Visually grand, with great CGI and sound effects, great soundtrack and costumes ... but there's a lot of work to do in everything else.

Rating: 7/10 (8 November 2019)

Following in the wake of the ream of comic heroe movies that DC and Marvel have been promoting, this film is just one more, and addresses, as it has been done before in the cinema, the iconic figure of Spider-Man, a one of the most remarkable and famous cartoon heroes ever. He has originated, at least, one trilogy (around 2000) and has now been recycled to make a few more movies, and a few million dollars in profits.
This movie, like many others, tells how teenager Peter Parker became Spider-Man, with all the moral and psychological conflicts associated with such a radical transformation. However, we have seen this so many times that it was difficult to show anything substantially better without changing the character's story, which would be sacrilegious. So the movie just shows what we already know, selects a powerful villain from the long list of enemies the character has accumulated over decades of comics, and gives us the decisive confrontation between them.
Andrew Garfield is a decent Peter Parker, but I confess he hasn't always convinced me. He has some annoying face movements, but he does what he needs to do. Emma Stone looked a lot better to me, but this wasn't the movie for her to shine. So she just made a good romantic match, having a good chemistry with Garfield. Rhys Ifans is equally good as a villain. Martin Sheen and Denis Leary also did well.
The film is directed by Marc Webb, who seems to have done a decent job. The problem is that he didn't bet as much as he should on creating a good story and developing characters and the work of the actors. The concern was, from the beginning, CGI and visual and sound effects. And, in fact, on this issue, the movie is excellent. It's a visual show from start to finish, with sweeping New York views, great costumes and photography and immense camera movement, which gives a feeling of speed and agility to Spider-Man, who flies and jumps like never before. Soundtrack is also excellent, as epic as you'd expect in such a movie.
I think the movie loses a little compared to other movies with other characters. It is not a movie that stays in memory, or can be said to be grand or excellent. Good dialogues are missing, a handful of more complex and developed characters, a more interesting and less trite story. It's a good and entertaining movie, has good production values, good actors and is visually spectacular, but that's basically it.