The Amazing Spider-Man – Review
Director – Marc Webb
Cast – Andrew Garfield, Emma Stone, Rhys Ifans, Martin Sheen, Sally Field, Irrfan Khan, Chris Zylka
Run Time – 136 Minutes
With Great Power Comes Redundant Remakes…
Spider-Man is the nerds' choice of super hero: socially inept (while actually being secretly cool), a hobbyist of science, and with the ability to discharge white, sticky goo whenever "danger" is-a-happening. I'd imagine if the man didn't tussle with a radioactive spider, Peter Parker would be running a brilliant D&D night by now…
It wasn't so long ago that the Web Slinger dominated the box office. Sam Raimi's trilogy was a hit-and-miss ensemble, with Tobey Maguire gurning through the series like a man looking for his Seabiscuit. That is when he wasn't "Emo Spidey" and scowling with all the temerity of child threatening to stamp on a patch of flowers.
Just five years after the last Web Head film, such is the hazy wisdom of Hollywood, we have a reboot of the franchise, for reasons nobody is quite sure. Here's a trailer…
The Amazing Spider-Man is Marc Webb's reimaging of the series, placing The Social Network's Andrew Garfield in to Peter Parker's recently-vacated shoes, and begging audiences not to point out the word "Amazing" if it doesn't all pan out.
And it's always a problem prefixing your distinctly average, and dare I say, redundant film with such a lofty claim. The Amazing Spider-Man is less a reboot, and more of a retread of old ground. Cut out the Green Goblin in the 2002 flick, and throw in The Lizard and you have the same movie. It's another tale of science gone bad, all through the kaleidoscope of another origin story: and to be frank, it's more than a little boring.
The two leading performances do admittedly improve on the previous films: Garfield is surprisingly charming as Spider-Man, beating out Tobey Maguire's wet-lipped portrayal of superhero looking like he's going through a tricky spell of constipation; while Emma Stone's Gwen Stacy is as effortlessly brilliant as we have come to expect from the young actress.
Clocking in at more than 2 hours long, oddly the rest of the characters are underdeveloped however. Rhys Ifans' portrayal of Curt Connors/The Lizard is one-dimensional, and Martin Sheen's Uncle Ben is so by the numbers, you can hear the dialling tone as he rings in the performance.
Overlong, unoriginal, and has nothing new to say: The Amazing Spider-Man just about settles as a mildly entertaining summer movie. It lacks the obvious fandom of ex-director Sam Raimi, and ultimately, his' is still the better film. Even its moments of humour and CGI panache can't save this one: The Mediocre Spider-Man at best. 2/5
Review by Adam Tingle
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