The Good but not Great Spider-Man

Rating: 6/10 (17 July 2012)

First let me just say, this is not a negative review. The Amazing Spider-Man met my expectations. Nothing more, nothing less. This reboot gets a lot of things right. Marc Webb does an excellent job, he creatively and playfully filmed the action scenes and successfully executed his own fresh, unique vision of Spidey's adventures. The scenes where Spider-Man is swinging through New York City are breath-taking and vertigo-inducing., perhaps even more-so than Sam Raimi's.
The cast was perfectly chosen and I can't really think of any role in the movie I would have rather seen another actor fill. Andrew Garfield makes for a much better Spider-Man than Tobey Maguire in my opinion, he brings a lot of charm and cheekiness to the role that wasn't really seen in Raimi's trilogy, this film really shows Peter Parker develop as a character throughout, and the chemistry here between Garfield and Stone is excellent.
I had issues with a few things though. The CGI on the most part was incredible but The Lizard looked laughable. He looked like a cartoon Godzilla and was less menacing and frightening than I would have liked to see. The villain and character of Curt Connors was really underwritten in my opinion, and it failed to really fully utilise Rhys Ifans' acting capabilities.
Whilst the director's take on it was visually distinct from the other trilogy, it wasn't really the "untold story" as the marketing would have us believe. Sure, it threw in a few extra sub plots and tweaks here and there (so he made the web shooters himself, what a game changer THAT one was), but the majority was stuff we've already seen. This would have been forgivable, had this not been released a mere 10 years after the original (and 5 years after the last one!)
Ultimately I did have a good time watching The Amazing Spider-Man, and I'm sure many others will do as well. It shouldn't massively disappoint anyone, just don't expect anything too spectacular here. A sequel is very much on the cards, and now the origin story is done and out of the way, with the talented cast and crew involved, I believe and hope the franchise becomes genuinely original and starts to go places Raimi's trilogy never did. 6/10.