I just got home from the midnight showing of Marc Webb’s The Amazing Spider-Man in IMAX 3D, starring Andrew Garfield, Rhys Ifans, Emma Stone, Denis Leary, Sally Field, and Martin Sheen. I’ve been excited for this film since I first heard that it was being made and that Andrew Garfield, who I loved in The Social Network, had been cast in the lead role. Being a big fan of the first two films of Raimi’s trilogy (because we all know that Spider-Man 3 was just awful), I had high expectations for this reboot, and it didn’t disappoint.

*MILD SPOILERS AHEAD*

What really stood out to me about this film is that it showed that it’s truly just a man behind the mask, and a young one at that. Peter adapted to his new powers a bit slower in this film than he did in Spider-Man (2002), which really added to the realism that the film presented. His movements were clumsy, and it took him most of the film to truly adapt and adopt this new persona that was introduced into his life. Nothing came naturally to Peter in this film, which was a bit of a breath of fresh air after seeing the character almost instantly fall into the role of Spider-Man in the original Raimi film.

In addition to seeing Peter’s human personality, we also saw that he has human relationships with other people. He argued with his aunt and uncle, he fought the bully who had tormented him throughout high school, and he stumbled through conversations with the girl he had a crush on. These are all sides of Spider-Man that members of the audience can relate to, despite the fact that he has spider powers and we (I assume) don’t.

Spider-Man has the word “spider” in his name, and we really see the spider side of him in The Amazing Spider-Man; in fact, we occasionally see the spider side of him take over the human side, such as when Peter accidentally fights several guys on the subway ride home one night. There is another instance when he uses webbing to detect movement down the sewer, a trick out of the Spider Scout Handbook (again, I assume).

Webb aimed for a more intimate and personal Spider-Man in this reboot, and he succeeded. Uncle Ben’s death (oh, come on, you’ve all seen the first movie) is more directly related to Peter than in the original film which makes it all the more emotional. Plus, we see Peter’s relationship with Gwen Stacy develop as the movie goes on, rather than in the first film when it sort of just happens.

Speaking of Gwen Stacy, Emma Stone was lovely as the blonde love interest to Peter Parker, and it was nice to have someone who knows Peter’s secret so that he has someone to confide in. I’m not sure if I like Spidey being alone in his secret or having a confidante more, but I certainly don’t dislike Gwen knowing.

Rhys Ifans as Dr. Connors/The Lizard was decent, but I must admit that Alfred Molina’s Doc Ock from Spider-Man 2 was a better, more fleshed-out character. Though the CGI/motion capture allowed Ifans himself to become The Lizard, the transformation took away the human side that we want to feel compassionate for, at least for me. I know that the only things he wants are his missing arm and to help people, but it’s difficult to sympathize with a giant, scaly monster. That’s no fault of Webb or Ifans, though.

Garfield’s Spider-Man was pretty fantastic. I’ll admit, I haven’t read a lot of Spider-Man comics, but I have read a few, and Garfield did a great job with capturing the witty, sort of big-headed personality of the Spidey created by Stan Lee (who had a hysterical cameo in the film). They did a great job with showing us that he was smart, too, so that it wasn’t hard to believe that a teenager was capable of creating web-shooters and what-not.

Sally Field, Martin Sheen, and Denis Leary were all great to see as well. Field and Sheen, as Aunt May and Uncle Ben, played more believable parent-figures than the actors of the original trilogy, with them acting more like parents than as people who were watching over their friend’s child, as they should.

There were a few little details that I sort of geeked out over. First, when Connors runs amok as The Lizard, he predominantly uses his right arm, the arm that is missing when he is human; whether or not this was a conscious choice by Ifans or Webb, I don’t know, but it helped me to feel for the character a bit more. The flash of the web-shooters as they were used was consistent, which isn’t a huge deal, but it still managed to make me smile.

I feel like The Amazing Spider-Man left us in a better place than the Spider-Man did. We have yet to figure out what happened to Peter’s parents (a short scene mid-credits makes us question it even more, so stay for a minute or two after the credits start rolling!), and we are curious to see where Peter and Gwen’s relationship will go, both of which can be explored further in the sequel. I’m curious to see who the next villain will be. I hope it won’t be someone we’ve already seen in the original trilogy…unless they can bring back Venom and do the character justice.

Overall, The Amazing Spider-Man is a reboot that brings new life to the character. We see Spidey’s more human side, we see his more human relationships, and we get a sort of realism that was absent from Raimi’s trilogy. This new Spider-Man universe more believably fits into our own world, whereas Raimi’s was still partially in the comic world. There were flaws, yes, but this was an origin story, after all. Webb’s re-imagining of the character introduces new opportunities that I can’t wait to see on the big screen in the future.

-Chad

Rating: 3.5 (out of 5)

MPAA: PG-13 – for sequences of action and violence

P.S. – Read my review of this film’s score, composed by James Horner, here!