What a letdown

Rating: 3/10 (14 March 2014)

Spider-Man is arguably the most well known superhero from Marvel comics and, let alone one of the most well known superheroes in general. In 2002, director Sam Raimi released his film about the superhero to general acclaim. In 2004, "Spider-Man 2" was released, once again receiving much praise and being called better than the original. When "Spider-Man 3" was released in 2007, the film received mixed reviews at best and ended the trilogy on a low note. Five years later, "The Amazing Spider-Man" was released as a reboot of the superhero's origin story, this time directed by Marc Webb and, like the first two films of the Raimi trilogy, received high appraise.
The plot of this film is a lot like the plot of the first Raimi movie. Peter Parker (Andrew Garfield) is bitten by a spider and gets spider- like powers from it. After Uncle Ben (Martin Sheen) is killed by a thief (Leif Gantvoort), Peter decides to use his powers to fight crime, though it takes a little more time to get to that point in this film than in the Raimi film. As a superhero origin story, it is nothing too special, but it works. The problem is that all of the trailers for this movie promised it being the untold story, which we never see. It is set up right at the beginning of the film and then forgotten about.
The biggest problem that weighs the film down comes from none other than our main protagonist Peter Parker. I have not seen Andrew Garfield in anything else, but I have a feeling he is a good actor who is simply in the wrong role. His performance of Peter Parker is frankly boring, but the worst parts about the character come not from his portrayal, but how he is written. In this film, Peter Parker is a hundred different things rolled into one character who is barley consistent and ends up coming off as unlikable most of the time. I would even say that this is the worst superhero ever put in a movie. Sure, George Clooney in "Batman & Robin" was bad, but his character was at the very least consistent.
The other characters in the film are also bland, uninteresting cardboard cutouts with the exception of Captain Stacey (Denis Leary) and, only because of his actor, Dr. Kurt Connors (Rhys Ifans). This movie has a lot of talented actors and actresses in it, but the characters are so poorly written and with the editing taking out important moments involving them that these characters are as ridiculous and cliché as the Lizard's plan. With the poor writing comes the poor chemistry between Peter and Gwen Stacey (Emma Stone), whose relationship exists mainly because Spider-Man needs a love interest. I will say the relationship between Peter (Tobey Maguire) and Mary Jane (Kirsten Dunst) from the Raimi "Spider-Man" was not all that interesting, but it actually did something with the characters and was not just to give Peter a romantic interest.
When it comes to superhero movies, this one also has one of the most ridiculous endings. In other superhero films that take themselves less seriously and realize they are goofy and corny an ending like this would work, but "The Amazing Spider-Man" shows itself off as a serious and realistic superhero movie like the Christopher Nolan "Batman" movies. With the Nolan movies, the serious take on the story worked, but here, it does not. The villain is a giant lizard and his evil plan is to turn the rest of the city into lizards using a device that Oscorp created. Spider-Man saves the day with the help of a bunch of construction workers turning their cranes so he can easily swing over to Oscorp tower.
"The Amazing Spider-Man" is a film that promises the audience a lot of things which never pay off. It is not the untold story, and the serious approach makes all of the goofy things stand out as major problems for the film. Andrew Garfield's Peter Parker is one of the worst superheroes to ever appear on screen, and this is the worst Marvel movie I have ever seen. Boring, cardboard cutouts of characters, a story that takes itself too seriously, a comical, clichéd ending, and by just not keeping its promises, "The Amazing Spider-Man" is, in simplest terms, a letdown of a movie.