So I saw the Amazing Spiderman today. I watched it in 3D and, surprisingly, I didn’t get a headache and it was totally worth it. It was better than expected. Definitely not a bad film, plenty entertaining, but not as good as either Spiderman 1 or 2. Miles better than 3 though.
Andrew Garfield though was great as a Spiderman, liked him way more than Tobey Macguire and despite never having particularly like Emma Stone before (I think she’s way overrated), couldn’t help but like her in this. It was pretty wicked indeed! :) Andrew Garfield portrayed and embodied, Peter Parker with an A+. I love him just that much more now and I am happy for him with this one. I didn’t hate Tobey Maguire as Spiderman in the first franchise (he just really never fulfilled it, as the Spiderman I grew up with) , but Andrew respectively is just the better actor, even for Spiderman, in my strong opinion.
Rhys Ifans (who I’ll admit I’ve never heard of before) does a world class job of portraying Dr. Curt Connors/ The Lizard.The Lizard though was a pretty boring villain. I thought he was gonna be way more interesting, but he was actually barely in the movie (in Lizard form that is), and honestly didn’t do very much. I noticed there were quite few lizard scenes cut from the film that I know were originally going to be in the movie. Would've been a good idea I think to keep em in there, because as it stands, the Lizard pretty much sucked.
Denis Leary puts in a good performance as George Stacy, one you’ll remember for sure after you’ve left the theatre. Is it pure coincidence that he looks remarkably like Willem Defoe? Most likely. The only casting I really had issue with were of Peters aunt and uncle, Sally Field and Martin Sheen respectively. Martin did a standard job but personally I don’t think Sally Field is the right actress for the role.
If you’ve seen Spider-Man you know that Uncle Ben dies and you know that Peter lets it happen. What this film does so well is to do the origin story of not only Spider-Man but also Peter Parker in a way that the previous films seemed to lack. Peter never became a hugely fleshed out character in the original trilogy whereas in this film it seems there’s more characterization for all of the cast than in the 3 original films.
The entire story plays out almost exactly in the same order as the original film, but with a lot more thought and when it comes down to watching it you won’t be expecting the way Marc Webb manages to pull it off. The star of the story though is not only Peter Parkers transformation but the relationship between Dr. Curt Connors and Peter Parker. I liken it to the relationship between Dr. Otto Octavius and Peter in Spider-Man 2 and the way they play out the story is similar too with some excellent twists.
Best Parts:
Stan Lee cameo
Car Thief scene
Uncle Ben