The Amazing Spider-Man 2 was filmed on 35mm and finished at 4K, which is presumably the source for this UHD presentation.
The Amazing Spider-Man 2 is amongst the first movies released to UHD (alongside Salt) that was shot on film rather than digital, and the results are expectedly stellar. Once again, there's a noticeable refinement to detail and pop to color that's not there on the 1080p version, at least not as clearly and boldly as what's to be seen on the UHD disc.
Take a look at the sky as Spider-Man swings amongst the buildings around the 7:00 mark. The UHD shows a deeper, richer sky blue. Grain is also more pronounced and more uniform, both here and throughout the film, and the sky shows more of a natural smoothness and minor adjustments in color gradation and cloud coverage. Another good early movie moment for comparison comes around the 11:50 mark when Gwen, at the graduation ceremony, is on the phone with Peter, who is "on his way" as only he can be on his way. There's more definition to her hair, yielding more clarity on individual strands and "sections," for lack of a more professional hairdressing term. Facial definition sees a slight boost in clarity and very fine pore detail, as does the flushness in her face. The blue gown, like the sky, offers a deeper and richer color scheme. Skip ahead to chapter five and a sequence in which a dying Mr. Osborne is speaking with Harry. Shadow detailing is improved while blacks simultaneous enjoy greater depth. Makeup improvements on the elder Osborne are obvious. Even the fine textures on the white pillowcase are more finely delineated.
But perhaps the single most telling difference comes in any close-up of the Spider-Man suit. Look at the 22:00 mark. Spider-Man is crouched on a rooftop looking down at the street, and the camera gets up close and personal with his chest, shoulders, and head. The difference between the UHD and the Blu-ray is night and day. The red is more vibrant. The blues on the sleeves and the knee that can be seen in the bottom righthand corner of the screen are deeper. Shadow definition on his chest is vastly superior, allowing for improved clarity and detail in the chest and moving up towards the armpit. The suit's textures enjoy a nice boost in raw definition, too, both the body fabric and the eyepieces alike. On the Blu-ray, the basic, meshy lines on the fabric are visible. On the UHD 2160p transfer, there's a much more tactile look to them, a more pronounced set of lines to see.
The transfer is truly gorgeous in every way. Fine and even grain gives it a beautiful cinematic flavor. Colors leap off the screen, details are incredibly complex both intimately and more broadly around the city, black levels are perfect, and flesh tones are healthy and natural. Compression artifacts are zero. But much like The Smurfs 2, The Amazing Spider-Man 2 looks terrific on Blu-ray, and it looks terrific on UHD. The improvements are subtle and many may not even be able to really tell the difference without ever having seen one transfer or the other before. It's an amazing refinement, but not a revelation. After reviewing a handful of UHD titles, those seem to be the two key words. It's still worth the upgrade, and chances are that once people see UHD in action (particularly "true" 4K titles, like the ones Sony is releasing, and the 2K upscales are also nothing to sneeze at) and with any hardware kinks ironed out, there will be no turning back.