Amazing Spider Man PG-13
The first Spider Man movies came out only 10 years ago with Sam Raimi's version, but a lackluster third installment some years ago turned Sony from doing any more with him, even though it was the studio that decided on taking the mutiple villain approach, Sandman and Venom, and making Spidey filled with angst. Thew new one though looked to be another even more emotional, darker version of the other series, a reboot set in New York with as brooding 20 something due playing a teenager, Andrew Garfield. The director is ironically named Webb. The story starts out with clumsy Peter Parker in high school, encountering bullies, getting his butt handed to him, and striving to get the girl, this time Emma Stone's Gwen Stacy. (She's not a teen anymore either). So it's like Spider Boy to Men, or something. The Ozcorp lab is holding a field trip which Parker attends to hang out with Stacy, and find out about his lost parents, from the slippery one armed scientist dude there, Kurt Conners. The lab does genetic cross breeding and some of it involves special spiders, as radioactive spiders nowadays sounds silly, and Peter crashes into the room with them to accidentally pick up one, that later bites him. Seemingly overnight he is transformed into a slick footed, fast paced, extrovert motormouth, where he is able to best bad guys. After his Uncle Ben is killed, (Martin Sheen), Aunt May sees to him, (Sally Fields). Then Connors uses the green goo (like that in Resident Evil) to turn himself into a lizard man, which sends him on a trashing spree. The Lizard is born! (If he turned cold blooded he would not be able to do that stuff). Now Spider Man must suit up to fight crime, and oput on his mask so the criminals don't know he's Peter Parker. The run ins with the Lizard on a bridge, in a subway, through a school, and on top of the big black clad glassy corporate tower, bring action scenes into an otherwise tart drama about boy with parent issues meets girl with a father who's a gruff cop who has issues. It could have been dreadful, but it was actually good. The angst is played well partly because Garfield is a more convincing actor than McGuire. A times the mood swing elements almost would attract the Twilight crowd, which was likely the idea, and plenty of people enjoyed it in theaters, midweek for the July 4 weekend. Worth owning on DVD. It's not the Avengers, but it does do what it set out to do, revitalize the franchise. Some might argue it wasn't necessary. Really with the actual ages of the leads, this could have been part 4 and just left out the angst, but then it would just be another same seeming action movie. So it is good.
Review by Adam Browne
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