The Amazing Spiderman: REVIEW

Although I was one of the many fans who attended The Amazing Spiderman's midnight premiere on Monday night, I can honestly say I was mainly enticed to do so because of Andrew Garfield's presence in the movie. He has been a crush of mine ever since he got worldwide fame for his role as Eduardo in Fincher's The Social Network and I went into the movie Monday night more interested in his performance than the movie as a whole. However, I was pleasantly surprised and can now say, bias aside, it is a movie worth seeing. Sure, it was no Avengers, as Joss Whedon recently set the bar insanely high, but Marc Webb did a great job directing this comic book adaptation.

Only ten years after Raimi's Spiderman came out, Sony rebooted the series and, as written on The Amazing Spiderman's Facebook page, plan on making another trilogy. A daring task, many would say. However, Webb did a great job differentiating the two movies. Garfield is a much more free spirited, witty and cocky Spiderman that instantly draws the fans in. Not to mention, he is much better looking. Sorry, Tobey Maguire. In fact, the casting as a whole was fantastic. Martin Sheen played a great Uncle Ben, and Emma Stone, Rhys Ifans and Denis Leary also gave notable performances.


The Amazing Spiderman begins with an hour long telling of the origin story of Spiderman. Peter Parker is a nerd who is not very popular in school, he has a pretty love interest, he goes to Oscorp and gets bitten by a spider, Martin Sheen paraphrases "with great power comes great responsibility", Peter's spite at someone is the cause for Uncle Ben's death, et cetera. This movie has the same key elements of the old Spiderman movie, but it is still somehow fascinating and well done. Plus, there is also an added level of danger because Gwen Stacey (Peter's love interest) is the daughter of the Chief of Police, and sees Spiderman as a threat. Though there is a lot of exposition before we get into the action, the movie is never slow. There are so many clever jokes and adorable romance scenes that the wait isn't so long. Eventually we meet the antagonist of the movie, The Lizard (and everyone in the theater simultaneously has an "oh shit" moment when they discover it's identity). The suspense leading up to the final scene is insane because it's uncertain how it will turn out for our hero, and the eventual confrontation between Peter and The Lizard is a lot better than Spiderman's with the Green Goblin ten years prior, thanks to technology improvements.

All in all, The Amazing Spiderman is a solid summer action movie. It has it's flaws (the way Peter gets the idea for the Spiderman suit is kind of odd), but the pros far outweigh the cons. There are a lot of laughs, a few tears perhaps and the movie is loaded with heart. Even though a reboot was not necessary so soon, The Amazing Spiderman is still an enjoyable movie to watch. Definitely go out and see it, if you haven't already.

Rating: 83 percent.