Simple effective reboot of a comic-book staple

Rating: 8/10 (17 March 2013)

Comic book movies in recent years have tended to be greeted with great regularity with the description 'darker' or variations thereof. This culminated with the excellent but 'darker' Dark Knight Rises, which bordered on pitch-black and outright depressing. However, the latest incarnation of the Spiderman movie series, the reboot Amazing Spiderman has followed in the footsteps of The Avengers by lightening up and getting back to the roots of the comic, with puns and one-liners galore giving the film a much more entertaining vibe than the convoluted and take-themselves-too-seriously original trilogy. However, the comedy generally doesn't overshadow the story too much, and themes of loss and isolation are more deftly dealt with, making this new Marvel superhero film a more rounded experience, which again paves the way for yet another franchise.
The Amazing Spiderman, which was born from Sam Raimi's aborted Spiderman 4 and wiped the slate clean of Tobey Maguire's stories, goes back to the beginning and focuses on Peter Parker's schooldays - a time period largely glossed over in the original films. Science again plays a big part in the genesis of both Spiderman and his latest nemesis - the Lizard. This time however, the science doesn't even attempt to make itself plausible, resulting in explanation that can be just accepted blithely without too much head-scratching. Otherwise, the story follows the -by-now standard origin story format, so no prizes for guessing any plot twists (such as they are): Hero starts life as an outsider in school, aptitude for science, freakish pseudo-scientific incident, tragic loss, responsibility of new powers, etc etc. Everyone knows how the story goes, yet seeing how it gets started is always enjoyable in comic-book adaptations, and this one is no different.
In the perfectly-named Marc Webb's reboot, the red and blue spandex is taken on by Andrew Garfield, while Emma Stone's Gwen Stacy replaces Kirsten Dunst's Mary-Jane as the webslinger's love interest. Both do an adequate job, although Garfield is perhaps too perfectly groomed, buffed and coiffed to play the geeky, nerdy wimp that is Spiderman's alter ego. Martin Sheen and Sally Field are perfectly suitable as Garfield's surrogate parents, but the real standout of the piece is Rhys Ifans - of Notting Hill and 51st State fame - in a surprisingly understated and effective performance as Dr Curt Connors, the hero's mentor-come-reptilian nemesis.
There are many things to enjoy about this latest Spiderman film, including allowing Parker to be a teenager, complete with requisite teen angst, school issues and romance, and there are also some interesting and amusing explorations of the hero's controversial new mechanical web-shooters, making Peter Parker 2.0 a more interesting superhero than Maguire's slightly one-dimensional responsibility-burdened Tarzan-with-webbing. The neat references to the comic-book lore are interesting and deft, without being hidden away so only the true comic book nerds notice them. However, with a run time of over 2 hours, the time taken for the iconic costume to make its first appearance does seem to drag at times, while the lack of the Jonah Jameson-type character feels like a hole in the story.
Interestingly, given the somewhat lightened tone of this new Spiderman film, the music has changed from a largely bombastic and anthemic rock soundtrack to a more cerebral classical-led score, with only Coldplay the solitary nod to pop music. Yet somehow this counterbalances the comedic touches that threaten occasionally to drag the first half of the film down into parody, resulting in a well-rounded film. Overall, while it is unlikely this film will win any original screenplay awards, particularly given the mere decade that has passed since the original, The Amazing Spiderman is an enjoyable entry into Marvel's comic book film adaptation canon, dealing deftly with the familiar themes without beating the audience over the head with them like Thor's sledgehammer.