Cinema review: The Amazing Spiderman

Spidey’s origin story told yet another time.

As the rest of the internet I was annoyed by the announcement, back in 2010, of this Spiderman reboot. I wasn’t at the level of the death treats throwing masses but I must admit that I declared loudly many many times that I didn’t want to see this movie.

The very idea of a reboot always annoys me. Maybe it’s a psychological thing, the subtle message “All that you watched before didn’t count because we are starting again”, the “You gonna pay to see the same story twice”, I think you got the drill.

Of course there is the argument that with enough time technology gets better, that a new era could approach the same story from a different angle, and here is where they rubbed everybody wrong.

It was like 1 week after Sam Raimi Spiderman 4 was canned that they announced the reboot. It was, for us unwashed masses of the internet, too soon.

Well, I’m happy to say that I was proven wrong. The smart heads up there at Sony Headquarter really had another take of the character.

The big trick was to focus on Peter youthness. This Peter never leaves school, neither he gets that job at the Daily Bugle, he remains an awkward teenager during the whole movie.

It works, Sam Raimi version breezed through Peter Parker life losing many nuances in the middle. This Peter Parker is a much more relatable character.

A lot of the merit of course goes to Andrew Garfield, an incredibly youth looking guy, at 29 plays believably a teenager. He and Emma Stone develop a rom com style romance that is in many ways better than the boring offerings from fully fledged rom coms. The director, Marc Webb, whose debut feature was the critically lauded “500 days of Summer” probably was also very important in this regard.

The fight and the various special effects scenes, a point where Sam Raimi’s version was groundbreaking, are also very good. All done in a very professional and engaging way.

The plot is that famous origin story so they can’t escape that feeling of déjà vu, but enough things where changed and remixed that it’s watchable even for us old comic book fans. There are many plot points that don’t hold water if watched too closely but they are all hidden fairly well so it’s not too hard to pretend they are not there.

Conclusion: An excellent superhero story able to hold the interest of the non fans.