This is how you reboot a franchise!

Rating: 8/10 (29 June 2012)

I remember walking out of the earlier Spiderman movies so many years ago, in awe of the special effects, the writing, the cheeky humor. Surely, it would be difficult to displace those great memories. So, I went into The Amazing Spiderman with an open mind. I had to believe that Sony had seen more in the director than just the pun in his name.
The Plot: Peter knows little about his missing parents, but stumbling upon their old belongings he finds links that may help him gain some answers. Along the way, he gets bitten by a genetically enhanced spider (Yes, no radiation) & goes through amazing comic sequences coming to grips with his new found powers. He even fashions his own web shooters to complete the spider arsenal (They've stuck to the comics & gotten rid of the irritating oh-so-conveniently-placed genetic web shooters we found with Raimi's movies). Along the way, he meets a girl, falls in love, only to discover her dad (Leary) is the Captain of the police force, the very man responsible for nabbing his vigilante alter-ego. Parker is trying to assist his parents' colleague Dr.Connors perfect inter-species gene transfers allowing the doc to eventually regrow an amputated arm. Miracle cures however, do not come without side effects...
Webb takes the more classical comic book & TV show route into what Spiderman really is, a kid with superpowers coming to grips with reality. On that front, Andrew Garfield is a delight. He's got depth to his acting (go watch the social network if you haven't); he handles all the jokes & sorrow with equal aplomb. I'm extremely glad they redid the "Epiphany" scene from the initial movies so differently. Garfield's got the potential to take this Spidey places where Tobey just couldn't. Gone is the calm, ever-tolerant, almost Gandhian, clumsy Peter Parker. He now has the option to grow into a more multi-dimensional character, like in the comics. This was clearly impossible in the original movies, we all know know how miserably they failed in the third movie trying to show a different side to Parker.
Sheen & Field are perfectly cast as Uncle Ben & Aunt May. Sheen especially shows a frailty to Ben's character not earlier seen, a man who's trying hard & sometimes fails with a child he loves as his own but can't outright claim him to be. Who'd have through that Rhys Ifans, who's done great over-the-top characters in the past, would play Dr.Connor with such subtlety? Emma Stone is reduced to being a pretty face who isn't given much screen time to showcase her prowess, but she's still an important catalyst in the movie to bring out the crazed hormone driven teenager that Parker really is.
I recently watched the first and second Spiderman movies. Somehow there were flaws that I hadn't noticed earlier. Tobey's acting skills, an ill- paced screenplay, hammy dialogue, stupid plot-lines with Harry Osborn & the super cheesy sequences that made you feel that New York should've been given its own vanity card. I still love them & they're superbly entertaining, but a lot of reviewers have been wrongly placing these movies up on a pedestal & drawing unfair comparisons with the current film. Those movies set the tone for the next decade of Superhero movies, they weren't without flaws.
The Amazing Spiderman is definitely a movie that has its own share of merits: a superb cast that you cannot fault, a well driven screenplay, the amazing spidey's eye view sequences, the scenes in the subway, alley & the warehouse. Where it fails is drawing in the audience, & feeling emotionally attached to Peter Parker. The movie could've also done without some cheesy & corny sequences that are in direct reference to the older movies. I was almost hoping that they'd pick up the original dialogue at the end, "Whatever life holds in store for me, I will never forget these words: With great power comes great responsibility. This is my gift, my curse. Who am I? I'm Spider-man" Wishful thinking? Maybe next time.