Tear Jerker / The Amazing Spider-Man 2

"Stay with me! Stay with me! I can't do this without you..."

But tonight, I need you to save me
I'm too close to breaking
I see the light
I am standing on the edge of my life

— Tonight Alive, "The Edge"

The Amazing Spider-Man 2 may have more quips and action, but it didn't forget the emotional moments that came from the bigger story.

All spoilers on this page are left unmarked. You Have Been Warned!

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• From the get-go, the movie finally reveals the fates of Peter's parents. An OSCORP assassin tried to kill the both of them on a plane, and their ensuing fight caused the plane to crash.
  • It's strongly implied that Richard could have used the parachute to get out of the falling plane, but decided not to after realizing that his wife was already dead.
  • There's also the recorded video log from Peter's father Richard explaining why he has to leave and that, as much as he loves his son, he must leave him behind for his own good. It's also quite sad that Aunt May and, for a time, Peter, didn't know what he was trying to do. When Peter watches this video, he has tears in his eyes.
    "So as a scientist, my choice is very clear now. l have to disappear. l have to get as far away from here as l can. But as a father... it means l may not see my boy again. And nothing is as important to me... as my son, Peter. Nothing in this world. But I have a responsibility... to protect the world from what l've created... and to protect him from what l know Osborn is capable of. People will say l am a monster... for what l've done. And maybe they're right. l always thought that l'd have more... time."
• Gwen's valedictorian speech, my goodness. For anyone who didn't know Gwen's fate, it'll become Harsher in Hindsight. But for everyone who knew or suspected that her arc would end as it initially does in the comics, it's very much a Foreshadowing tearjerker. She mentions graduates thinking they're immortal, then says that "what makes life valuable is that it doesn't last forever. What makes it precious is that it ends." She also says that "time is luck", which becomes harder to hear when her final scene takes place in an old clock tower.
• Pretty much everything to do with Max Dillon prior to, and for a while after, his transformation. Here's a man who's either ignored or bullied by almost everyone he meets, has his birthday forgotten by everyone, and is pretty clearly pining for any kind of genuine human contact from anyone. Not to mention having all his work on the new electrical grid stolen and used by Smythe. It's not hard to imagine that the kind words and actions of Spider-Man are the first he's had in years and to see him place so much importance on them is heartbreaking.
  • When he sings "Happy Birthday" to himself. It's a reminder that there is no one there for him. Not even on his birthday.
  • Someone has a video camera in Times Square and puts Max on the big screens. It doesn't even matter to him that he's transformed and people are terrified, he's just amazed that they're noticing him at all, as a person rather than a bump on the street.
    Max: [awestruck] You see me. They see me.
  • A Deleted Scene shows that Max lives with his bed-ridden mother, who constantly berates him and yells at him all the time, showing no love for her son whatsoever, not knowing it's Max's birthday even when he tries hinting it. If her behavior is of any indication, it seems she's always been like this since Max was born.
  • Just the fact that his accident and transformation happened on his birthday, of all days.
  • Tearjerking in hindsight, when Max tells Spider-Man that he's a nobody, he really believes that because he has no one to comfort him.
    • The worst of it was, Spider-Man was getting through to him. Dillon was at heart a good person, he never wanted anything but to be treated right by others. All he ever wanted was to be noticed or be someone that people looked to for help. He wasn't interested in hurting people, and Spidey had almost talked him down when he steps onto the power lines, flaring up with electricity, and the sniper, who was instructed to take a shot if he "makes a move," interprets it as a threat and fires. That ended up truly being the straw that broke the camel's back, and Dillon had finally had enough of the mistreatment. If ever there was an example of Tragic Villain, it's right here.
    • Even more heartwrenching is the way every single Times Square screen changes from Max to Spider-Man. This exacerbates the absolutely raw feeling of betrayal that overwhelms Dillon afterwards, leading to him labelling Spider-Man a Broken Pedestal. As a result, he's driven off the deep end for the rest of the film and finally becomes a power-hungry egomaniac who fights the very hero he once idealized.
      Max: You’re so selfish...
      Spider-Man: Stay with me, Max!
      Max: You set me up...!
      Spider-Man: No, I didn't set you up!
      Max: Y̶O̷U̷ ̶L̷I̴E̴D̵ ̸T̸O̸ ̶M̸E̵!̴
      Spider-Man: No, I'm trying to help you! Let me help you!
    • To further that whole "could've been a hero" thing, what gives Electro the strength to unlock his full powers and escape from Ravencroft is Harry telling him that "he needs him." Max just kinda repeats it to himself, stunned, then, obviously in pain, manages to break free by turning into electricity for the first time and blasting the guards attacking Harry, showing that, even with his mental instability, he just wanted to be respected and have a friend.
• Aunt May. Halfway through the film, she confronts Peter about his search for answers about his parents and, despite putting on a brave face, breaks down, thinking he will get himself hurt or endangered, and he is the last person she has, even effectively calling him her son. Sally Field sells it.
  Aunt May: The truth is, your parents left you here, on our doorstep. And you were this little boy whose whole world was turned upside down with no explanation. We did the best we could, your Uncle Ben and I. I mean, who else was gonna care for you and protect you and worry about you? Your father? No. I was the one who wiped your nose, and made you brush your teeth, and do your homework, or washed your dirty underwear. Me! Your stupid, non-scientific aunt, who doesn't know how to make ends meet, who has to take nursing classes with 22-year-old kids so I can pay for you to go to college. And I don't know how to do this without Ben! I don't know how! And... and you're dreaming about your perfect father, who was never here?! No! No, I won't tell you! You're my boy! As far as I'm concerned, you're my boy! And I won't hurt you!
• The way Peter and Harry's friendship quickly falls apart, going from them happily reconnecting and joking as Peter tries to help Harry following Norman's death, to Harry abducting the love of Peter's life.
  • Harry begging Spider-Man for his blood. It's clear he's terrified of dying like his father and just wants to live. When Spider-Man leaves at the end of this scene, Harry just curls up on the couch and cries. It is genuinely heartbreaking; this isn't a crazy supervillain, this is a kid who is scared out of his mind and really, really doesn't want to die.
  • There's also Fridge Horror and Fridge-Heartwarming that ensues when you realize that pretty much everyone Harry has in his life is a hanger-on who are only interested in his money and other things he can provide for them, while Peter was the only one who didn't care that Harry was a Lonely Rich Kid and was genuinely his friend. Makes their falling-out and Harry's later villainy that much more tragic.
    Spider-Man: I don't want your money!
    Harry: EVERYBODY WANTS MY MONEY!
• Harry's interaction with Felicia is kind of heart-wrenching. She seems genuinely grateful for the opportunity he gave her and really distraught when Menken frames him for the Dillon incident. And then there is the tip about Special Projects and calling him "Harry" rather than "Mr. Osborn" when she does so. Felicia (at the least on a professional level, and possibly at the point of infatuation) cares about Harry, but he's too caught up in desperation and obsession to acknowledge, or maybe even sense it.
  • Then there's the Deleted Scene where she comes across a transformed Harry wrecking the building. Felicia looks at him and says his name in such a concerned yet frightened way. Then Harry looks at his new face for the first time after having injected the spider venom and is on the verge of tears. Cue him yelling at her to go. She runs away like hell. While she's crying. He has just spurned the only person in the film remotely on his side.
• Harry teaming up with Electro starts to become this, strangely enough. His first "I need you" is clearly said very reluctantly, something he obviously didn't want to admit. By the time the security guards have arrived, Harry is straight up genuinely begging for help. He's not lying or being manipulative; he genuinely does need Electro. His family is dead, he's been abandoned by everyone he knows, and he's about to be arrested for breaking into the facility and will probably spend the rest of his life in prison for it if Electro doesn't do something pronto. The rest of his life being very short, given he's dying of a horrible and incurable disease that he will have absolutely no chance to find the cure to. He's pretty close to tears by the end.
  Harry: I need you, please! Please! Please! I know what it's like to be thrown away! Please, Max! I NEED YOU!
• Without question, every other moment listed on this page cannot hold a candle to one of the most heartbreakingly memorable moments of the two Marc Webb-helmed Spider-Man films (and a very strong contender at that for Marvel Comics-based films overall). What would that moment be? Gwen Stacy's death, of course...
  • To recap: the web Gwen is holding onto snaps at the same moment Peter knocks Harry out, and she begins falling to the ground. Peter dives after her and fires a web which snags Gwen by her midsection before grabbing a pipe to stop himself from falling. Unfortunately, the web reached her too late to prevent her head from hitting the ground. Peter then drops down, and as he's cradling her body, the realization slowly sets in as he goes from asking Gwen if she's okay to desperately pleading with Gwen to stay with him, then finally breaking down sobbing upon realizing she's dead. Hans Zimmer's music does not help, and Andrew Garfield's absolutely agonizing performance is like an emotional sucker-punch to the stomach. Even with all the flaws with these two films, the one thing everybody consistently praised was Garfield's acting, and this scene showcases it in painful detail (see page image).
  • And the worst part of this scene? It's taken straight out of the pages of The Night Gwen Stacy Died. The slow-motion really helps the feeling set in.
  • Even the name of the score track adds another layer of misery. It's called "The Rest of My Life", which is ironic because Gwen has no life left, and fitting for Peter's grief following this moment.
  • In the original comic, Peter keeps his mask on the entire time upon the discovery that Gwen is dead, which is kinda narmy. Here, he removes his mask, so we're forced to see his reaction.
  • Gwen's face as she's falling. You can practically see her life flashing before her eyes. To top it off, she closes her eyes when she is near the ground; she knows what's coming, and there is nothing Peter can do to save her.
    • The gasp she lets out after the web snaps is especially painful to hear.
    • Her last words:
      Gwen: Peter?!
  • When she falls, Peter shoots a web out to her which takes the form of a hand (in a way, his own) trying to reach for her. It's beautiful to see, but also sad given the situation.
  • The shots of Gwen just after she suddenly dies are HAUNTING. When you see her just hanging there and then the parts of the clock falling around her, and the high-angle shot of her dead body suspended by Spider-Man's webbing, it's just incredibly upsetting.
  • Something about the fact that Gwen's death occurs inside a dark clock tower instead of on the George Washington Bridge like in the comics, making it a worse setting.
  • The jump cuts illustrating the passage of time, as Peter stands at Gwen's grave day after day. You can already tell he's now way beyond the Despair Event Horizon.
  • There's also how hard Peter tries to save Gwen, only for it to end in failure. Special mention to him lodging his foot to jam the clock parts; he literally put himself through searing pain, and it's still not enough to save her.
  • Take a close look at the Stacy family at Gwen's graduation, then her funeral. Only two of her three brothers are at the funeral, the youngest being the absent child.
    • When you think about it, her family has just lost the father, and now the only daughter in the household.
    • Remember that the last words Gwen's father said to Peter was to keep her away from the dangers he would face as Spider-Man. Peter was literally haunted by the image of Captain Stacy throughout this film. And now his daughter's dead because he didn't listen to his words. God knows the amount of guilt that must have added to Peter.
  • The fact that, this time, it wasn't Spider-Man's arch-foe Norman Osborn/Green Goblin, a complete maniac, who killed her. This time, it was Peter's best friend and Norman's son Harry Osborn, who went insane, took up the Green Goblin identity, and tried to kill Gwen in revenge for Peter not giving him the sample of his blood that could have killed him anyway. That's the man responsible for Gwen's death, and it just has to be eating Peter alive that he lost two of his best friends in one night.
  • The fact that there's no gasping for breath, coughing, or Last Words from Gwen as Peter holds her. The suddenness and absoluteness of her death makes it all the more tragic as Peter is already pleading with a corpse.
  • On top of that, during Peter's pleas for Gwen's survival, a drop of blood slowly falls from her nose. It's just an unnoticed sucker punch to completely confirm her death.
  • The comic version left a sort of discretion shot in that it wasn't apparent immediately that she'd died, and we only realized when Peter did. Here? No discretion shot at all. We have to stay with Gwen the whole way down, and as an added bonus, we get to hear the sick thud her head makes as it smacks the floor.
  • Hell, you KNOW a scene is sad when even How It Should Have Ended doesn't play it for laughs.
  • In the alternate death scene, Harry makes a mocking laugh while hearing Peter sobbing, making the latter snap and beat the former to near death. We know Spider-Man doesn't kill, but if that had played out, and Harry did die at Peter's hands, not a single person would blame him.
  • In Spider-Man: No Way Home, he relates this story to his MCU variant, who by this point has lost his Aunt May to the Raimi-Verse Goblin. He mentions that in between Gwen's death and coming to the MCU, he never got over his grief and guilt, and that over time he stopped being Peter Parker and devoted himself to being Spider-Man. He also mentions that at some point, he stopped holding back his punches, implying that he may have killed criminals. He then tearfully concludes telling MCU Peter not to end up like him.
    Webb-Verse Spider-Man: I lost Gwen. She was my MJ. I couldn't save her. I'm never going to be able to forgive myself for that. But I carried on. Tried to keep going. Tried to keep being the friendly neighborhood Spider-Man, because I know that's what she would have wanted. But at some point, I just, I stopped pulling my punches. I got rageful. I got bitter. I just don't want you to end up like me.
• In a Deleted Scene, Richard Parker appears behind Peter after Gwen's death and time has passed since that tragic event. When Peter turns around to see him, he's in complete denial that this is his actual father. Andrew Garfield's performance here was probably even sadder than when he simply lost Gwen alone. Here, he's still in a lot of pain over losing the love of his life, and now a father he believes to have died has been alive the whole time and all Peter could ask him was where he had been if he had really been alive, the question all children ask about their absent parents. When he breaks down and cries in Richard's arms, you can just hear how much more in pain he is now having discovered a father that only shows up now just after losing someone.

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