I think I was angling on how not to give this a five, but I don't think there's anything wrong with it or that isn't an improvement on the first. It's even more like a Raimi movie this time around, leaning hard into his horror side, shockingly so for a superhero blockbuster. His quirky side is also out in full force this time, so much fantastic cheesiness.

Fleshing Peter out and portraying the self doubt is done really strongly, you get a lot more time with just him. Even though Willem was amazing, I think Octavius is an even more compelling villain woven with more tragedy, plus the straight up body horror of it all. The surgery scene and the train setpiece are both incredible, and just as a whole it's directed even more impressively.

I don't know why I don't want to rate this so highly, because I can't look to any superhero movie and say it's better than this