With superheroes these days, some of them follow the same criteria. Hero gets his power, hero goes through some sort of conflict, hero ends up saving the day. Seems pretty straight forward right? But sometimes, we get a superhero that throws so many twists and turns at you that it becomes harder to follow the original story. Sadly, this is the case of “The Amazing Spider Man 2.”

First, lets run through the positives. There are some really good performances in this movie. Andrew Garfield does the role of Peter Parker justice, no matter how his hair seemed to stay completely still even in the face of grave danger.

I was initially skeptical of Garfield being selected to play such an iconic role in the comic book world, but after his two performances so far, my skepticism is slowly fading away. Emma Stone also turns in a good performance as Gwen Stacy, the girlfriend of Peter Parker. But the one performance that steals the show goes to Jamie Foxx as the villain, Electro.

Foxx’s character, Max Dillon, represents every individual that goes unnoticed, unappreciated, and constantly disrespected. After a freak accident at his job including electric eels and large plugs, he becomes Electro. While he is under utilized in the film, Foxx owns the every scene that he his in. Considering Foxx has never been truly known for playing the villain, it was refreshing to see such a legendary actor dive into the crazy world of superhero movies and hold his own.

Visually, “The Amazing Spider Man 2” takes the proper steps forward with certain effects and 3D. Scenes where Spider Man is webbing his way through New York City take full advantage of 3D and are thoroughly entertaining. The fight scenes and the “Matrix” style shots make the movie much more interesting and grab your attention.

Even with these performances, “The Amazing Spider Man 2” is its own worst enemy. With all these characters and all these story lines, there is too much going on to fully enjoy the movie.

While you see Peter try to figure out what happened to his parents, you see Electro destroying Time Square. Then you get these little scenes with Gwen and Peter showing their love for each other and then you see Harry Osborn fall out of the clear blue sky. Having this many story lines in one movie makes it seem overcrowded and unfocused. It’s sad to see because there were such high expectations for not only this movie, but this revamped franchise as a whole.

Another downside to this film is the performance of Dane DeHaan as Peter Parker’s childhood friend Harry Osborn. While DeHaan is a very talented actor who performed well in the 2012 film “Chronicle,” his character feels so rushed and forced into this movie.

Osborn just seems to appear with no real explanation of why he wasn’t there in the beginning and where he has been. Nor do they explain how him and Peter Parker became friends in the first place.

“The Amazing Spider Man 2” is a pretty good movie, and that’s putting it lightly. It is a very visually entertaining movie with certain moments that will have you saying “wow.” The acting of Jamie Foxx and Andrew Garfield highlight what makes this a good superhero movie. Plus there are various mentions about future movies in this franchise which comic book fans will love.

But the various story lines going on at once causes the film to jump around too much to make it great. It will be interesting to see where this franchise will go considering all the news that’s been released about sequels and potential spin-offs. But for now, we”ll have to settle for this web of a mess.