A decent series reboot

Rating: 7/10 (23 December 2012)

It was only ten years ago that Spider-Man, the first cinematic adaptation of one of Marvel's crown jewel characters, was released to generally strong critical notices and boffo box-office. After two additional entries, the 2nd being another hit, the 3rd dropping a bit in quality, Sony Pictures and original helmer Sam Raimi couldn't see eye to eye on future entries, so Raimi walked away, and Sony elected to follow in the footsteps of James Bond and Batman and "reboot" the franchise only five years since the last entry. This would prove to be a controversial choice with many (I have at least one friend who said he had no interest in seeing the reboot), but I was willing to give this new entry the benefit of the doubt. In general, I can say I was glad I did. The new entry, titled The Amazing Spider-Man, is a fairly strong film for the most part. Sporting a good turn in the lead by Andrew Garfield and an expanded focus on the relationship between Peter and his first girlfriend, Gwen Stacy, The Amazing Spider-Man manages to vindicate itself from those who might doubt it.
The Amazing Spider-Man does re-hash the origin story that most are probably familiar with at this point, albeit with some new twists on the material. In this incarnation, Peter Parker is left with his Uncle Ben (Martin Sheen) and Aunt May (Sally Field) under mysterious circumstances by his parents in the middle of the night in the opening scenes of the film. When the narrative jumps forward to the present, Peter is a gawky outsider, imagined as both a science nerd but also a bit of a teenage rebel, riding a skateboard and slightly flaunting authority. When he discovers a briefcase of his father's in the basement, Peter begins asking questions about his father's work, which leads him to Oscorp, the company his father worked for. There, he encounters Dr. Chuck Connors (Rhys Ifans), his father's former partner, and the two begin working to complete Peter's father's work. However, the research into genetic regeneration has a dark side, as it would appear that it is intended to be used by Norman Osborne, the unseen head of the company, as a tool to help save his life, and who seems to know something about the reason Peter's parents disappeared.
Upon his first visit to Oscorp, Peter happens into a room where testing is being performed on spiders, and one manages to bite him. The result, of course, is that the spider bite imbues him with extraordinary powers: strength, speed and a remarkable ability to scale buildings as if his hands and feet had tape bonded to them. After Uncle Ben is killed in an accidental shooting, Peter begins to use these abilities, along with a formula for advanced webbing his father developed, to search out the criminal responsible for Ben's death. Peter begins to expand his relationship with Gwen Stacy (Emma Stone), a classmate who is also an intern at Oscorp. He also begins to wonder about Dr. Connors, who is acting strangely and, when faced with the shutdown of his research, injects himself with the genetic formula, transforming himself into a creature that becomes known as the Lizard, and this experience sends him on a path to madness that Peter must try to stop.
The biggest weaknesses of The Amazing Spider-Man are, unsurprisingly, the revisiting of the same material that was brought to life 10 years ago. Most audience members are familiar with the spider bite, the moments of Peter discovering his powers, and his hunt for Ben's killer. It also doesn't help that in the years since the release of the first Spider-Man, countless other super hero film adaptations have seen the light of day and mined similar material. At this juncture, the origin story plot has really started to show both its age and its overexposure. That being said, The Amazing Spider-Man does approach most of these moments in a different vein than the prior entry. A key difference is to focus on Peter's budding relationship with Gwen Stacy, Peter's first girlfriend in the comics but a character that was relegated to cameo status in Spider-Man 3. Garfield and Stone bring a degree of chemistry and involvement to the relationship and this element of the film feels stronger than the Peter/Mary Jane pairing in the earlier films.
Garfield also proves a capable lead in the role of Peter. While Tobey Maguire largely focused on portraying Peter as a somewhat shy nerd, for lack of a better term, Garfield's performance enhances Peter's nervousness and captures the awkwardness of the teenage years, stammering in his dialogue at times and giving Peter a degree of uncertainty in his moments with Gwen. It isn't necessarily better than Maguire's turn, but it is sufficiently different to not feel like a rehash. Stone proves a bit more fetching and strong willed than Kirsten Dunst's Mary Jane, and her realization of Gwen is certainly the stronger female presence when compared to Dunst.
The Amazing Spider-Man also excels on the technical front. The visual effects that bring the action sequences to life are impressive, to say the least, and the film benefits from the decade of development in technology since the first Spider-Man. The moments in which Spider-Man soars through the city and faces off against the Lizard are eye-opening, and prove viscerally involving. James Horner's music score is also a standout, providing a fairly traditional symphonic score in a day and age where so many films are moving towards a sound design influenced musical environment.
There is no denying that The Amazing Spider-Man arrives with quite a bit of baggage attached, and it isn't completely successful at slaying all of the downfalls of revisiting this material, but for the most part, this entry works, and proves, like 1998's The Incredible Hulk, that there is more than one decent modern interpretation of a traditional comic book hero.