Controversial take: The Amazing Spider-Man 2 is still the best of the Spidey films in tone and spirit. Garfield’s Peter had the humor, heart, and INDEPENDENT street-level energy that felt closest to the comics I grew up with. The relationships with Gwen (Emma Stone), Aunt May (Sally Field) and Harry Osborn (Dane DeHaan) felt lived in and real. Hans Zimmer’s high-energy score actually gives a Spidey film a feeling of heroic and frantic relentlessness, which the character needs. And those maligned Rhino bookends remain the truest, most comic-accurate moments in the entire movie. But the movie is still a failure in studio tampering, screenwriting and editing. Here are 10 fixes: 1) Cut Max Dillon’s lonely birthday-to-himself scene. It gives off tired Batman Forever homoerotic undertones and completely throws one out of the movie. 2 ) Peter SHOULD give Harry the spider blood — I say because Harry checks the Oscorp cameras and sees Peter getting bitten. Raise the stakes, dummies. Harry blackmails Peter, basically. 3) Slow down Harry’s transformation and give the friendship history more weight on screen before the betrayal. 4) Cut Dr. Kafka completely. 5) Give Electro a clear demand: he wants 1 billion dollars for his grid design — either in cash or in blood. 6) Lose the jetliner-without-power subplot entirely. It’s pure time-waster; the third act is already dense enough with Harry and Electro’s alliance (which is actually logical — Osborn ousted, Electro nullified, they genuinely need each other) 7) Give Harry a real costume instead of Spirit Halloween Store Make up. 8) Gwen shouldn't die (yet). She goes to England. Peter is heartbroken, but the Rhino scene pulls him out of it — a perfect high note to end on. No matter what, Spidey is there to save the day. 9) Fix the ending kid scene: the kid is about to get caught in gunfire, Spidey webs him up and sets him safely on a rooftop. The original version is ridiculous — cops would never let a kid walk out to confront Rhino. 10) No Alicia Keys song. Bonus points to the film for making Spidey a NY institution.