Cast
Andrew Garfield, Emma Stone, Rhys Ifans, Sally Field, Martin Sheen.
Eh? Another Spidey film already?
Yep, a mere five years after Spiderman 3, there’s a new web-slinging flick hitting our screens. However, this ain’t a sequel as there’s a new trend in Hollywood and it’s called a reboot, if you please. Gone are Tobey Maguire and Kirsten Dunst, in are real-life couple, Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone, with Stone portraying Gwen Stacy, Peter Parker’s college girlfriend.
What’s it all about then?
This is a re-telling of the first film from 10 years ago and there are enough differences to make it worth seeing. The leads are great. Garfield is quintessentially dorky, as he should be, but he’s not as wet as Maguire’s Peter Parker. Stone’s Gwen Stacy just does more than Dunst’s Mary Jane, this automatically makes her better, and Ifan’s baddie is genuinely unsettling. This film has more heart than all 3 of the earlier films so it’s much easier to invest in, despite the fact it’s only 10 years since this story was told. It looks more real and doesn’t have annoying, unnecessary sub-plots that the first film did. My favourite difference here though was the fact that Garfield’s Spidey is less afraid to admit his true identity. He reveals this pretty early on to Gwen and her copper dad. Oh, and while it’s darker than it’s predecessor, it’s also funnier too.
What’s wrong here then?
The action sequences look less cartoon-like than in the 2002 film but with that positive, there is also the negative that they are not that exciting. Is the former a symptom of the latter? Quite possibly. On top of this, it’s just hard to understand why it was deemed necessary to re-tell this story a mere decade after it was originally told.
Verdict
I did enjoy this film, probably more so than the original. It’s more mature, more heartfelt and I preferred the leads’ here, however it just seems a bit unnecessary. Perhaps it should have been called ‘The Largely Enjoyable but a bit Pointless Spider-Man’. Doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue, admittedly but it’s a bit more on the money than the adjective it does use. Rubbish this reboot at your peril!
This can also be found on my own website.
http://thescottkingshow.blog.com/2012/07/04/the-amazing-spider-man-12a/
