The Amazing Spider-Man Review

The Amazing Spider-Man Review

2012: The Year of the Superhero continues, as Marvel hits us with yet another winner. Appropriately named director Marc Webb's first shot at a Spider-Man reboot lives up to its name, as The Amazing Spider-Man gives us the webswinging hero we always should have had in the first place. While not perfect, the movie does the vast majority of its job to the best of its considerable ability, while young brit Andrew Garfield slips almost effortlessly into the role he was born to play.

Following 2007's abysmal Spider-Man 3, directed by Sam Raimi and starring an increasingly maligned Tobey Maguire, Sony's decision to reboot the franchise came at a time when the series really needed it. The result? A movie which stays much closer to its source material, giving us a definitive Spider-Man and (as is always the way with Marvel) leaving us begging for more. Think of this as Spider-Man's Batman Begins. 

Andrew Garfield: the definitive Peter Parker

"Be good," Peter's father says as he and his mother mysteriously disappear into the night, never to be seen again. Jumping forward to Peter's high school years, we encounter an incredibly intelligent boy with a passion for science and one Gwen Stacy, played with grace and beauty by Emma Stone. Discovering one of his father's old suitcases in his aunt and uncle's basement containing countless scientific data and a mysterious photo of Dr. Curt Connors, Peter bluffs his way into an intern tour around Oscorp tower. Scientist Dr. Connors is in the process of discovering how to merge primate DNA with that of a lizard's which would give the human population the ability to regrow cells and body tissue. Sneaking his way into a secret experimental lab filled with spiders, Peter...well, the rest is superhero history.

The Amazing Spider-Man does unfortunately take a little while to kick in (we don't see Peter begin wallcrawling until at least 60 minutes into the 136 minute running time). That's okay though, as in the back of our minds we're all aware that this is the beginning of something special. Some critics have complained that the movie takes an hour to tell the 'origin story' of Peter's spider-bite whereas Sam Raimi's trilogy established the plot in mere moments. Personally, I would much rather have a movie where we understand and relate to the character so much that we know, we really know, how much it means to him to have these changes occur.

Real-life couple Garfield and Stone

There are a few uncomfortably familiar moments too, which is to be expected. The death of a certain major character is played out in almost exactly the same fashion as we have seen previously, while Uncle Ben's "with great power comes great responsibility" speech is basically re-told with a thesaurus. 

Aside from this, however, The Amazing Spider-Man soars higher than I'd ever expected. Andrew Garfield is the Peter Parker we always wanted to begin with (sorry Tobey), while Gwen Stacy is a welcome addition to the big screen thanks to Emma Stone giving her best performance to date. The relationship between Peter and Gwen is sweet, with the awkward pauses within their conversations certain to stir up some similar memories for most teenage couples (something I'm sure came from Webb's scriptwriting experience in the equally relatable 500 Days of Summer). Rhys Ifans is a terrific Spidey villain as The Lizard, in that he is not actually villainous at all. Like all the best comic book adversaries (Joker aside), he thinks he's doing the right thing - his methods are just carried out in the wrong way and get out of hand.

Not a Green Goblin in sight...yet.

The special effects are stunning, something which I'm sure has surprised many critics given Marc Webb's lack of experience in the field. The decision to use motion capture technology for The Lizard rather than basic CGI is one which pays off 100%, while some shots of Spidey swinging through the city are truly breathtaking. One new feature I particularly liked was the first-person view of Peter's flight around the buildings, once culminating in a beautiful mirrored shot of the hero soaring towards a glass skyscraper.

Yet what makes The Amazing Spider-Man better than its predecessing trilogy is its ability to make us laugh when it wants us to, make us sit on the edge of our seat when Webb demands we do so and, in a move I never expected, build that lump in our throat moreso than almost any superhero movie has done before. Andrew Garfield has to be applauded for his ability to balance all the action, humour and heartbreak that the role demands. He is the definitive Peter Parker of our time and the story has set up more than enough intrigue and mystery to keep us excited for more. What were Peter's parents hiding? Are they still alive? And, as always with any Marvel movie, stick around for that mid-credits tease for the sequel.

A sequel is already in the works set for a 2014 release

Summary

Like the Batman series before it, the Spider-Man franchise has finally been given the movie it deserves. While it appropriately refuses to fall to the dark, moody atmosphere of Batman Begins, The Amazing Spider-Man rightfully succeeds in providing us with a much more grounded reality than Sam Raimi's trilogy. Sure it's a little frustratingly slow to start and a tad uncomfortably familiar in terms of echoed situations and dialogue, but if we drag ourselves out of the past and view it as its own fresh film, it's an incredibly positive launch pad for the new series. Spider-Man is well and truly back in the swing of things.

9/10

See it if you liked: The Avengers (2012), Batman Begins (2005), Spider-Man (2002)

By Dean Johnstone