Spiderman: The RETOLD Story is enjoyable with plenty of heart but just not fresh enough

Rating: 7/10 (4 July 2012)

I enjoyed this, it offers just about enough to set it apart from Raimi's trilogy but I didn't feel there was anything really outstanding about it. There are no moments in the film which made me go, oh wow. If it was a decade ago, I might have but not today, now that we are saturated with CGI effects movies. It simply moves along amicably with spots of charm, a tiny bit of humour, plenty of teenage angst and a heavy dose of anger all of which is framed within a washed out dark toned colour palette as opposed to the vibrancy and rich colours of Raimi's trilogy.
There are some decent big action set pieces but they lack invention and none of it has the visceral energy and savviness as say Avengers or Raimi's trilogy...oops, you know I did promise myself not to make comparisons to Raimi. But I cant help it. So much of the this film is a retread of 2002 Spider-Man and Spiderman 2 that I simply cant ignore it. You really have to be patient with going through all the blasted exposition again. And not just that but an all too similar journey of Octavia as well, albeit in the form of a Lizard. Having said that, it IS all done well, there is plenty of heart and the performances are sincere. Andrew Garfield is born for the role, he is a major reason for watching this film. I always felt the wrong actor won the best actor award in Social Network. Should have been Garfield! But anyway, he nails Peter Parker's flippancy, geekiness, and angst perfectly. His awkwardness and playful relationship with Gwen Stacy are some of the highlights of the movie for me. Emma Stone gives Gwen an attractive spark despite ultimately not differing too much to the Mary Jane of Raimi's films but Gwen has more geek in common with Parker and a little more brains too.
One of the areas this film disappoints in is dialogue. Not that its bad, it just lacking some spark. There is a couple of quips from Spiderman but nothing more and if you've seen the trailers, you've heard most of them. Its the only thing I'm actually disappointed with the Spiderman character himself because otherwise I love this version of the web slinger, he is a lot more vulnerable and less all round powerful than Raimi's version. I also see the benefit now of having the separate electronic web slinger narrative wise, as Spidey depends on it, if it fails, our hero is in trouble...I like that extra vulnerability, we feel more anxious for Spiderman here, can he really cope with the mighty dangers ahead? That's all done well.
The Lizard is pretty good but all too similar to Octavious in terms of motive and character and the effects are seamless. But I have to make comparisons again. The Dr Connors/Lizard is a paler version of Octavious in Spiderman 2 who was by far the more superior and complex villain. The Connors/Lizard character is a not given enough depth for us to empathise with or even fear for that matter.
The soundtrack is serviceable, there is no standout theme for Spiderman, well there is but its a bit meh, certainly not James Horners best work.
Storywise this film lacks imagination and seems too frightened to take risks somehow. It introduces a mystery but then completely abandons it and only returns to it midway through the end credits! The rest of the story is simply old themes already covered in previous films. The Untold story? More like The Retold Story. Whatever we get of this untold story, is absolutely minimal and I get the feeling its meant to be a story arc which might be spread over perhaps a trilogy of these movies.
I know I've emphasised the film's negative points but I did still enjoy what it had to offer and to be honest, most of you might prefer this to Raimi. If Raimi's spider-man is milk chocolate then this is the dark chocolate version.
I'd still look forward to a sequel but I'll say this, I don't have an urge to see this again. With films such as Avengers, X-Men:FC, Spiderman 1, 2 and yeah even 3, I have an urge to see them again or at least anticipate watching it again on Blu Ray. Unfortunately I have no such urge with this film.
These are my personal comparison ratings for all the Spiderman films in this millennium:
Spider-man 9/10 Spider-man 2: 9/10 Spider-man 3: 7.5/10 (yeah I had blast with this one, to hell with the haters ) The Amazing Spiderman: 7/10