing the puzzles of his parents' disappearances, Electro, Harry's return until he can find the truth about the Osborn conspiracy. But what we got were a series of events that happened, just because. No central story arc linking together...and Peter just sat on his ass waiting things to happen.
Gwen Gwen Gwen. Too much Peter and Gwen moment. I love the pairing in the first movie, they were cute and natural. But this? We have Peter and Gwen moment almost every 10 minutes and it's the same old "I love you Peter/Gwen, but I can't do this" dance. The worst part is those moments were in the wrong place and could have been cut to have a more coherent plot flow. I could hear people groan when another Gwen moment showed up. This overwhelming Gwen moment lead to....
Peter Parker the jerk. All he had in his brain was Gwen (and his dad when the plot called for it), he did nothing else beside that. Peter recognized Electro as the loser he met and something happened to him. But no follow up investigation. He knew that Harry was dying, but he did nothing but rejected him twice in both identities. I know Peter's blood might cause trouble (and he was right), but the way the film showed, it's like Peter didn't even bother to try anything at all. All he had in his brain was Gwen.
As a Spider-Fan, I gave this film 7/10, so much potential...wasted. As a casual movie goer, I would give this 5, 6 top....
What a let down. I can only pray the third movie will be much much better