The Amazing Spider-Man

Our friendly neighbourhood superhero is back in this new reboot version "The Amazing Spiderman". This latest offering is directed by Marc Web and offers something fairly different if not the same from Sam Rami's Spiderman trilogy. Will there be tears of joy or sorrow?

Only true love's first kiss could turn him back into an Ogre

The movie starts off with the new improve (different?) Peter Parker (Andrew Garfield). still in high-school, slightly rebellious but still open to the odd beatings here and there. This time around his eye candy is Gwen Stacey (Emma Stone) who is also in his school but soon we will discover also works for Oscorp. This company is an integral parot of this Spiderman universe as not only do most of the baddies seem to come from here, but it is also part of the reasoning behind his missing parents. Not too long after he is eventually bitten by a spider and gains supernatural powers (dejavu?) Peter Parker has no choice but to do battle with The Lizard (Rhys Ifans) who just wanted to grow his arm back using a serum but ended up becoming a human size iguana.

Halloween night always invited trouble..

I tell you what you can get out of this Spidey. It’s fresh, it’s new, it’s hip it’s up-to-date. That’s probably one of the few reasons to rebooting the franchise eventhough it hasn’t really been that long. Andrew Garfield plays a slightly different type of Peter Parker but one which maybe younger audiences will be able to relate to more instead of a nerdy Tobey Maguire (who in my opinion is the perfect Peter Parker). There is also more chemistry between Andrew and Emma and it’s no surprise. You can genuinely feel that Gwen is more in love with Peter Parker than she is of his alter-personality Spidey. The fight scenes are impressive as well as the fast paced movement of the film. The use of his Spidey web-shooters goes back to the original storyline of The Amazing Spiderman Universe. This is what Webb had to say about the shooters:

"I had a meeting with Stand Lee and we talked about the web-shooters. I was curious about the incarnation of them [because] of course in the previous films [they went away from them] and we wanted to reestablished ourselves. That was one thing but the other thing was the fact that the web-shooters were able to dramatize Peter's intellect and i thought that was really cool."

Dr Connors freestyle swimming took a turn for the worst

I have to admit that I did have a problem with this Peter Parker. They did update Peter for this one (more techy, skateboard, attitude) but for me he did sort of turn into a bit of an arse every time he puts the mask on. When Tobey became Spiderman he was still the same guy, whereas this one he just became attitude boy. The storyline was a bit shallow as we didn't really feel for Peter and his new found responsibility. There will always be direct comparisons to the previous Spidey films and in some way I just don't see how this new improved one can be any better than the old one. Things may look prettier in this one but this version actually makes the old one look better. Whichever might be your fancy, you have to admit that at least the old one had more weight to the story than this one. Either way, it is probably gearing up for a 2nd film so maybe then the knives will be sharper.


The Amazing Spiderman is a likeable film and you will end up liking this new improved version of the franchise. It is different and perhaps that might be the main reason for most of the glowing reviews online.

Ratings – 3/5