Five years after Spider-man 3 got mixed reviews and almost 900 million dollars in worldwide box office, we are presented with the reboot The Amazing Spider-man and though the third movie in the Sam Raimi interpretation of the web slinger wasn’t great, still it was a movie made by a guy that knew and loved the source material. Not quite sure what Marc Webb was aiming for here, aside from the fact that his duty was to put the movie out, even if it looks like a rehash and that’s the main issue of this reboot. If you’re rebooting a franchise with “darker tones” you’d expect new twists at least or another vision and The Amazing Spider-man plays safe.
Which doesn’t mean that there are no good things about the movie, Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone have great chemistry and he’s a better Peter Parker than Tobey Maguire, I mean, his Parker has more guts, but it’s more obnoxious rather than funny.
Peter Parker is a geek that stumbles in a genetically altered spider, which gives him spider like moves, his uncle (let’s call him Ben) is shot because instead of helping a guy chase a bad guy, he just shrugs, so the bad guy shoots him, thus rocking his world which leads him to a life of crime fighting. Are you up to speed now? This time around though, we switch the tall red head Mary Jane for the short and charismatic blonde Gwen Stacy, instead of fighting the Green Goblin, he fights the Lizard and instead of being friends with Harry Osborn, he’s friends with Flash Thompson. Are you getting this?
Columbia Pictures had a plan B when they decided to can Tobey Maguire and Sam Raimi (who were set to make a boat load of cash if Spider-man 4 went ahead), that is because they have to keep on popping Spider-man movies, otherwise the rights go back to Disney/Marvel, so they went ahead and hired James Vanderbilt to create a cheaper reboot with a fairly unknown cast and director and worked, since the movie release it was announced that The Amazing Spider-man is the first in a trilogy.
The Amazing Spider-man is strong in character development when we’re talking about Andrew Garfield, who walks us through the birth of the super-hero, slowly getting cocky (maybe too cocky) and Emma Stone stealing all the scenes with her charming presence. The special effects look amazing, but there’s a lack of style to it, a lack of a signature, which was Sam Raimi’s forte. The villain barely registers, but not because Rhys Ifans is not a good actor, it’s just because he’s working with an empty character in this convoluted plot that involves geneticists, a mysterious Norman Osborn (he’s only mentioned in the movie and the secret identity of Green Goblin) and the disappearance of Peter Parker’s parents. The action scenes are great, but you’ll miss Sam Raimi’s touch and great humor.
