The Amazing Spider-Man

Ten years ago, my dad took my 12 year-old self and my little brother to go see Spider-Man in theaters. That movie was single-handedly responsible for my current love of superhero movies. So it was a bittersweet moment when I saw The Amazing Spider-Man. On one hand, it was definitely the end of an era. On the other, it was time for that era to end (I think I can speak for all of us when I say that Spider-Man 3 was really bad). I went into this movie with a lot of hope and a lot of fear, and I was pleasantly surprised with the outcome.

This being a reboot of the series, The Amazing Spider-Man is helmed by a new director (Mark Webb) and an entirely new cast. A few of the big characters return from the old movies, albeit with new faces. Andrew Garfield (The Social Network) plays Peter Parker, with Martin Sheen and Sally Field playing his Uncle Ben and Aunt May. That's where the similarities end, though. Instead of Mary Jane Watson being Peter Parker's love interest, the film stays truer to the comics and has Emma Stone as Peter's high school sweetheart, Gwen Stacey. There's no J. Jonah Jameson and no Osborne family (that's ever really seen), but the functions of some of those characters stays intact. Instead of Jameson being the loud-mouthed newspaper editor bent on making a villain out of Spider-Man, we have Gwen's dad, police captain John Stacey (Denis Leary), making Spider-Man out to be a dangerous masked vigilante. And although Norman Osborne is more of a shadowy figure in this film, Peter still finds a scientist role model/villainous arch-nemesis out of Rhys Ifans' portrayal as Curt Connors/The Lizard.

That's where the similarities end, however, because The Amazing Spider-Man sets a much different tone than its predecessor. Aside from its nods to its comic book origins (Gwen Stacey, using webshooters), this film is a lot darker than the ones that came before it. There's a lot of backstory to the sudden disappearance of Peter's parents, which is one of the two things that makes this version's Spider-Man much more interesting than the previous incarnation. The other thing that makes it more interesting is the fact that the casting choices in the leads were much better this time around. Andrew Garfield is a better Peter Parker in every respect, and I much prefer Emma Stone as the love interest than Kirsten Dunst. My chief complaint with the casting choices comes in with Uncle Ben and Aunt May. Some of the strongest performances in the 2002 film came from Cliff Robertson and Rosemary Harris as Peter Parker's elderly uncle and aunt. Although they opted for some higher-profile names in this reboot (Martin Sheen and Sally Field), the roles of Uncle Ben and Aunt May were largely disappointing, especially from Sheen.His portrayal of the single most influential figure in Spider-Man's life was hokey and uninspiring, a far cry from Robertson's endearing performance.

The only other big complaint I have with this film is the pacing. There was a lot of story to cover, and although the movie clocks in at a little over two hours long, it still feels like some of the relationships were rushed. It shows the most when they develop the character of Curt Connors (Rhys Ifans). The idea was to try and portray him as a misguided scientific mind who gets corrupted by his own creation (think half of all of Spider-Man's villains), but what we got instead was a hurried and rushed explanation and it makes the character less sympathetic and more unbelievable.

Sony and Marvel have already announced that The Amazing Spider-Man is the first in a new trilogy of Spider-Man movies. They're off to a good start with strong leads, an interesting new purpose for Oscorp (think shadowy corporate titan), and a cliffhanger that's better than any other Marvel movie to date. If they tighten up on the eye-rolling cheesiness of Uncle Ben and Aunt May and take a little more time developing the supporting cast, I think we may have on our hands the best movie series Marvel has ever had a part in. I give The Amazing Spider-Man 8 1/2 power-discovery montages out of 10.