The amazingly unnecessary Spider-Man reboot

Rating: 3/10 (19 October 2012)

Throughout this entire movie I had a very distinctive feeling I had seen something familiar just a while ago. Oh waitI did. Only five years have passed since the last Sam Raimi Spider-Man movie premiered, and I simply do not understand why this Spidey reboot was made so soon. Nevertheless we get to watch Spider-Man climb walls, fight crooks, swing in nets between buildings in a supposed to be new and amazing motion picture. The problem is that none of this amazes me because it feels like I watched it only yesterday. I haven't had the time to get the hots or to build up any anticipation for a reincarnation of Marvel's spider. Neither have I accepted the fact that I never again will see Tobey Maguire in that red and blue spandex suit. Not enough time has gone by. Not even Peter Parker initially becoming Spider-Man and his conflicted feelings and inevitable problems due to this concerns me because, like I said, it feels like I watched this the other day. Sure, the story isn't all the same as previous screen adaptations of the comic book hero. We get the background story of Peter's parents, there's a new villain on the loose etcetera, but when you get down to it that's just a different setting to an already told story.
I like the Sam Raimi trilogy. It has the right balance between comic book and real life and the world presented to you feels quite realistic. The movies aren't exactly literary works of art, but compared to Mark Webb's "The Amazing Spider-Man" they've got considerable depth. In "The Amazing Spider-Man" everything feels flat, like a copy, like a bad cover band that just makes you want to see the original act. Furthermore, a lot of the dialogue seems off-pace, Andrew Garfield's neurotic way of acting makes me uneasy and pretty often I'm not sure what emotions the actors (mostly Garfield and Stone) are supposed to convey. This of course leads to some confusion regarding the characters' feelings for each other as well as their intentions. If this is a case of bad directing or bad acting I'm not sure. The movie is also edited into a higher-than-necessary pace. Almost every cut could easily be two seconds longer and almost every scene could easily be two minutes longer. A high tempo doesn't per se make a movie more exciting, it could just as well have the reverse effect.
So, was there nothing I liked about this movie? Sure there was. I liked how things where explained and made possible by the technical and scientific skills of Peter Parker's. Things like how he makes his suit, his net-throwing gadgets and so on. It ties in nicely with who he is as a person. I liked the witty punch lines when they weren't out of pace. I also liked Stan Lee's cameo, which was unusually elaborate.
At the beginning of the film the background story of Peter Parker's parents takes up a lot of time. I first thought that this was an interesting approach to a new Spidey movie but soon realized that it was just an excuse to get Peter in touch with Oscorp and Curt Connors. The fate of his parents is actually irrelevant to the Peter Parker/Spider- Man character since what's really interesting about him is the conflict within himself and the seemingly impossible choices he so often has to make. The Tobey Maguire movies don't mention a single word about Peter's parents and still manage to get you so much more involved with the characters than this movie does. The filmmakers do however make hints that they intend to develop this whole parent thing further in possible sequel/sequels, so I might be proved wrong about the relevance in the end.