Upon seeing the first trailer for The Amazing Spider-Man I was really not sure if a re-boot was needed, since it was only ten years since the first release of a Spider-Man movie from the last trilogy. Sam Raimi's interpretation has garnered an almost cult like following. However as I saw more trailers and saw how they wanted to go a little more with the following the story of the early comic, my interest was intrigued a lot more to see the re-boot and where they wanted to take the franchise now. Where Raimi's took us with Peter Parker at the end of high school to out of high school quickly, it was great to see them have Peter in his high school years and although he was still the outsider, he ended up showing how smart and handy he was with scientific type things in this go around. I think they did a re-boot that was well worth while and made for an enjoyable movie.
Andrew Garfield in the role of Peter Parker/Spider-Man fit the role perfectly. He played the role of Peter Parker as if he is struggling with himself and is your typical angst teenager felt seamless. While he brought a great attitude of sarcasticness to the character of Spider-Man. He brought a lot to the role that I felt it was a fully developed character that is easy for the audience to not only root for, but truly care for with everything he struggles and feels responsible for. Garfield showed the talent he has and he has landed a great franchise to lead. Emma Stone in the role of Gwen Stacy compliments Garfield very well. Where in the previous installments Mary Jane has always been the damsel in distress. As a contrast Stone plays Gwen as being something more then just eye candy, but really brings something in being a smart, strong girlfriend to Peter Parker. Rhys Ifans in the role of Dr. Connors really brought a lot to the role. Even though he is our villain, the audience feels for him and what he was trying to accomplish with his serum for not only himself, but all mankind to cure deformities. Yet, he shows the audience that under the serum it has driven him mad that his rational thought is gone. The audience is able to have a really sympathy for Dr. Connors because of the way that Ifans is able to play the role. The rest of the supporting cast all give solid performances and only made the performances from Garfield, Stone and Ifans stronger. Particularly, the performances of Martin Sheen and Sally Field in their supporting roles as Uncle Ben and Aunt May. Both of them played the roles so well with Garfield in particular had a great chemistry and truly embodied the way that I believe Uncle Ben and Aunt May to truly be.
The story for The Amazing Spider-Man just worked for me. I felt that taking the story back to the beginning was perfect and allowed them to be more in line with the early comic books. I thought it was great and worked that Peter was not just the awkward outsider, but that they really showed off his smart and ability to create and fix things. I love how in the story that the ability to shoot webbing was not a power he had but he made a contraption that shot the webbing cable that Oscorp sold. I felt that the story in this go around was really the strongest story with a great amount of depth that has been put out in the Spider-Man franchise. I think adding the storyline of Peter's parents is intriguing and just the possibility of learning more about what may have caused the plane crash has me wanting to see the next installment when it comes around. The biggest complaint I had with the story was the pacing at a couple of points seemed to be rushed. Overall, the pacing worked so well there were two points in which I felt they rushed things when normal pacing would have not made the movie noticeably longer.
The action in The Amazing Spider-Man was well choreographed. I liked the fact that they used a lot of parkour in the chase sequences which using it only made Spider-Man seem even more spider like in all of his action sequences. I also thought it really worked for them in the action sequences that they used stunts and rigging for the sequences as much as possible which limited the use of CGI. While technology with CGI is seamless nowadays it is still nice to see movies when possible to use as much non-CGI sequences that they can. I felt like everything worked so well and I loved the way they portrayed the Lizard side of Dr. Connors and the fight sequences between him and Spider-Man went down so smooth and really showed a great difference between the two of them in their fighting styles which only made the battles that much more entertaining. The last part of the movie that I absolutely loved was that of the unique point of view camera angles they used from time to time. By giving us the first person camera angle of Spider-Man climbing up a wall or swinging from a web was really a unique perspective that entwined the audience into being a part of the action even better. I ended up seeing it in 3D and I think that only enhanced that aspect of the camera angles.
The Amazing Spider-Man while it was a re-boot that I was not initially excited to see, over time it grew on me and made me want to go and see what direction they would take the franchise and hopefully improve on it. I thought Garfield and stone had an amazing chemistry that worked perfectly on screen and they matched what you would expect from their characters. On a side note I enjoyed the character of Gwen a lot better then Mary Jane. I felt the action and story were perfect together while at the same time the story had a great depth to it. I am giving The Amazing Spider-Man three and three quarter buckets of popcorn out of five. This movie was well worth the price of admission to see in the theater and even in 3D, and if you are a fan of super heroes you should make sure to get out and see it in the theater.
-The Movie Man
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