There may be spoilers… there will probably be spoilers.

After watching The Amazing Spider-Man 2, I am now fully convinced that this reboot series (which began a mere decade after Sam Raimi’s first Spider-Man was released) does not need to exist. I say that as someone who loved Raimi’s first two Spidey flicks, but also as someone who generally liked the first Amazing Spider-Man, though there were things about Marc Webb’s first entry that didn’t sit well with me.

Whatever changes they made to Peter Parker’s origin were done just for the sake of it — to convince people they weren’t watching the same story over again. In doing so, they managed to muddle up the fundamental reason why Peter becomes Spider-Man in the first place. The adage, “With great power comes great responsibility,” is paraphrased in such a way that it actually becomes less clear, and even though it’s spoken by Uncle Ben, the sentiment is actually attributed to Peter’s father, which is pointless, and makes Ben less of an influence on Peter’s decisions. The filmmakers also introduced Peter’s parents, who abandoned Peter when he was young for reasons that were never explained.

With this new sequel, Webb had a chance to really break away from what came before, and although he doesn’t completely screw it up, he screws up enough of it to the point where we’d simply have been better off if Sony had just given in and handed the rights for the character back over to Marvel. And now with all the talk about the next sequel and a Sinister Six movie and a Venom spin-off, it’s now become impossible to not see the underlying cynicism behind all the decisions being made by whoever’s responsible for the franchise now.

But back to Peter’s parents. The new film opens with the same scene that opened the first one, but now the perspective is from Richard Parker (and Mary, kind of). They had to disappear for reasons that do eventually get explained, though my reaction to that part of the movie was, “So what?” And really, the whole opening sequence doesn’t feel like the beginning of a Spider-Man story at all; showing us how they die ultimately adds nothing to the film.

There’s simply too much going on this movie, and it never manages to balance the straightforward tone of Peter and Gwen’s romance with the bizarre supervillain antics of Electro and Green Goblin. Jamie Foxx is nothing short of a revelation here, in the worst possible way. His Max Dillon would have been right at home in Joel Schumacher’s Batman films, specifically Batman Forever. Watching this movie, all I could think about was how Electro’s story is pretty much the same as The Riddler’s. In Batman Forever, Edward Nygma idolizes Bruce Wayne, feels betrayed by him, gets blasted by electricity, and uses his abilities to exact his revenge. Actually, that’s exactly what happens here. And Foxx plays it the same way Jim Carrey did, but here’s the thing. I still like Batman Forever, because even though it departed completely from the world that Tim Burton established in Batman and Batman Returns, at least it didn’t half-ass it. Schumacher went for bright, colorful and over the top, and it mostly worked because it kept that tone throughout (Schumacher would eventually take it much too far with Batman & Robin, but we don’t need to go there).

Amazing Spider-Man 2 feels like two very different movies that got mashed up in the editing room. In one movie, we have a pretty great story about Peter and Gwen, beautifully realized by Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone. Their scenes are the reason the movie isn’t a total disaster, and they’re charming and funny because the actors are playing it straight.

Foxx and Dane DeHaan (and Paul Giamatti to a lesser extent), on the other hand? They’ve been transported in from the Schumacher version of a Spidey flick, and their characters’ actions in the movie aren’t adequately explained or feel properly motivated, and they ultimately tank the whole thing. The Peter/Gwen scenes just aren’t enough to redeem the messy plotting and one-dimensional villainy.

And what about Spidey himself? Well, all I can say is that visual effects continue to improve, so yes, it’s thrilling to see and it does make you feel like you’re webslinging alongside him, but the set pieces themselves feel perfunctory, and one of them features a ridiculous beat that has Electro tossing Spidey around a bunch of poles to the tune of “Itsy Bitsy Spider.”

But the biggest talking point of the movie is, naturally, the death of Gwen Stacy, which was handled very well, and viewers more invested in the series than I am will no doubt react the way Webb intended. And while I admit to feeling the impact of the scene, the constant foreshadowing (and almost laughable appearances of ghost Denis Leary) dulled the shock of it.

This is all my roundabout way of saying that the best Spider-Man movie is still Raimi’s Spider-Man 2, which is just as well acted, features visual effects that still hold up today, has the cleanest arc for both hero and (singular) villain, and features one of the best action set pieces in a superhero flick ever: