The Amazing Spider-Man (2012)

Better do this before I forget. I'm sure you all remember the previous Spider-Man films starring Toby Maguire as the title character, Kirsten Durnst as Mary Jane, James Franco as Harry Osborn, etc, etc. Now, I liked all three films. The second one was probably my favourite in terms of action, though the first film did have my favourite film with Willem Dafoe as Norman Osborn/Green Goblin (No matter what the Nostalgia Critic says). And I did enjoy the third film...except for...that dance scene.

That dance scene essentially ruined the Sam Raimi Spider-Man franchise, resulting in Columbia studios rebooting the franchise. And causing Dylan Baker to lose his chance on playing the Lizard. And a complete recast. And setting. But is it for the better?

The reboot finds high school student Peter Parker (Andrew Garfield, who bizarrely looks believable as a high school student despite being 28) trying to find out what exactly happened to his parents (A story line I remember from the animated television series), attempting to woo Gwen Stacy (Emma Stone), and hunting the criminal who shot his Uncle Ben (Martin Sheen). His search for the truth of what happened to his parents lead him to Dr. Curt Conners (Now played by Rhys Ifans), whose experiments lead to Parker becoming Spider-Man, and lead to Conners becoming the Lizard. Oh, and Gwen's dad (Denis Leary...wait, Denis Leary, really? Cool) is hunting him down.

Now, I'll do acting first. Yes, the acting is great, marvelous in fact. Stone in particular delivers a great performance, while Garfield does give a believable performance as the shy nerd/confident superhero. Ifans gives a brilliant Jekyll and Hyde performance as Conners, showing us the conflict inside his mind. Martin Sheen also does a tremendous job as Uncle Ben, as does Sally Field as Aunt May, it's kind of sad that Sheen only has a short time on screen.

The plot is pulled off extremely well, from investigating Parker's parents, to high school, to the infamous spider bite. The film also pulls off its humor to great effect, it's not obvious or forced. There are some differences from the comic material, such as Parker refuses to help a shop keeper rather then a wrestling boss, yet this just means that this film is differentiating itself from the Raimi trilogy.

Really the only fault I have with this film, are the special effects. At times they can be disorienting, and most of the time they just look sooooooo fake. The problem I had with the first trailer for this film, was that it looked more like a video game than a film, and unfortunately I got that feeling from some scenes in the film. And then there's the lizard design. I REALLY didn't like it. The eyes and the Conners with lizard traits looked good I'll give them that, but the main design just didn't look right. The main problem is that it looked fake, it just looked awful. The lizard doesn't really wear his infamous lab coat either, I suppose that didn't help. Granted the fight scenes did look good.

But is it better than the other Spider-Man films? Yes in some places, no in others. The 'no' bit was the fact that I preferred the Green Goblin villain in the 2002 film than the lizard villain here, especially since they did seem to copy the Jekyll/Hyde relationship that Osborn/Goblin had. The Gwen Stacy character was better thought out in the 2012 film, played much better by Stone compared to Bryce Dallas Howard in 'Spider-Man 3', where she...to be honest, I don't really remember her at all. Wow she must have been bland. The same goes to Denis Leary's Captain Stacy compared to James Cromwell's, but that's mainly because Cromwell's was on screen for about five minutes, compared to Leary's character who was leading a crusade against Spider-Man for a majority of the film.

There was no J. Jonah Jameson, which means no J. K. Simmons. Martin Sheen and Cliff Robertson gave a pretty equal performance, neither were better or worse than the other. Heck, the 2012 film doesn't even use the infamous catchphrase "with great power, comes great responsibility", which was surprising but not bad. Now, was Garfield a better Spider-Man than Maguire. Yes. Yes he was. Garfield gives much more emotion to the character, compared to the same monotone that Maguire gives, no matter what the scene.

So, should you see the Spider-Man reboot? Yeah. Definitely. It's certainly one of the better Spider-Man films in recent years, probably the best one. Does it lack in quality that the others do? In effects, it sure does, but the film is terrific in all the other fields. It's definitely the greatest superhero film this ye...wait, 'The Avengers' and 'The Dark Knight Rises'...it's definitely the third greatest superhero film this year.