Not that this really matters, but this was one of the highest rated films on rottentomatoes.com.  I believe it was 98% positive or something.  With many, including Roger Ebert, saying it was the best superhero movie ever made.

I've enjoyed movies occasionally with a 25% rating, so you never know.

*Just checked. Although a few weeks after the movie came out it was at 98%, it is now at 93%-perhaps more saw it when it came on dvd.

When I read a complete dismissal like this, I feel the need to ask what movies you really, really, really liked. Your attitude is so far from the general consensus of mass audiences and critics that I wonder what your barometer might be.

But he shouldn't have lost his webbing! His web glands inside his arms are the result of a physical change in his anatomy. He has additional organs now. It'd be like his stomach not working too.

Same thing with his wall-crawling. In the comics there's some kind of adhesion force working. But in the first movie, they specifically showed he's got all these barbed micro-hairs growing out of his hands. Again, physical changes. Did they just disappear in an instant? And then reappear again?

*bah*

My biggest problem with the movie was the "kind, gentle, Otto" that we get to see with his wife.  Granted, we had a downright nasty Norman Osborn in the first one.  But that doesn't mean they needed to show a "softer side" of Doctor Octopus for contrast.  They are villains.  Let them be villainous.  And pure damn evil right to the core. 

Octavius was not really developed as good or bad before the "accident".  In his first appearance he was just a seemingly typical, somewhat arrogant scientist.  Quote from ASM #3: 

"Though others fear radiation, I alone am able to make it my servant!" 

Then while recovering in the hospital we get the narrator telling us that his brain has been damaged by the radiation, making him bitter.  I was just bugged by the fact that the screenwriter and director of the movie wasted so much time showing us his warm fuzzy side.  I guess I just don't like tragic villains any more than tragic heroes.  The older I get, the more I like things black and white.  No gray area.  Maybe it's just my reaction to this increasingly PC world we live in.  I find it a bit ironic how the black/white, good/evil thing is a sort of trademark of Ditko's and this is one of his co-creations we are talking about. 

I wish I could remember where I read a text piece/letter by Ditko detailing his beliefs on the subject.  His interviews and commentaries have always been rare, but powerful, nonetheless.  Anybody remember the piece I'm talking about? 

Stephen Robinson wrote: The Final Chapter is considered to have one of the best Spider-Man scenes of all time and we don't see Parker's face. In fact, most of the best Spider-Man scenes show us only Spider-Man's face. I'm not convinced you couldn't make that work on screen.

Which scene is this?

Most people -- especially critics -- thought "Superman II" was better than the first, too. I have long thought -- and this would apply to "Spider-Man" and "Spider-Man 2" -- that this was because the first one did something unconscionable in what was "just a comicbook movie" -- it asked that we take it seriously. Civilians have a tough time with that.

The Mask Thing should have been dealt with early - as in pre-production.  You either take your chances with a costume change (and the ire you get from people like me) or you accept it as part of the idiom.  How many times can you get the mask off?  How many clever contortions of plot are you willing to go through? (Pumpkin bomb, close range.  It's on fire!  Hmm, maybe Peter Parker can succeed where Spider-Man has failed?)

Why not have your actor learn mime, or dance?  Seriously, you can say a lot with body language - turn off the sound and watch the excrable scene where the Green Goblin lectures a paralyzed Spider-Man in the first movie for a BAD example.

And where's the patter?  My heart soared like a hawk (sorry, I just watched Little Big Man) when Spider-Man said "Here's your change!" in 2.  That's one way to make up for The Mask Thing.  Spider-Man should be slinging jokes faster than Groucho Marx sparring with Bugs Bunny.  We got precious little of that.

I loved the Spider-Man movies, but they did not come close to exceeding my expectations.  I knew there would be things I would just have to ignore in order to enjoy them.

I much angrier about Sin City joining the Strippers Who Don't Strip phenomenon.  If Meryl Streep wants to play Nancy Callahan, THEN you can keep her clothed.  I'd be hard pressed to find a stripper who couldn't have done as well as Alba did in that movie.