It's only been a decade since director
Sam Raimi's still fresh in our minds
Spider-Man Trilogy--starring
Tobey Maguire and
Kirsten Dunst hit the big screen--and thus it was a bold choice when
Sony Pictures decided to reboot the beloved superhero film franchise with
The Amazing Spider-Man.
When news first hit that Raimi had vacated plans for
Spider-Man 4 and the reset button was being pushed, I was very much against the notion and thought early on that the plan was a bad idea.
After seeing the finished product, I was delighted to discover that "Amazing" works quite well, and is a sturdy interpretation that does a bit more than just rearrange the players to spin its tale...
As the film opens we see that a young Peter Parker (
Max Charles) is playing hide-and-seek with his scientist father Richard (
Campbell Scott) where they soon discover that his study has been broken into. Panicked, Richard gathers up hidden documents, and along with with wife Mary (
Embeth Davidtz) takes their son to the home of his Aunt May (
Sally Field) and Uncle Ben (
Martin Sheen) then mysteriously leave.
Years later, a teenage Peter (
Andrew Garfield) is a student at Midtown Science High School, where he is bullied by Flash Thompson (
Chris Zylka) and with that has caught the eye of new girl Gwen Stacy (
Emma Stone). At home, Peter finds Richard's briefcase, and learns his father worked with fellow scientist Dr. Curt Connors (
Rhys Ifans) at OsCorp. Wanting to learn about his parents Peter fakes his way into OsCorp as one of a group of high-school interns, Peter sneaks into a lab where extremely strong "biocable" is being created from genetically modified spiders, one of which bites him. On the subway ride home, he soon discovers he has gained strange spider-like abilities .
After studying Richard's papers, he visits the one-armed Connors at home, tells Conners that he is Richard Parker's son, and gives him his father's "decay rate algorithm", the missing piece in Connors' experiments on regenerating limbs. Connors is also being pressured by his superior, Dr. Ratha (
Irrfan Khan), to find a cure for the dying, unseen head of OsCorp, Norman Osborn.
Peter meets Connors at Oscorp, and, ignoring a call from his Uncle, sees the limb-regeneration formula work on a laboratory mouse. When Peter returns home, Ben scolds him for having neglected to pick up May. Peter storms off, and Ben goes looking for him. Ben confronts a thief who has just robbed a deli. As Ben and the thief wrestle over a gun, Ben is killed. The killer escapes as Peter runs to his uncle. Soon Peter uses his new abilities to hunt criminals matching the killer's description. After a fall lands him inside an abandoned gym, a
luchador-wrestling poster inspires him to create a mask to hide his identity and emotion. Later, he adds a spandex suit for mobility, and built mechanical devices to attach on his wrists to fire a biocable "web" for swinging and incapacitating an opponent. Peter inadvertently becomes New York City's folk hero, and he eventually turned his mask, suit, and webshooters into a matching red-and-blue spider-themed costume.
Ratha says Connors must begin human trials immediately if Osborn is to survive. Connors refuses to rush the drug-testing procedure and put innocent subjects at risk. Ratha fires Connors and says he will test Connors' serum at a Veterans hospital under the guise of flu shots. Desperate, Connors tries the formula on himself. But that decision has consequences for both Conners and Peter....
The script penned by
James Vanderbilt Alvin Sargent and
Steve Kloves keeps the basics of the origin intact while altering certain details---much the way Raimi did in his first film. Thinking that comics tell and re-tell origins of characters constantly makes both cinematic versions easier to accept.
Truth be told, I think Garfield makes a better Peter than Maguire--who was good yes--but Garfield's take makes a closer match to the original comics. I had not expected that at all going in. No doubt Garfield's chemistry with Stone helps for sure. Anyone who has seen director
Marc Webb's excellent rom-com
(500) Days of Summer knows that he's got the whole "boy meets girl" stuff down cold. My crush on Stone aside, Andy and Emma are great here. Ifans is fine as the "bad guy" offering up equal parts of menace and sympathy. His connection to Parker will no doubt be explored futher...I was surprised at how much I enjoyed
Denis Leary as Gwen's Dad and Spidey detractor--really cool and fun to watch.
The film, as good as it is, does take a few miss steps. The editing and pacing seemed off especially during the early going and leading up to the final showdown at the OsCorp Tower. Field is a great actress but I had trouble with her Aunt May. Got really spoiled by
Rosemary Harris I guess. And I think our hero needs to stop revealing his secret identity so much both in and out of costume..PLEASE!
Can't say enough here about Garfield. He is the main reason the redux works for me. I have to admit Sony's Gamble Paid Off. The franchise is big enough to tell two beginnings at this point!!
