My thoughts on: The Amazing Spider-Man

This post will contain no spoilers to the plot of the story that arent revealed in any of the released trailers for the film.

The no spoiler synopsis - Peter Parker becomes a superhero and falls in love and then a man tries to experiment on himself and turns evil and Peter must stop him before it's too late!

This film has been in the making for the past 2 years, and I've sat eagerly waiting all that time for a new and exciting spiderman film to hit the market, and by god is this it.

Most of the people reading this will be used to seeing Tobey Maguire in the red and blue suit, however this new spidey film is an entirely different comic book. Because of this the film goes through Peter's origin story once more, tredging the same ground as the first film did only 10 years previously. 

It's a very brave idea to remake a film still in recent history, it becomes verging on the idea of stupid when you learn the director of The Amazing Spider-man's only other notable work was the quirky rom com (500) Days of Summer (hardly experience in a similar genre). Despite this somehow the film pulls off not being too familiar to the audience. Obviously Peter has to get bitten by a spider at some point and other such plot certainties, but it's interesting to see how they try to break away from what's already been seen in Spider-Man and create a different side to Peter not seen before. In this vein Uncle Ben has a much larger role in this film, Peter's father has a key role to play and even the universally known 'squeeze' of spiderman, Mary-Jane Watson, is dropped to allow Gwen Stacey to rear her head in a nod to the original Amazing Spider-Man comic books.

The casting of Andrew Garfield as Spiderman was a stoke of genius for the film, he fits the role of Peter perfectly, he's no longer the loser of the school and has become just a kid getting by. He's got some guts on him and is smart to boot which makes him a deeper character than I ever felt the Maguire Parker became. He also pulls of something I've been waiting a while for with Spider-Man and that's humour. Throughout the film, in the suit and out of it, Garfield is full of one liners with great comic timing to them which is exactly what Spiderman should be doing! They seemed to loose that in the original films, trying once or twice but seeming to give up (in my personal opinion Maguire doesnt strike me as the guy able to pull of consistent humour anyways so no real loss there). 

The only problem with the casting of Garfield is his inability to become the man behind the mask. In an attempt to address this problem a lot of the time Garfield is in the Spidey suit he doesnt have his mask on in an obvious attempt to subliminally enforce to the audience that Andrew Garfield is now Spiderman, however (possibly due to the much longer screen time Maguire had over the 3 films) I still cant make the connection between the Peter Parker of Amazing Spider-Man being the guy in the costume. When the mask goes on is could just as easily be Maguire under there because we're so used to him being Spidey. However I get a feeling this is only a temporary problem that will fade if more films are to be made, as we all get used to the idea of Garfield under that mask.

He spends a bit longer with his mask off
than a superhero should

Leading on from Garfield brings me to Emma Stone, Gwen Stacey in the film. Now we've seen her before in Spider-Man 3, however they've decided to tone down her character from the boistrous over the top personality expressed in the comics. She becomes just a normal girl that Peter has a crush on. The chemistry between Stone and Garfield on screen is fantastic and is what really sets the film apart from the other Spider-man's where we there was very little 'love' down to the self centred Mary-Jane (tell me you love me). I felt they rushed the 'falling in love' bit of the story between Peter and Gwen but with so much else going on in the film I guess they decided to focus on what the director had expreience in, which really does pay off on the screen.

So we've got a film already juggling a budding romance comedy with a becoming a superhero descovering your power thingy. Throw into that a baddy for spidey to take down and what have you got? Too much on your plate. I felt they rushed through the actual progression of Peter realising he has powers to mastering them. On the screen it translates as one day of him doing weird stuff to him fighting crime for a living. They spent a lot of the film leading up to him getting bitten which then cut other parts short in my opinion. They also dont develop Doctor Connors' Lizard (the baddy) as much as they could have, again they focused too long on the lead up to him becoming the bad guy. Both of these mean that the time these characters spend with their powers is shorter than it could have been and leads to such brilliant plot devices as Peter finding Connors has left his evil plan lying around on a desk, because they'd cut themselves short on time by spending too long in other areas.

In essence the film attempts 2 major plotlines and struggles to make either of them extraordinary in the end. Luckily the saving grace of the film comes from the romance between Peter and Gwen, I've mentioned it before but it really does help to cement the film together and prevent it from failing. It's exactly what this film needed, something to set it apart from any other film like it. 

You can just see the connection they share

All this said if you're only seeing The Amazing Spider-Man for some super awesome action scenes then it sure does deliver. They've put a lot of effort into making Spidey's web swinging something phenominal to see on screen and his fighting feels a lot more fluid and looks so much better than ever before, plus due to modern special effects they really can push the boat out and make the fights between Spidey and Lizard seem very realistic. Plus lots of stuff gets destroyed. What more could you possibly want?

My best bit:- Where Peter is rewarded for his efforts in the city, with the gift of cranes. It shows to him people are grateful for the effort he's making.

My worst bit:- Don't overcrowd the film, they could have pushed the Lizard storyline on the back burner rather than devoting so much screen time to it.

My Verdict} 8/10 - If you wanna see stuff go bang, worth it. If you wanna see deep development and engaging story, worth it. They just could have done with a bit more spit and polish.