Movie Review: The Amazing Spider-Man

There are lots of people out there wondering why Spider-Man is being redone so soon. To be put simply, it's because the Sam Raimi/Tobey Macguire's Spider-Man was good, but it wasn't great. In fact, it barely even followed the comics. At all. Like they really didn't follow the comics. One example being the fact that Spider-Man was able to create webs out of his wrists without using web shooters. Foolish movie makers. That's the whole reason why Spider-Man goes like this:



See the black pad in the middle? That's to activate his web shooters.

As you can see, there was some major disappointment in the earlier Spider-Man movies. Jessie used to think that Spider-Man was a lame whiney college kid that needed to grow up, because all she knew of Spider-Man was Tobey Macguire's portrayal. However, Spider-Man is cool. Like super cool. In fact, one might even call him amazing.

The Amazing Spider-Man

Guys, even I was a little skeptical about this movie. I was worried that Spider-Man and Peter Parker wouldn't be portrayed correctly. I was dead wrong. To answer why they redid Spider-Man a mere five years after the previous monstrosity hit the screen is because they had to fix it. This Spider-Man is the true Spider-Man. He's the Spider-Man I grew to love as a little girl. The guy who not only has real life problems as Peter Parker, but problems as a superhero as well.

So what made this movie so good? It was a little bit of everything. Andrew Garfield is an excellent actor, and his portrayal as Spider-Man and as Peter Parker was phenomenal. These characters evolve so much over the course of the film, which is quite a feat over the course of one movie. Andrew Garfield was able to pull off not one, but two character turnarounds, for while Peter Parker and Spider-Man are intertwined, they can almost be thought of as two different people.

The story of the villain was also shown well. The reason why Doc Connors does what he does and how he became a villain is touched on well enough to understand the why, but not overdone to where it takes away too much screen time from our hero.

The romance was also portrayed well. Gwen Stacey is a teenage girl. Peter Parker is a teenage boy. Put those together and what do you get? Hilarious awkward moments to where you're glad it's not happening to you, to super sweet moments where you get to see a little bit more of each characters' strengths and weaknesses. The romance wasn't just something added in to distract the audience temporarily, but it enhanced movie by allowing the characters to become more developed as the movie progressed.

For the people who hated Tobey Maguire's Spider-Man or thought that a "reboot" was unnecessary, this movie helps to correct all of the previous misconceptions that there may have been. This is the real deal. The Spider-Man movie that is closer to the comics, and has a darker edge to it that makes it more relatable to each of us. I would recommend to watch it. Even Jessie has come to realize how amazing Spider-Man truly is.