The Amazing Spider-Man

    

Okay, to be perfectly honest, I wasn't too thrilled about this movie. I grew up on the Rami series and personally loved the trilogy, and couldn't WAIT for Spider-Man 4. Then Rami and most of the cast were dropped off. WONDERFUL! if only Tobey Mcguire and J.K Simmons had stayed on I would have had the same enthusiasm I had for Spider-Man 3. Now, having put out there that I was pre-biased against the series and HATED the fact that Andrew Garfield was Spider-Man and the fact that he is British didn't help things, you are probably wondering what changed my mind. Well, I went to see MIB3, and all that hate faded away. They played a trailer for it that made me swap back over to the infinite love I had for the original trilogy. Now, that being said, this and the Avengers series will be an epic fail if there's no Avengers 2 crossover seeing as Spider-Man IS AN AVENGER!!!!!! they also need to crossover The X-Men franchise BECAUSE WOLVERINE'S AN AVENGER! They cannot make Iron-Man 3 without Spider-Man because The Iron Patriot is Norman Osborn in a stolen/bootleg/whocares Iron-Man suit. Otherwise, it's just an Iron-Man painted like Captain America.

Okay, this movie was better than I thought it would be, and it trumps Rami's trilogy by a long shot.

                                Peter must have great stamina because in this scene after a fight with
                                        The Lizard I'm pretty sure there was bone showing.

I'll be honest, I was prejudiced against this movie because I grew up on the Raimi series. I hated the thought of a brit (Not that I have anything against them, I just don't like it when their regular accent bleeds over into the one they're acting as [Which never happens to Hugh Laurie as Dr. House come to think of it]) playing my favorite super-hero and I honestly didn't care for Gwen Stacy. then I watched the movie and all that changed. I thought the web-shooters were unnecessary, I though that Gwen Stacy's only purpose was to die, and that the new suit was trash.

Not so. Emma Stone (left) makes Gwen Stacy into everything Kirsten Dunst's Mary-Jane Watson wasn't, and Bryce Dallas Howard's Stacy could never be. Andrew Garfield (right) plays Spider-Man more convincingly than Tobey Mcguire ever could. he only slipped up on maintaining his American accent once, in a scene where he was sobbing, and even then he managed to blend it perfectly into the scene. Rhys Ifans (below) evokes the mad scientist expressions that always seemed to elude Dylan Baker in the role, yet he managed to portray a mad scientist in other, post Spider-Man roles.

                               This guy looks and sounds like the kind of guy who is desperate enough
                                                               to test something on himself

The theme of the movie is the same as most Spider-Man origins. Peter lets somebody go who eventually kills his uncle Ben. Martin Sheen(left) did a great job playing the soon to be deceased Benjamin Parker, and Sally Field plays Aunt May the way I imagined her in the novel adaption of Spider-Man.

  These two make a great onscreen couple and almost 

never cease to be funny when they interact

Denis Leary plays Captain George Stacy, the ill-fated father of Gwen. He's almost exactly how I imagined a younger Capt. Stacy would be, and much slicker in the role than James Cromwell was in Spider-Man 3.

The modernized and youthful version of this character makes 

you sorry about his fate

Chris Zylka (left) plays Eugene "Flash" Thompson. They have the same kind of odd, comradely/adversarial relationship they've always had. Unfortunately, it's hard to figure out why he does the things he does because they never really explained his character to us. Really, there's nothing wrong with it, it's just that you can't really tell what's going on with Thompson from one scene to the next seeing as he goes from archival to sort-of pal and back and forth a few times.  

All in all, the cast is excellent and they all perform much better than the Raimi series's cast did. I was hesitant about this at first, but after seeing it, I've got nothing but love for it.


Now, moving on from the cast, the cinematography was excellent in some places, and terrible in others. major contrast and fast camera movement caused lots of blurring and sometimes it was hard to see the action sequences because of it. the final scene on Oscorp Tower was stunning, to say the least, and in the final scene we are given hints at the next movie. All in all, the film is wonderful, the plot is thick, and has enough substance they could make another one this year and it would be great, but the blurring took away from the action sequences and they really need to find a way to fix that...

Now, as for the technology, I thought the web-shooters were a bit much (they could have just made his webs like Raimi's Spider-Man's and made them organic) but they served them well both as a plot device, and a gadget. I am pleased that he can stick to walls naturally rather than using some kind of gadget to do so. the gas dispersal device known as the (darn i can't remember at the moment) is the main plot prop used by The Lizard. It's a little outlandish, but not exactly hard to imagine. Most of the technology featured in the movie is either very new, Sci-Fi, prototype, or at some point of evolution that it isn't recognized as what it seems. It embodies exactly what is needed in order to make a world where The Lizard, Spider-Man, Dr. Octopus, and others can exist without any major stretch of the imagination. If the videogame is anything at all like the movie, it'll be stellar!


all in all, not exactly the Spider-Man i've always dreamed of, but close enough. i hope they make a sequel and i hope it's better than this one! it gets an 8.7* rating due to the blurriness.

all images courtesy of  http://www.sonypicturespublicity.com