Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Entertainment
  3. Guides

Digital Trends may earn a commission when you buy through links on our site. Why trust us?

Why you should watch The Amazing Spider-Man 2 on Netflix

Blair Marnell
By

This month, Netflix has welcomed The Amazing Spider-Man 2 back to its lineup, and it has quickly become one of the most popular movies on Netflix. That makes this the perfect opportunity to tell you why you should watch The Amazing Spider-Man 2 on Netflix.

Now, we would never argue that The Amazing Spider-Man 2 is the best Spider-Man film or even a great one. It’s got a lot of problems, including a truly grotesque Green Goblin design, a very unconvincing performance by Dane DeHaan as Harry Osborn, and a take on Electro (Jamie Foxx) that feels like it was lifted directly from Batman Forever. This film also tries so hard to set up an MCU-style Spider-Man universe that it wildly underperformed at the box office and led Sony Pictures to partner directly with Marvel Studios for the Tom Holland-led Spider-Man flicks.

Recommended Videos

Having said all of that, there are at least three things that The Amazing Spider-Man 2 got right, which go a long way toward making this film rewatchable. And we’re going to be sharing those reasons with you right now.

Related

Comic book-style Spider-Man

Andrew Garfield in The Amazing Spider-Man 2.
Sony Pictures / Sony Pictures

None of the three live-action Spider-Men on the big screen have been a perfect representation of Peter Parker. But Garfield’s take on the character is a lot closer to Peter’s comic book roots than either Tom Holland’s or Tobey Maguire’s Spider-Man incarnations. Garfield’s Spidey is a lot faster to make a joke, even if not all of the jokes manage to land. But even comic-book Spidey has bad material at times.

The most important aspect of Garfield’s performance is that he feels like Peter Parker. That means more than just a quip and a flip. When Peter has reasons to grieve, Garfield throws himself into that aspect of his character as well. And Garfield also more than holds his own with his screen partner, Emma Stone, who plays Gwen Stacy.

Peter and Gwen’s romance is off the charts

Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone in The Amazing Spider-Man 2.
Sony Pictures

Non-comic book readers may not know this, but Gwen Stacy’s comic book counterpart was a boring character with only superficial attributes. Women weren’t exactly well-written or even understood by the early Marvel creators. They only existed to pine over their absent boyfriends or get kidnapped by the supervillains. Infamously in Gwen’s case, she was also the first romantic love interest at Marvel to get killed off. Gwen was ultimately a throw-away character until her alternate-world counterpart, Spider-Gwen, was introduced.

The Amazing Spider-Man 2, and its predecessor, deepened Gwen’s character in part by making her a scientific genius who could match Peter’s passion for the subject, and by letting her in on Peter’s double life as Spider-Man rather than keeping her in the dark. That’s why Stone’s Gwen Stacy plays more like a partner to Peter, rather than a mere love interest. It also helps that Stone and Garfield have great chemistry on screen. The Amazing Spider-Man 2 does have a subplot about Peter potentially losing Gwen to outside forces including college in the United Kingdom. But even that conflict can’t keep these two lovebirds apart.

Emotional closure

Emma Stone as Gwen Stacy in The Amazing Spider-Man 2.
Sony Pictures

The weirdest thing happened in December 2021. Spider-Man: No Way Home retroactively made The Amazing Spider-Man 2 a better movie. As it stands, The Amazing Spider-Man 2 ends with Gwen’s tragic death before giving Peter some time to grieve and get on with his life as Spider-Man. By itself, that’s a little superficial and not very convincing. Garfield’s return in No Way Home revealed just how deeply Peter was affected by Gwen’s death, and he finally had a real moment of redemption and catharsis.

Now that the emotional arc of Garfield’s Peter ends in No Way Home, it makes The Amazing Spider-Man 2 a lot more engaging because we can see where he went wrong and how he failed the first time, while also secure in the knowledge that Peter does eventually overcome his trauma. Spider-Man wins in the end, and that’s what we always want to see.

Watch The Amazing Spider-Man 2 on Netflix.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics
Blair Marnell
Blair Marnell
Blair Marnell has been an entertainment journalist for over 15 years. His bylines have appeared in Wizard Magazine, Geek…
Warrior is now on Netflix. Here are 3 similar shows you should watch right now
Andrew Koji prepares to fight in Warrior.

The Max original action series Warrior, is now on Netflix, and it took an interesting path to get there. The series, based on a concept by martial arts legend Bruce Lee, takes place in San Francisco during the 19th-century Tong Wars. Andrew Koji stars as Ah Sahm, a Chinese martial arts expert who travels to America in the hope of finding his sister. What he actually finds is a world of trouble and conflicting alliances that will put his fighting skills to the ultimate test.

Warrior premiered as a Cinemax original series and avoided cancellation when it was moved to Max for its third season. Right now, the show's only hope for a fourth season is if Netflix picks it up and orders more. But if you're loving the martial arts action of Warrior, then you don't have to wait long for more of the same. Here are three similar shows you should watch if you enjoyed Warrior.
Wu Assassins (2019)

Read more
All of Sony’s Marvel movies, ranked from worst to best
Miles Morales falls through a multiverse portal in "Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse."

Sony-produced Marvel movies have historically been a mixed bag. At times, the company has delivered superhero masterpieces like the Spider-Verse films. Other times, they have given viewers half-baked cash grabs like Morbius and Madame Web. Whether or not audiences think the company is fit to handle beloved properties like Spider-Man and Venom, they can't deny that Sony played a significant role in making Marvel movies the pop culture phenomenon they are today.
Now that Madame Web has premiered in theaters, here'sour list of Sony's Marvel movies, rankedfrom worst to best. Please note that this list won't include the Men in Black films, as Marvel didn't create the original comic books they were based on.

16. Madame Web (2024)

Read more
Madame Web: how many post-credits scenes does it have?
Dakota Johnson looks at someone in Madame Web.

If you're coming into the weekend without any idea about who the title character of Madame Web is, then you're not alone. For all of the barbs that The Marvels got – and we've fired a few ourselves – the three characters at the center of that movie at least had the benefit of having two headliners between them. Not one of the main characters in Madame Web has ever held down an ongoing comic book series, least of all Dakota Johnson's Cassandra Web.

But for any comic book movie fans who just have to know about the future of Sony's Spider-Man Universe – aka the movies that don't actually feature Spider-Man – then we can tell you right now how many post-credits scenes that Madame Web has.
How many post-credits scenes does Madame Web have?
None. There's nothing at the mid-credits or the post-credits, so you can run for the exit as soon as the credits roll. Although you may want to leave sooner than that. But consider this post as your clairvoyant vision of the future, which will allow you to stop yourself from losing 116 minutes of your life that you'll never get back. Why should you pay money to see a film that will probably be on Netflix by this summer?

Read more