Some Good Ideas in a Poorly-Told Story

Rating: 5/10 (29 October 2012)

There is no way to avoid a comparison with Raimi's films. Spiderman 1 was an interesting and good if slightly underwhelming film. Spiderman 2 was completely awesome. Spiderman 3 was a total mess, hence the feeling that the character needed a reboot. This film is neither good, nor awesome, nor is it a total mess. And it certainly is not amazing. Andrew Garfield is unconvincing. Emma Stone similarly so. Rhys Ifans was criminally underused.
The script was poor, and important scenes like the invention of the suit and the web-slingers. also the evolution of The Lizard were rushed, and other scenes like the death of Uncle Ben and those about teenage high- school angst were much better handled in Raimi's films. The motivation of the antagonist was also muddled and didn't even come close to the good-guy turned bad of Alfred Molina's Doctor Octopus, even if the crazed idea of forcing mutated evolution through biological agents was interesting, if not original.
The greatest shame was that there were some interesting ideas that were not properly developed - the link between Connors and Peter Parker's parents and Norman Osborn was only alluded to, when it could have been the spine of the plot that was sorely missing. This really could have been an interesting 'untold story' - but it still remains untold!
The action scenes were underwhelming and there was little chemistry between Gwen Stacy and Peter Parker - nothing like the mystery and fatal attraction between Kirsten Dunst and Tobey Maguire in Raimi's films - in this film the revelation that Peter is Spidey is clumsily sandwiched in between other pointless scenes instead of being the cliffhanger at the end of the film like in Raimi's Spiderman 1.
This is pretty much a pointless remake and missed many opportunities to really reboot the franchise. Poor casting and the wrong director in my opinion. What a shame.