Not bad, but not better than what Raimi's Spider-Man 4 would probably have been.

Rating: 6/10 (10 July 2012)

To preface this review, I thought Sam Raimi's Spider-Man was a really entertaining film that managed to overcome some pretty big mistakes. Spider-Man II is one of the best super-hero movies ever. Spider-Man III was a mess that still had a few redeeming features. The Amazing Spider-Man? Well, it was fun with some really strong elements and there was nothing as garishly wrong with it as the Green Goblin's costume and Macy Gray's appearance in Spider-Man or Topher Grace's botched Venom in Spider-Man III. As someone who grew up reading the comics, I'll credit director Mark Webb with getting right a lot of the little things Raimi did not. But while I think this is ultimately a good flick and worth seeing, it's also one of the most fundamentally problematic movies I've ever watched.
To start with, this is a retelling of Spider-Man's origin, something we saw only a decade previously with Raimi. As much as they change the details (and we'll get into that in a second) and give this story a very different tone, however, it's telling us stuff with which we're already quite familiar. A good chunk of this film, as nicely done as it is, has an unavoidably superfluous quality. At the more sluggish points of the plot, you can't help but feel like you'd rather be watching Spider-Man IV instead of a reboot of the first movie.
Secondly, this thing largely butchers the classic Spider-Man origin. Paradoxically, I suspect most viewers won't mind that much because the more traditional (at least in that respect) Raimi take is fresh in their memories. But if this had been the first Spider-movie ever made, comic book fanboys would be lighting themselves on fire in protest. It's not even about them not saying "With great power, comes great responsibility". It's that Peter Parker's lesson in responsibility isn't something he learns from the death of his beloved Uncle Ben. It's something he learns during a dinner table conversation with some guy he's never met before. If that's how it had worked in Amazing Fantasy #15, I'm not sure things would have worked out quite so well for Marvel Comics.
Thirdly, while the romance between Peter Parker and Gwen Stacy clicks thanks to the chemistry of Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone, the relationship itself is kind of a poorly told joke. While Garfield and Stone are frequently great together on screen, the story underneath them is forced and manufactured. Whereas Raimi provided reasons for Peter and Mary Jane Watson to fall in love, this movie throws Peter and Gwen together because that's what the script says. It also helped that the character of Mary Jane had a life independent of Peter Parker in the first two films. Here, Gwen is Peter's inevitable girlfriend/plot device and not much else. And by the end, The Amazing Spider-Man has truly bollixed up the classic Peter/Gwen dynamic from the comics.
Boy, it reads like I'm not much of a fan of this motion picture, doesn't it? The truth is, there's many things about it I like immensely. This is the best ever representation of the change in Peter's personality when he puts on the mask and is liberated of his self-imposed awkwardness and insecurity. Spider-Man is finally the wise-cracking motormouth from the comics. And while Tobey McGuire gave Peter Parker a nerdy, dweebish quality, Garfield actually makes him look and sound like a socially inept teenager. Emma Stone is just great and proves a talented comic actress can fill up a shallowly written role. The fight scenes may not be quite on par with the Doc Ock throwdowns from Spider-Man II, but they're damn sweet in their own right. Sally Field and Martin Sheen are also quite good as Aunt May and Uncle Ben, though they have to share the supporting spotlight with Denis Leary as Gwen's police captain father. Rhys Ifans does a fine job a Curt Connors and the mystery subplot of what happened to Peter's parents is well woven throughout the movie. And, of courseweb-shooters, baby!!
Let me repeat, The Amazing Spider-Man is a good film and worth watching. It'll certainly get the bad taste out of your mouth from Spider-Man III. It also looks and sounds far more like Nolan's Batman movies than a piece of Marvel cinema, though it does continue the tradition of Spidey's mask coming off at every opportunity. But is it more than just another summer super-hero blockbuster? Not really.