Every Spider-Man movie comes equipped with one minute-or-so scene of him swinging through the city. It was inevitable that this would happen because, if you’re going to craft a $200 million movie on this particular character, an acrobatic swinging sequence is expected. And back in 2002 Sam Raimi set a mighty high bar with the sequence that closed out the original Spider-Man, featuring Peter Parker whipping himself around and around a crane before ultimately ending up on a spire (on what is ostensibly the Chrysler Building). The Amazing Spider-Man had him swing his way through a crane before ultimately ending up in a well-staged freeze frame. In Spider-Man: No Way Home he swings through the city at night with snow falling all around him, getting back to work even though everyone he loves has either died or forgotten him.

These are all swinging sequences that close out films, but there’s a strong argument to be made that the very best one of these sequences actually opens a Spidey film. Specifically, The Amazing Spider-Man 2, widely deemed the low-point of the character’s eight movie cinematic career.

It Was Mostly Downhill From Here

The movie opens with a close-up shot of the spider symbol on the back of the iconic red and blue suit as Parker drops at lightning speed towards the city. He gets just about down to street level and swings along with traffic, webs a building-top water tower, and hurls himself around it.

Then we get the type of shot that was born to be in a movie of this particular franchise: a GoPro view with Spidey occupying the top half of the screen. At that point we move back away from the character for a more traditional viewpoint, which is when a helicopter enters the shot from behind him. There’s some more traffic level swinging but really the helicopter shot is what caps this excellent opening.

Some people really like The Amazing Spider-Man 2, but it’s easy to see why it put Andrew Garfield’s time as the character to a premature end. The writing tends to oscillate between too goofy (everything with Paul Giamatti’s Rhino, for instance) to extremely dour (most of Harry Osborn’s plotline, punctuated by the death of Gwen Stacy) and, like Spider-Man 3, it’s simply too crowded. Toss in a very silly-looking blue Jamie Foxx—there’s a reason his design and personality were altered for No Way Home—and it’s a movie that never quite works as well as it should. Even still, it certainly opens strong.

What is your favorite swinging sequence in the Spider-Man movies? Let us know in the comments!