The Disappointing Spider-Man

Rating: 6/10 (29 July 2012)

After the monumental train wreck that was Sam Raimi's Spiderman 3, a reboot of the Spider-Man franchise was inevitable. But who would have thought that 500 Days of Summer director, Marc Webb, would take the reins to bring our friendly neighborhood Spider-Man back to life? Well, he did, and now he's given a whole new look and feel to the franchise far more cartoonier and light hearted than Sam Raimi's trilogy. The Amazing Spider-Man is the first film in what will likely be a trilogy if not four or five films depending on the series' success.
This first film is obviously the origin story of Spider-Man, explaining how Peter Parker came to be the web slinging hero. In it he faces The Lizard, aka Dr. Curt Connors, a man who worked with Peter's father at Oscorp. And that is probably the most interesting thing about the storyline of this new Spidey film. There is a lot of backstory surrounding Peter's parents in this new rendition of the hero. Not much is explained in this first film as many questions are raised and practically none are answered. It's clear something very big is being created here and there will likely be some vast interesting story about Peter's parents that will run through the entire series. For this first film this part of the story was kind of weird and felt out of place, but it's very clear that there's something much greater in the works for it. We will just have to wait and see how it develops.
The backstory of Peter's parents aside, The Amazing Spider-Man certainly has it's own individual story, but one that feels very rushed and very shoddy. It just didn't feel quite right. It's obviously the story of Spider-Man and it incorporates all the right aspects of how he got his powers and how Peter Parker came to be Spider-Man. But the film just goes through all these motions of the familiar story very quickly and without much elaboration. The film was too rushed and too underdeveloped to really be a quality Spider-Man film. It's hard to adequately describe the problem at hand, but it definitely exists and there was definitely something keeping me from really enjoying this film's story.
Sadly, The Amazing Spider-Man has some problems aside from its story as well. Sam Raimi's Spider-Man films were very real and much grittier in comparison to this new very cartoony Spider-Man film. In some ways this is a neat effect and it certainly can work for a superhero as aloof as Spider-Man. This isn't Batman and we don't have to take it very seriously. This is the route Marc Webb went when giving this new Spider-Man film it's own distinct look and feel. I don't like it as much as the more realistic Raimi Spider-Man vision, but it serves its purpose.
However, what doesn't suffice is the way this cartoony style translates to the very cheap and video game looking CGI in the film. There's a ton of CGI and none of it is that impressive. Spidey's web slinging isn't all that cool, despite Webb's awesome camera work that he employs to make parts of this film quite the visual spectacle. But the graphics of this film just aren't up to speed with today's CGI capabilities. It all looks too smooth and too silly to make this film awesome. Even the film's main villain, the menacing Lizard, isn't that cool. The body of the creature is neat and his rampaging around New York is admittedly pretty awesome, but his face is what ruins it for me. It's a poorly designed creature that, sadly, had a lot of potential. The same can be said for the whole film. It had lots of potential, but poor design made the film fall short.
I won't say that this new Spider-Man film is a disaster, but it's not great. Some of its flaws are true flaws, like the design of the Lizard and the unimpressive CGI, and some of it just a matter of personal opinion, like the silly and cartoonish look of the film. But, overall, The Amazing Spider-Man just isn't that great. Andrew Garfield is great as the new Peter Parker, Emma Stone is awesome as Gwen Stacey, Rhys Ifans is very cool as Curt Connors, and Martin Sheen makes a great Uncle Ben. But as far as the screenplay is concerned this film definitely falls short. The story doesn't flow right and the look of the film is nothing impressive. Any comic book film fan should see this film, but set your expectations low.