The Amazing Spider-Man

Running Time: 136 minutes.

Media: Cinematic release.

When Batman went through four movies and seemed to lose its grip, having gone through two with Michael Keaton, one with Val Kilmer and one with George Clooney... well, what can I say, there was a lot of talk about how schmaltzy it all started to become... plus the fears of continuing it may considerably drop in popularity.

I feel there was a considerable push in that direction when it came to the first Spider-Man film series that starred Tobey Maguire, Kirsten Dunst, James Franco and Willem Dafoe. Now, don't get me wrong, it was a great film series... but this schmaltzy feel to the films was something that seemed to raise its ugly head probably around the time of maybe the second movie when Franco's sole purpose became more focused on the killing of Spider-Man than that of being Peter Parker's best friend. It seemed to continue onto the third film where the hammy-ness of acting seemed to escalate where even Peter Parker's symbiote possession in the third movie was parodied in the Youtube channel "How It Should Have Ended", which is also worth seeing, by the way. That being said, there was also a lot of talk about how this new movie came about... There was some mention of some time that early May last year would be the release date for the new movie by Sam Raimi, and unfortunately Raimi had admitted that he could not meet the scheduled release date and retain creative integrity. By this time, Columbia Pictures had admitted that in January 2010, that the whole series would be rebooted.

Bearing this in mind, does The Amazing Spider-Man live up to expectations? I say yes, and rather whole-heartedly. The main reason is that while the Raimi series of films with Tobey Maguire brought an incredibly fresh spin to the Spider-Man canon; this new series which has been directed by Marc Webb (and may I say, a perfectly apt surname for a director for this film!) has basically taken the original mythology of how Spider-Man came to be, and brought it to the 21st century, and without much need to alter the original story. They've kept the original bite concept, the technical web-shooters, as opposed to the organic ones seen in the original film series and they've introduced Gwen Stacy as the first love interest, as opposed to Mary Jane Watson, which was how it began in the original comic book canon.

We have Andrew Garfield, who is probably known better for his roles in Lions for Lambs and The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, gives us the troubled teen in angst, Peter Parker, coming to terms with his newly found power as well as his loss of his Uncle Ben, played by Martin Sheen. Aunt May, played by Sally Field works well to help balance out the cast with being the maternal figure to Peter.

We have Gwen Stacy, played by a blonde Emma Stone... the second actress to go from redhead to blonde as Gwen, the first being Bryce Dallas Howard, Ron Howard's daughter... which is interesting considering that Kirsten Dunst in the original film series went from blonde to redhead to play the role of Mary Jane Watson... But I digress... Stone's portrayal of Gwen Stacy is one that radiates a more confident, warming and intellectual version in comparison to Bryce's cheeky, confident and seductive version. Gwen seems to play the anchor to Parker's angst and responsibility... rather much like Pepper Potts is to Tony Stark in Iron Man. To see such a strong character in an important female role to this movie is refreshing.

Gwen's father, Captain George Stacy, played by comedian and actor, Denis Leary is formidable, but you can't help but chuckle by seeing the comedian side of him come out with his attitude and blasts of sarcasm that seem to seep out in most of his roles. Whether this is intentional, I'm not sure, but I find that it brought out the character well.

One final character which seems to work incredibly well, is that of Doctor Curt Connors, played by Welsh actor, Rhys Ifans... who also doubles as Connor's alter ego, the Lizard... Kudos and credit must be given to Ifans for taking the concept of Connors and throwing in a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde sort of theme... it works brilliantly in this kind of genre, and I have to confess that this performance of his has brought him up several notches since I first saw him as Spike in Notting Hill all those years ago. I did see some potential in him to be a great actor when he played Xenophilius Lovegood in the first part of the last Harry Potter film, and now he has excelled beyond my expectations.

The film works well together, the characters seem to complement each other perfectly, though there are a number of "holes", for the lack of a better word, that I know will be filled in the sequels to come. This is not a bad thing, this is just very well-structured screen-writing. I'm glad that Avi Arad from Marvel Studios and Laura Ziskin decided to continue to produce this film after Columbia Pictures announced the reboot, because this storyline will pave the way to not only more gripping scenes with the next film in the series, but hopefully, for the unanswered questions to be answered. I am very pleased to award The Amazing Spider-Man a five-star rating.