The Amazing Spider-Man 2 was simultaneously somewhat filled with potential and felt like an obvious place setter for sequels to come. The potential: coupled with Captain America: The Winter Soldier, The Amazing Spider-Man 2 provides an interesting film essay on power-those who really have it and those who don’t, especially in terms of race. Are visual and explicit script allusions to Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man intentional? The idea of intellectual and physical exploitation of a black man reducing him to madness is an intriguing one, especially considering his reaction to the well-meaning progressive Spider-Man, the NYPD’s reaction and continued exploitation. There is a sense of a tragic cycle that can’t be destroyed as embodied by the destinies created by the forefathers of the protagonist and antagonist and how it intersects with the thoroughly exploited. Of course, I am reading a lot into a movie that felt rushed in places and too long by twenty minutes or so. The Amazing Spider-Man 2 always hits the emotional/patriotic cues right with Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone, but needs to work on its villains that you can see coming a mile away and can’t compete with Raimi’s complex villains such as Thomas Haden Church’s Sandman, Alfred Molina’s Doc Ock or Willem Dafoe’s Green Goblin. A good summer movie, but with a bit more writing and editing, could have truly been great. And Auntie May-you just went to school. Stop telling people what to do at the hospital.