Review of Spider-Man (1977) by Franco P — 04 Oct 2018

The Amazing Spider-Man is the first theatrical Spider-Man reboot, the film was originally going to be titled 'Spider-Man 4 - The Amazing Spider-Man' but Sony decided to make the film not be apart of Sam Raimi's universe. The Amazing Spider-Man is Marc Webb's first Spidey film. It received generally good reviews as critics praised the well chosen cast. It had a budget of $200-$230 and grossed 757.9 million USD worldwide making back over three times its original budget.

The plot is fictional and is based on the Spider-Man comics written by Stan Lee, who makes his best cameo appearance ever as the school librarian. Abandoned by his parents and raised by his aunt and uncle, teenager Peter Parker is trying to find out who he is and exactly what his feelings are for his first crush, Gwen Stacy. But Peter is bitten by a radioactive spider and is turned into Spider-Man. When Peter finds a mysterious briefcase that was his father's, he pursues a quest to solve his parents' disappearance. His search takes him to Oscorp and the lab of Dr. Curt Connors, setting him on a collision course with Connors' alter ego, the Lizard.

The real reason this new incarnation of the web slinger works so well is because Andrew Garfield gave it his all as Spidey. Andrew Garfield was great as the web head due to his love for Spider-Man, a character Garfield kept dressing up as when he was a child. Spider-Man / Peter Parker is the one of the most relatable movie characters and that is what makes him such a great character. The chemistry between him and Gwen Stacy (played terrifically by Emma Stone) works really well, thanks to some well-written dialogue. Their chemistry works better than Tobey Maguire and Kirsten Dunst's chemistry as they aren't constantly arguing and Gwen and Peter have a much more richer and compelling relationship.

There are loads more aspects to discuss so be care if you haven't seen The Amazing Spider-Man, beware as there will be a healthy sum of juicy spoilers remarked ahead. Unlike Sam Raimi's Spider-Man trilogy but similarly like Christopher Nolan's Batman Begins, The Amazing Spider-Man has a much more darker tone that surprisingly and somehow works well. The tone is constantly dark all the way through the film and even though it's just comic book fun, there are no tonal shifts. Not only that but the film does revisit some of Sam Raimi's plot points (that didn't bother me), however, the film does have a different plot than Spider-Man (2002) with a different villain played marvelously by Rhys Ifan. The villain is the best big screen Spider-Man villain we have seen since Willem Dafoe's Green Goblin. Curt Conner's / The Lizard's motivations were there but they weren't as obvious as Doctor Octopus' in Spider-Man 2. The reason he wanted to mutate all of NY into Lizards because Curt Connor's wanted to make "A World Without Weakness." Not only that but most of the aspects that Sam Raimi got wrong, The Amazing Spider-Man got right, Peter/Spider-Man was quippy and the film was overall quite comedic despite it's shady tone, the web shooters were finally included after being cut from the original Spider-Man trilogy and the romance arc was much more compelling and Andrew Garfield actually improved over Tobey Maguire.

The second thing to mention is the cinematography, it has a wide range of terrific shots featuring a scene where the camera is set in first person angle and we see Spider-Man swinging through New York for the first time in his new Spider-Man suit (that I'll discuss later on). However, you can only be fully immersed in this experience if you're watching in IMAX 3D, and that's kind of a bummer. However there is much more to enjoy here including fun and exciting action sequences, web shooters, Peter Parker being your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man, great CGi shots, Diego Leary who makes a great Captain Stacy due to his strong motivations, extremely emotional scenes, well written dialogue and brilliant chemistry between Peter and the supporting characters, not to mention a substantial blend of humour and exposition and appreciable performances from the 'amazing' cast ensemble. Also the scene where Peter gets bitten by the spider was much better than Sam Raimi's interpretation because Marc Webb captured this scene splendidly by letting Peter be the only one in the room full of radioactive Spiders. Marc Webb's scene was better as it felt more realistic and was better written than Raimi's scene.

But like most films, The Amazing Spider-Man does have its fair share of flaws. The biggest flaw of the film is the extremely noticeable plot holes, most plot holes slip by most moviegoers unless they're major. At the end of the first act, Uncle Ben is tragically killed, which is played out brilliantly by Andrew Garfield and because Michael Sheen's portrayal of Uncle Ben was very engaging and rich, this scene had a surprising amount of impact on the audience and made us care more for Aunt May and Peter because of the impact us viewers felt. However the quest to find Uncle Ben's killer was shortly abandoned and that left a large, disappointing question. However, there was another plot hole that was answered in one of the deleted scenes. Rajit Ratha was left on the Brooklyn Bridge in a taxi that was only hanging onto the bridge's wall via a web after the Lizard attacked him but what happened to Ratha after his encounter with the Lizard?, we do see what happens to him in a deleted scene though but it would of been nice to have it included in the final cut. The other flaw featured in Marc Webb's Spider-Man film is the dramatic change to the line "With great power comes great responsibility." This line is very iconic among comic fans so why change it to "Your father believed that...that if you could do good things for other people, you had a moral obligation to do those things. That's what at stake here. Not choice, responsibility" just because Sam Raimi used the iconic line.

The last thing I am going to speak about is the costume, the costume was a great costume but NOT a good Spider-Man costume. The lenses were blue instead of black and on the Spandex suit, the blue overshadowed the red. The costume looked stunning but it wasn't a good Spider-Man costume as it missed all the key features from the original costume from the comics. Sam Raimi's costume did look quite comic accurate, probably as Sam designed it himself.

It's fast, it's enjoyable, it's emotional and exciting, The Amazing Spider-Man will rank among the best Spider-Man films ever made.

Grade A Minus - A Dark Web of Fun.