If you want to get an instant case of bipolar disorder, go watch the opening sequence of The Amazing Spider-Man 2. This latest web-crawler adventure starts out with a flashback sequence depicting Peter Parker’s parents fleeing the country via airplane so that they can take down the nefarious folks at Oscorp. Their efforts are thwarted though by a villainous airplane pilot, which results in all three of them dying in a plane crash (I’d put a spoiler alert here, but the first film not only talked openly about Peter’s parents demise, but even blatantly placed their deaths at the hands of a plane crash).

The sequence could be harrowing, but alas, shaky-cam strikes again and makes the entire confrontation incomprehensible. After watching Peter’s parents plane precariously perish, a triumphant score plays and we slowly fade in on the iconic Spider-Man logo. In the span of mere seconds, we’ve gone from tragedy to inspiring heroics. The Amazing Spider-Man 2 is less storytelling and more an ADD experience that tries to do everything and winds up doing nothing thematically.

But at least that opening sequence with Spider-Man (still played by Andrew Garfield) is fun. As he chases Paul Giamatti’s Russian mobster character, it feels like some vintage thrills that only this spectacular hero could deliver. Along with a scene where Peter gets cheered at during his graduation (do these guys even know who Peter Parker is?!?). Things take a nosedive once Peter’s guilt over Gwen Stacy’s safety enters the picture (in the last movie, he promised her dad he’d leave Gwen out of his life. Guess how long that lasts!). For comic book fans, it’s obvious bad things are in the future for the couple, while casual audiences are treated to the same-old-same-old conflicted superhero romance. Poor Emma Stone deserves better than having to handle some of these pedestrian sequences, even if some of the dialogue is admittedly cute, especially a conversation about her and Peter’s “ground rules”.

But at least the villains fare better right? Actually, no, and that’s where things truly get disappointing. For the first act or so of the movie, a bunch of time is spent on Max Dillon (Jamie Foxx), an Oscorp employee who’s obsessed with Spider-Man, is socially awkward and has more personality than Peter Parker in this adventure. Prepare for Green Lantern flashbacks as you begin to sympathize more for this bad guy out of his league than the titular superhero. Once he undergoes his idiotic transformation into the supervillain Electro, he has a single confrontation with Spider-Man before he’s hidden away for most of the rest of the movie.

And then there’s Harry Osborn (Dane Dehaan), Peter’s childhood friend who at first seems like a nice addition to the cast, as he reveals a more casual side of Peter. Normally, I’d keep his arc a secret, but to be blunt, every commercial for this movie spoils the entire movie anyway, so I’ll be frank here; Harry becomes the Green Goblin by the film’s end. He and Electro team up and is it disappointing. Whenever both Dillon and Osborn undergo their transformations into villains, they also lose their personality, simply becoming two more super-beings who blow stuff up. The real shame of this is that whenever we’re given a reminder of what these characters used to be, it makes the ineffectiveness of these transformations much more obvious. A spot when Osborn recruits Electro is the sole moment where Dillon shows some vulnerability and it’s really effective at reminding us all why Dillon could have truly been a tragic character for the ages. Alas, both characters just descend into humdrum antagonists that are neither memorable nor awesome in the execution of their evil plans.

The Amazing Spider-Man 2 isn’t bad, but it’s flaws significantly outweigh it’s moderate (at best) successes. As you can tell from this massive review, a lot of stuff happens in here, and there’s not even any payoff for it all (the finale includes a blatant tease for the upcoming Sinister Six movie that had me rolling my eyes more than nerding out). Before this movie came out, many people (myself included), complained about how many characters were in the movie, but that’s really not the problem here. Plenty of fantastic movies have lots and lots of characters and use them all effectively. No, the problem is that director Marc Webb and his cast and crew have no idea what exactly to do with all the story at their disposal, settling for just throwing everything together and praying it comes out halfway decent at the end of the day. What a shame; Spider-Man is an amazing character and he deserves a more cohesive movie than this.