The Amazing Spider-Man - Review
The Amazing Spider-Man opens this week for the 4th of July holiday. I think it's going to do really well in the box office and it will be worth it to watch.
I found a few flaws in the plot, but this didn't detract from the overall enjoyment of the movie. This reboot of the franchise only re-enforced how beloved a character Spider-Man is. His story can be told many times, with different villains and even love interests, and you would still find yourself rooting for him every single time.
One of the big problems in the plot was the handling of Uncle Ben's storyline. It started out with such dramatic promise with Andrew Garfield giving a very emotional portrayal of a tortured Peter Parker after being abandoned by his parents. Just when things could actually go somewhere in terms of Peter's character development, Uncle Ben was forgotten and the plot veered in a completely different direction! It was as if he never existed throughout the rest of the movie. I found this a bit disappointing since Uncle Ben is the source of Spider-Man's purpose as a hero: "With great power comes great responsibility." That just didn't resonate as soon as the writers decided that they'll go straight up action and deal with other characters. It was like two movies attached to each other without a clean transition.
I couldn't handle the suspension of disbelief that Emma Stone is 17 years old and in high school. It just didn't work for me. She however is gorgeous and is a perfect Gwen Stacy, the way she was drawn in the comic books. As a college-aged Gwen, she would have been perfect, but she lost me when she declared: "I'm seventeen." No you're not Emma Stone. I personally prefer Gwen as the love interest of Peter Parker compared to Mary Jane Watson, so I can't really complain that much.
As someone familiar with New York City -- and Midtown since I live here -- it was a bit jarring to see scenes which were obviously not filmed here or are poor recreations. A lot of stuff like parking meters, storefronts, taxi cabs, police cars, subway stations (6th Ave and 39th???), and actual buildings just didn't belong in New York. Marvel's The Avengers did a much better job.
Peter Parker also had "free access" to everything in this movie. He entered corporate headquarters and met with the police chief with ease. Maybe white teenagers can actually do that, who knows. Oh, and the sewers in the movie were VERY CLEAN with clear running water. That kinda lost me too.
Overall however, I enjoyed the movie. Andrew Garfield is a great Peter Parker and Emma Stone is gorgeous (I can say that again right?) The 3-D effects specially with the spider webs and Spidey gliding across the screen were awesome.
Spider-Man is such a great character and this movie is hard not to like quite frankly even with the flaws. Thankfully, this reboot does a much better job than the disaster that was Spider-Man 3 in 2007.
Oh, and if you don't have time to watch the movie, then just watch a supercut of 25-minutes of previews. That's pretty much the entire movie right there minus the special effects -- that's how predictable the plot was.
Rating: 3.5/5