Spiderman is Amazing

Rating: 10/10 (4 July 2012)

Okay, firstly this film far exceeded my expectations, 'Fantastic' is the best word to describe it. Now the fandom comment is out of the way, I'll get on with the review. When the trailers for The Amazing Spiderman' were first shown, I'll admit I thought 'what was that? A new trailer for the previously released Mirrors Edge video game?' It seemed to be that they had ripped off the FPS view of the game and turned it into a film replacing the Mirrors Edge character with Spiderman, along with all of the game play footage. This was disappointing, were Marvel becoming so creatively bankrupt that they needed to steel ideas from elsewhere? Boy was I wrong, the whole point was for the 3D version of the film, throwing you into a FPS view of Spiderman's perspective would give some people motion sickness, they did it very well.
In my opinion; Andrew Garfield was ideal for the role of Peter Parker, his awkward smiles, messy hair, even his build were correct for the role. I read GQ Magazines interview with him before watching the film and he commented on how Peter Parker was a role model for him when growing up in that he was bullied the same way the character was. I didn't believe a word of this when reading it as it could all have been just a publicity stunt but again he proved me wrong with an excellent performance.
Emma Stone brought life to Gwen Stacy as she does with most of her characters; she provided an adequate distraction from Spiderman's acrobatics and arrogance especially seeing she looked even more attractive than usual with her bleach blonde hair.
I enjoyed this film a lot more than the previous Spiderman films, mainly because they stuck to the comic books development providing Peter with the web slinging devices on his wrists rather than the silk glands he develops after being bitten in the previous ones. Personally I thought the suit looked better than previously too, it seemed more realistic like it was made of some kind of alien material rather than it looking like a morph suit as in the old films.
-Minor Spoilers- Getting onto the Villain, the relationship between Peter and Dr. Connors was similar to Peter and Doc Oc's relationship in Spiderman 2. They share a business relationship where they talk about some form of miracle science before the antagonist looses his mind, turns into an idealistic nut job and tries to destroy New York using the science they talked about. In this case Dr. Connors tries to regrow a lost arm by splicing lizard DNA into his own in the hope that his arm will grow back in the same way that a lizard's tail will. It works, with the minor side effect that he turns into the very creatively named, Lizard. Lizard then goes onto think that humans are puny, pathetic, feeble creatures and that everyone should be a giant schizophrenic reptile and then goes about attempting to do so. Foiled in his plans, and having been administered an antidote he saves Spiderman from certain death and is put behind bars.
Action wise I've already mentioned the excellent 3D animation with the POV of Spiderman but overall, the acrobatics were more fluid and more exciting to watch than in the previous films with Peter finding ever more creative ways to use his webs. Marc Webb has obviously sat down and read a lot of the comics as inspiration; this is obvious from the way the characters behave.
To sum up, The Amazing Spiderman lives up to it's title as it is amazing. It is action packed, crammed with comedy, manages to be heartwarming and at points, nearly makes you cry. Brilliantly done, highly recommended and I will definitely be seeing it a second time.