Bring on the new trilogy! The Amazing Spider-Man reboots the Spidey franchise with new depth, better action and, most importantly, real dramatic subtlety. This new film by director Mark Webb makes the old Sam Raimi trilogy look like a Saturday Morning Cartoon.  I don’t think I’ll ever be able to look at those old movies the same way again. Especially since lead actors Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone (as Peter Parker and Gwen Stacy) make the old couple, Tobey Maguire and Kirsten Dunst, look like community theater.

I had my reservations about a rebooted, darker Spider-Man film, but this new movie blew me away. The Amazing Spider-Man may be just a redo of the classic origin story, but it does it so much better than the previous film that it more than justifies the new direction.

Movie rating: 5/5: Great!

This is definitely a Spider-Man film. Despite most of the action taking place at night, giving the film a much darker look than its predecessors, The Amazing Spider-Man hits all the right notes to capture Spidey on the big screen. It’s got humor, it’s got costumed action, it’s got the overwhelming sense of responsibility and guilt, and it’s got a wonderful juxtaposition between Peter Parker living an ordinary life with his Aunt May vs. flying through the city in a blue and red costume.

But this is first and foremost Peter Parker’s movie. The focus is on how Peter grows as a man and becomes the hero we all love, and that may be my favorite part of the movie.

Peter doesn’t just become the heroic Spider-Man after Uncle Ben is killed. There are gradual stages that he goes through that change him from an angry, guilt-ridden teenager into the hero who saves New York. That’s the subtlety I mentioned above. Following that path and seeing the growth in Peter’s character made for a wonderful film. By the end, Spidey is a hero, the bad guy is defeated and we have ourselves a new franchise! I can’t wait for more!

Spoilers and more review after the jump!

I was a big fan of the Sam Raimi Spider-Man films, and was disappointed when plans for Spider-Man 4 fell through. When Sony then announced that they were going to reboot the franchise, I had my reservations. The story goes that if Sony stops making Spider-Man films, then the licensing rights revert back to Marvel and Disney. The same rule applies to Fox and the X-Men films. So I was worried that Sony was just going to cobble together some crappy Spidey film just to hold on to the rights. Movie executives are more than capable of being that evil.

But then I read something online, and I don’t remember where, that pointed out one simple truth: surely there is more than one human being on the planet who has the vision to make a good Spider-Man film.

And immediately I decided to give Mark Webb a chance. Who was Sam Raimi to be the only guy capable of making a Spider-Man film? It’s not like there’s ever only been one writer for Spider-Man comics. And I liked Webb’s previous film (500) Days of Summer. Sure enough, Webb did an amazing job. He alters some of the classic story a little, but I have long since overcome any nerd rage I might feel at the changes in story from comic to movie.

What’s great is that Webb’s changes still do a fantastic job of capturing the essence of Spider-Man. I’m mostly talking about the murder of Uncle Ben by the criminal that Peter fails to stop. Instead of going the whole route with the amateur wrestling and the celebrity arrogance, everything happens in a small convenience store and on a sidewalk. Not as flashy, but it’s still done so well. And he’s not even Spider-Man yet. It’s an arrogant and cocky Peter Parker who decides not to stop the criminal, with disastrous results.

But fantastic long term results

And therein lies the whole movie: Peter Parker. How does this gangly, good-natured kid turn into a super-hero? Actor Andrew Garfield is phenomenal in the role, both as Peter and as Spider-Man. I never liked Tobey Maguire, especially when he was behind the mask. He wasn’t funny and his quips sucked. But I lived with it because that’s who we got. Garfield is great. He’s sufficiently dorky, but very relatable. You believe in his heroism, whether he’s standing up for another kid getting picked on at school or he’s pleading with the police to let him go so that he can save the day. Both great scenes.

My favorite part of the movie was watching Peter learn the lessons he needed to become a superhero. I didn’t even realize what I was seeing until we were in the thick of it. After Uncle Ben is killed and Peter makes a mask to hunt down his killer (which doesn’t happen in the same night, like in the comics and the previous movie), the debuting Spider-Man is kind of a jerk. He mocks the criminals, toys with them, and then messes with the cops. He’s a total jerkass! It’s only after Peter gets scolded by Police Captain George Stacy (an amazing Dennis Leary) that he begins to realize that there’s a big difference between beating up punks and actually helping people.

Not just an asshole

And then when Spidery-Man actually does save someone – that kid on the bridge – he’s put Stacy’s lesson into practice, and he learns what he must do to truly be a hero. It was a fantastic emotional journey, fully justifying the retelling of the origin story, and Garfield did wonderfully.

Having an amazing co-star helps. Enough cannot be said about the brilliance and beauty of Emma Stone as Gwen Stacy.

Especially the beauty

I’m not the first person on the Internet to say that Emma Stone is awesome. Just watch any of her movies. But she does such a great job as the best friend/love interest to our hero. She’s smart, she’s witty, and she’s not just a damsel in distress; Gwen actually helps save the day in the end. And the dialogue between the two stars is so snappy and perfect, some of it must have been improvised because it just feels so natural. Going back and rewatching Tobey Maguire and Kirsten Dunst interact is going to be painful. Peter and Gwen are the heart of the film, and Garfield and Stone absolutely carry it from beginning to end. They are just so adorable together.

Considering Gwen’s legendary fate in the comics, I’m actually saddened by the prospect of losing Emma Stone. Webb and company are just going to have to rewrite comic book lore.

Everybody lives!

But enough talk about the actors, what about the actual movie? It actually sticks pretty close to traditional Spider-Man canon.

A young Peter Parker was kind of abandoned by his parents, Richard and Mary Parker. While they were barely mentioned in the first movies, and rarely in the comics, here the parents are a bigger deal and the impetuous to get the whole movie rolling. Peter’s dad was some kind of mad scientist who was working on cross-species genetics, basically giving the traits of certain animals to human beings. More on that in a sec. Peter is left to live with his kindly Aunt May and Uncle Ben, played by Sally Field and Martin Sheen. Both do a fine job, though Field doesn’t have the gravitas of the older Aunt May from the other films. She’s also very sidelined after Ben dies, but then this movie isn’t really about Peter and Aunt May, it’s about Peter and Gwen.

One day, Peter finds his father’s old science notes, and this leads him to track down an old colleague, Dr. Curt Connors, who works at Oscorp. Ever since Peter’s parents died in an accident (or were killed by Oscorp), Connors has been trying to finish their work alone. Though I find myself asking what he was doing for the past 15 years. If Richard Parker had the secret algorithm all this time, was Connors just desperately trying out failed experiment after failed experiment? And a big deal is made that Norman Osborn is dying, and needs Connor’s to succeed. Has Norman been dying for 15 years?

He kept himself busy designing Power Ranger costumes

At any rate, Peter brings his father’s old notes to Connors, and together they crack the secret of cross-species genetics. Connors lost an arm in some kind of tragedy years ago, and he wants to graft into his own DNA a reptile’s ability to regrow limbs. When Oscorp starts tightening the screws, Connors desperately uses the new serum on himself and becomes the rampaging Lizard! He starts causing all sorts of trouble in the city when he gets out of control, but he continues to experiment until he can keep his intelligence while in Lizard form. However, this is also driving him mad, and he somehow gets the idea to turn the entire city into Lizards…for some reason.

All super-villains want world domination, right?

This super-villain scheme comes out of nowhere. Frankly, I was not too sold on the Lizard. Connors is sufficiently creepy and driven, but he lacks the same depth that Peter Parker gets in this film. The visuals were good when he is a rampaging monster, but he never looked convincing when he actually started talking in that weird, flat reptile face. Lizard in the comics had a snout, and it looked awesome. Movie lizard looks dumb. Plus he’s naked for most of the movie, which just isn’t a good look. They should have kept him in the big, white lab coat, because that, at least, has some visual style than just a big, scaly, naked guy.

I also never bought the bonding between Connors and Peter. It just never clicked for me, I guess. I understood Peter’s feelings of responsibility in stopping the Lizard, but more so because he had powers that the cops didn’t have. So he was the only one who could contend with the beast. And contend he did! The fight scenes between Spider-Man and the Lizard are great! They’re very physical and very exciting. Did Tobey Maguie’s Spider-Man ever fight this much? I don’t think the earlier movies had fight scenes this good. And the climactic battle with Spider-Man and Capt. Stacy vs. the Lizard was great! Definitely an awesome ending.

Spider-Man is not alone!

And while we’re on the subject of the fights, The Amazing Spider-Man made fantastic use of his webbing! Of all things, this stuck out to me. In the earlier films, Peter used his webs to swing, catch stuff and maybe shut somebody’s mouth. But in this film, every punch Spidey throws has him adding webbing to the mix, using it to try and tie up the Lizard. He makes a real web to try and find the Lizard in the sewer, he cocoons the Lizard in webbing at one point. He just seems to do a lot more with the webbing, and I liked that.

This review is getting pretty long, so I’ll wrap it up with a few quick points. I really liked the actor who played Flash Thompson.  Chris Zylka does a fine job with a low key performance as the school bully. And he had me thinking about how much of a cartoon character the old Flash was in the earlier films, with his big eyes and spiked hair. Plus I’m not ashamed to admit that Zylka and Garfield had me tearing up in their short scene after Uncle Ben died. A combination of my own daddy issues and loving it when a bad guy can show compassion had me breaking. Flash was a much better character in this film.

“It’s not your fault…”

But The Amazing Spider-Man isn’t 100 % perfect.

I have two nitpicks about this movie, and the first is the huge plothole in how Peter Parker gets his spider-powers. Peter finds out that his dad used to work with Connors, who now works at Oscorp. So Peter goes to the trouble of lying his way past Oscorp security to get up to the research labs. He even meets and talks briefly with Connors. But rather than following Connors to his office to reveal that he’s Richard Parker’s son – the entire reason he went there in the first place – Peter instead decides to sneak off and break into a restricted portion of the lab. He saw a sign that matched his father’s old science notes. But the sign could mean anything. There is absolutely no reason for Peter to break into the locked, restricted labs. Who does that?

Once he’s inside, Peter  continues to just wander around and poke at stuff without a care in the world, eventually finding a room filled with spiders spinning a giant mechanical web. It’s only slightly explained that these spiders are producing the web fluid, which is designed by Oscorp, and which Peter will later use as Spider-Man. No explanation is given that these are somehow genetically altered spiders. They’re just a bunch of spiders in a big science room doing unexplained science things. Then when Peter touches the web, this somehow causes the machinery to just dump spiders on him. Why? What would dumping spiders accomplish in the web fluid-producing experiment?

One of these spiders bites him and gives him spider-powers. But if these spiders are being used to produce web fluid, what do they have to do with Connor’s cross-species genetics stuff? Peter seems to indicate there’s a link. But why are the two experiments connected? Why do these web-producing spiders have the ability to give someone spider-powers? Also, it’s not like Peter’s intrusion gets this experiment shut down. So these spiders are still theoretically spinning their web even after he gets his powers. And how long were they spinning that web before he showed up?

Basically there are thousands, if not millions, of these spiders just hanging out in this big science room. Each one is, theoretically, capable of giving someone spider-powers if bitten. So Peter Parker is no longer an isolated case. Anybody could wander into that room and get spiders dumped on them. Why has it never happened before or since? Questions, questions, questions!

Forget questions, enjoy kicking!

As for my second nitpick, why not just cast Norman Osborn? It’s obvious that they want to use him as a villain in a future film. But instead they obscure a picture of him, and have Irrfan Khan play a nobody character named Rajit Ratha to act as Osborn’s crony. He does nothing that Osborn couldn’t do himself, and then disappears halfway through the film. If you want to use Norman Osborn as a villain in a later film, why not  use this film to start building his character? Wasted opportunity, in my opinion.

But to wrap it up, I loved this film. The action was great, the superheroics were awesome and the dramatic journey of Peter Parker was the absolute best part. The Amazing Spider-Man fully justifies its existence as a reboot, and surpasses the previous films. I am definitely looking forward to more movies in this new series.