Despite feeling a little soon for a full reboot of the series, being just 5 years since we last saw Tobey Maguire in the cowl, The Amazing Spider-man is a highly enjoyable superhero movie with only a few minor flaws. The makers could just as easily have continued the series with a new cast, the way James Bond used to do, instead of restarting it, but regardless of that, this is still a very entertaining film.
Although some of the details are different, this origin tale follows the familiar Spider-man story. High-schooler Peter Parker is bitten by a scientifically altered spider, causing him to gain spider-like powers of enhanced strength and dexterity, heightened senses and the ability to climb walls. He is then motivated to a life of crime fighting by the death of his beloved uncle. Along the way, he finds love and must eventually face off against a super villain who threatens New York City.
Andrew Garfield makes a terrific Peter Parker. He's 28 and clearly way too old to be in high-school, but then most high-schoolers in movies always look too old, so perhaps it's unfair to single him out for that. He plays the nerdy outsider quite well, even if besides being too old, he also seems a little too cool to truly be a nerd. Some of the movie's best moments are in the first half as we see how he gains his powers and learns how to deal with them.
The rest of the cast is equally good. Emma Stone plays Gwen Stacy, Peter's original love interest from the comic books. Like Garfield, Stone is obviously too old to be a high-schooler, but she looks the part, which is pretty much all that's required of her as the love interest/damsel in distress. Sally Field and Martin Sheen play Peter's Aunt and Uncle. Sheen and Garfield share a couple of nice moments together, despite the sappy dialogue that Sheen is given. Dennis Leary does a good job as the police captain and Gwen's father. Rhys Ifans is fine as the villain, but without really standing out.
One aspect of this version of Spider-man that is a definite improvement over Raimi's version is that when in costume, Spider-man seems less like a computer generated cartoon. This is most likely a combination of more shots with an actor actually in the costume, coupled with improvements in special effects in recent years. In any case, where it was blatantly obvious when Spider-man was computer generated in the older films, here the line is more blurred and it adds to the feeling of realism (if I can use such a word in a review of a superhero movie).
Like seemingly every other superhero movie released these days, this one does run long. Why they all feel as though they have to be epic-sized, I don't know. There are definitely scenes that could have been trimmed or more tightly edited, starting with the ridiculous scene with the construction workers and the cranes at the film's climax. At least there's only one super villain though, unlike the final Raimi Spider-man film which had three.
Ironically, the first half of the film, which covers much of the same ground as was covered in 2002's Spider-man, is actually the most entertaining half. Watching Peter come to terms with his powers is more interesting than watching yet another superhero do battle with yet another supervillain in the heart of a major city.
Comic books have a long tradition of rebooting heroes and altering continuity. It's part of the reason why I lost interest in reading them when I was younger. D.C. Comics used to explain it all by saying there were multiple earths with different versions of the heroes on each of them. That's the best way to think of this movie. A different, but similar tale of a boy named Peter Parker who became the amazing Spider-man.
