‘The Amazing Spider-Man’ (2012) movie review | BONUS FEATURES with timothy english

We’re living in an age of reboots and remakes. It’s not that the Spider-Man remake or reboot– whatever they’re calling it– isn’t warranted, it’s just the fact that it would have been better if it was done under the Marvel Studios banner and not Sony. But it is what it is and we get “The Amazing Spider-Man” the first in the rebooted series following the trilogy directed by Sam Raimi. The new flick stars Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone, who are both very good actors.

So, not only does Sony/Columbia decide to reboot Spider-Man again, but we get the origin story…again. We’ve got Andrew Garfield as Peter Parker, an orphan living with his Uncle Ben (Martin Sheen) and Aunt May (Sally Field) after his parents disappear mysteriously. Peter’s loneliness has made him a bit of an outcast but he’s a hell of a science prodigy. After he finds his dad’s old briefcase and some stuff he was working on– you see, his dad was a science guy too– Peter finds his way to Oscorp where his dad worked. This is where he is bitten by the spider that will give him his cool powers.

The girl of his dreams, Gwen Stacy, works at Oscorp. She kinda likes the nerdy little guy and takes more of a liking to him during his infiltration at Oscorp, where he also meets Dr. Curt Connors, who just so happens to be papa Parker’s old lab partner. Apparently they were working on cross species genetics before Peter’s dad disappeared. Doc Connor is missing an arm and hopes his experiments (with lizards) will lead to a treatment that will help regenerate his arm. Instead it turns him into a monstrous freak, the villainous, Lizard.

What the movie does right, it does very well. Garfield is spot on as Peter, even outdoing Tobey from the last movies. Emma Stone is great, as she usually is. The two have great chemistry. Director Mark Webb does a nice job of establishing Pete’s science background. Spider-Man has the smart ass sense of humor missing from Raimi’s movies. Spidey borders on overly cocky, which is good because that’s what you’d expect from a high school kid who suddenly gets super powers.

The movie does suffer from a serious case of “haven’t we seen this before” syndrome. Even though all of the origin stuff is slightly more interesting than it was in “Spider-Man”, it feels very been there done that. Director Mark Webb, best known for “500 Days of Summer” clearly loves the romantic comedy angle at play between Peter and Gwen but struggles a bit with action sequences. When things do pick up, he’s too quick to get back to a Peter/Gwen scene instead of letting Spidey loose.

Overall, though, “The Amazing Spider-Man” is a good reboot with plenty of room to grow as the series progresses. If Webb is gonna stick around for sequels though, he’s going to have to amp up the action or else this can quickly become the “Twilight” of superhero films and that isn’t meant to be a good thing by any stretch of the imagination.