Review No.136: The Amazing Spider-Man

From arthouse to blockbuster now as we turn our intention to possibly the third most important superhero movie of the year that being the franchise rebooting The Amazing Spider-Man. Yes though it's only been a mere five years since the downright dismal Spiderman 3 we've been taken right back to before Peter Parker was bitten by the spider and was still a rather ordinary high school student. Sam Raimi's place at the director's chair has been taken over by 500 Days of Summer's Marc Webb while 28 year old Andrew Garfield goes back to school and, to be honest, is totally believable as a teenager. Garfield's Peter Parker isn't nearly as geeky as Tobey Maguire's was instead he is more of a cool outsider with his skateboard and his camera he isn't the one that gets beaten up at lunchtime although he does get punched a fair few times when he tries to stick up for the geek. There is also a new love interest in the form of Gwen Stacey, played by Garfield's now real-life girlfriend Emma Stone, a smarter and more interesting girl who he doesn't follow round like a lovesick puppy as much as Parker did with MJ in the last set of films. The Amazing Spider-Man is also much more interested with Peter's parents and why he was left with Uncle Ben and Aunt May in the first place it is a mystery that he starts to uncover when he finds his father's old briefcase. He discovers that his father's old partner the scientist Dr Curt Conners is behind a project to try and genetically repair the dying Norman Osborn, who we all know as the Green Goblin but who doesn't feature here, and after tracking Connors down Peter is bit by one of the spiders which are part of his research. We all sort of know much of the rest of the story as Peter struggles with his new-found abilities however he does help Conners to solve his problems but this comes at a cost as the Doctor decides to inject himself with his new formula and in the process becomes the film's villain The Lizard. At the same time Peter's experiments have meant that he neglects his uncle and aunt with the former being shot after trying to stop a robber so to avenge Ben's death Peter dons the mask and apprehends any of the villains who bare a resemblance to the man who bumped off his beloved uncle. Obviously things come to a head between Spiderman and the Lizard which inevitably involve both Gwen and her police chief father however the ending has some ambiguity to it plus giving us some ammunition for a sequel which I'm sure we'll see in the near future.

When The Amazing Spider-Man was first announced I personally believed it to be a bit of redundant endeavour as the Raimi/Maguire Spiderman films were still fresh in everyone's minds there didn't seem to be any reason to reboot the franchise. While this to an extent may be true Marc Webb has done a good job of making this film as different as possible as we have a new love interest, a new way in which Peter becomes Spiderman and a new villain in The Lizzard. What makes The Amazing Spider-man work so well is that the majority of it is set while Peter and Gwen are still at school, something that was skipped over fairly quickly in the Raimi original, this gives the film its own identity with Peter using his new skills to fend off those who pick on the weak. The relationship between Gwen and Peter is also a lot more equal as he didn't follow her about as much Maguire did Mary Jane Watson instead the two have an easier chemistry which may be due to the fact that the two struck up a real romantic relationship during filming. To me Andrew Garfield played the everyman well and as I previously mentioned was totally believable as a 17 year old schoolboy while his metamorphosis into Spiderman was very well dealt with indeed. Stone is also great in her role, although I love her in everything, making Gwen a funny and intelligent love interest who doesn't define herself through her relationship. There is great support from Martin Sheen and Sally Field as Ben and May the former in particular has some great warmth in his scenes with Garfield which makes his death scene even more poignant. Whereas I felt The Avengers film over-egged the pudding in terms of its set pieces The Amazing Spider-Man makes you wait with only two really big moments one involving an accident on a bridge and the other was the climax at Oscorp. It's fair to say that the film drags at times and that some of the high school scenes are fairly generic but for me this was better than Raimi's first Spiderman film if not quite on the level of 2004's Spiderman 2. Overall this is one of the best blockbusters of the year so far due to its mixture of visual splendour, emotionally balanced script and great performance across the board.

Verdict: One of this year's strongest blockbusters The Amazing Spider-Man is overlong but kept me interested throughout due to great performances, a brilliant script and wonderful set pieces so for those reasons it gets 8/10