Review Detail

Sorry for the long narrative before the review but I really want to speak my mind on this edit.

This fan-edit is one of my very first to watch and I highly recommend it. I first watched the original movie in the cinemas as a 12 year old kid, I remember getting excited to see Spidey's return on the big screen since I thought I would never see him again since Raimi's Spider-Man 4 was cancelled. After watching it, I thought it was an enjoyable movie but felt something lacking with the Lizard. Flash forward to two years after, and I hear that Webb's releasing a sequel but I wasn't as excited as I was for the Raimi trilogy or the first movie. I left the theater dumbfounded with how awful the sequel was, and the nerve of the movie to sequel-bait and tease the sinister six without establishing them first it was completely jarring. And don't even get me started with the Roosevelt subplot with Peter's parents.

I haven't rewatched the Webb films ever since that experience but with the hype of the upcoming third film for Tom Holland's Spider-Man and the rumors of all three Spider-Men being on the same film it sparked excitement for me to go and rewatch their films. But I wasn't ready to jump in to Webb's Films compared to Raimi's I wanted a better experience and that was when I stumbled upon this particular fan-edit.

I loved watching this fan-edit, it helped humanize Dr. Connors before his regression to the Lizard instead of it just being snap change from the original. I love the reinstating of the deleted scenes and swapping it with the original cut especially Uncle Ben and Peter's avoidance of each other. I hated how unnecessary it was to make Ben be shot by stopping the criminal, having him die by the consequence of Peter's avoidance and irresponsibility and Ben mistaking the robber as him was far better. This fan-edit even made me appreciate the Roosevelt subplot by putting them at the appropriate times at the film like Peter's built up frustration of not being able to see Gwen leading to him trashing his conspiracy wall. I also appreciate the fact that you cut out the bs with Peter being the only one destined to be Spider-Man and only kept the scenes where he finds what really happend to his father and gets a bit of closure.

That being said I have a few criticisms of this fan-edit and I acknowledge the fact that they cannot fix everything. To those who do plan on watching the Untold Extended Version instead of the other Normal Extended Version fan-edit it will still be jarring to see the cuts from the 1st film to the 2nd film as other's have mentioned (i.e Peter and May's hair and looks change). The only time I was confused on this edit was the transition of Peter's reveal to Connors that he is Richard's son and their formula talk to Peter's building of the Roosevelt conspiracy wall. In term's of video and audio editing, I'm not sure if would be possible on the fan-editor's end but I would have like a bit of editing of the audio of the deleted scenes to make them sound more natural and not dubbed over like the scene with Connor's visit to Peter's house. In relation to that and the narrative, I think it would have been better to just show Ben leaving that voicemail to Peter without explicity letting the audience hear what he is saying while he looks for Peter since his audio just fades weirdly.

Overall, I highly recommend this film to viewers wanting to rewatch Webb's films in a different light. It is a much better experience than what we originally had and is so close to being the definitive film for Webb's take.