The Amazing Spiderman - A Review

I've learned over years of watching movies that there is a universal law involved in whether I will like a movie or not. That law is that if I expect nothing I will never be disappointed, or in the extreme case if I expect to be disappointed then I'll probably be impressed.

That was the case with the new Spiderman reboot. I liked Tobey Maguire's Spidey way too much to want to like this new Andrew Garfiled guy! or was it Kirsten Dunst's Mary Jane who made the "old" trilogy for me? No probably not, I'm married and seldom notice the females in any movie.

But as much as I wanted to hate it I left the cinema loving it. Sure there were a few things that bugged me, like what happened to Mary Jane, Harry Osborn and Peter Parker the total geek? As much as Garfield played his part precisely well, he just wasn't geeky enough to create the stark contrast between Peter Parker the nerd and Spiderman the ultra cool Mime Artist in red... Sorry that's the Electric Company's Spiderman I'm confusing myself with there... But The reboot's Parker was kinda cool without the super powers, a bit of a weak loner but still cool in a post emo sort of way...

Perhaps some of my readers who are better versed in comic book lore can comment on which of the Spiderman franchises is true to the comics?

But all that aside, for a reboot, it wasn't half bad. Rhys Ifans' baddy was the kind you feel sorry for most of the time and that's my personal favorite sort of villain, it's kind if more realistic when the villain turns out to have been a nice guy who got a bit of power and then turned genocidal on everyone, like George Bush Jr, like most if us would be if we managed to splice our genes with a geko's.

As my dear old step dad used to ask me, "what was the moral of the story?" and surprisingly this money hungry rehash has a one. It is the story of a boy seeking revenge for the loss of his Uncle and ultimately his parents but learns that protecting others far outweighs his own quest for vengeance. For a while there you see a darker Spiderman, before his character is defined, searching for the man who killed his uncle when ultimately Peter must come to terms with the part he played in creating that crime by turning a blind eye when he should have been responsible.

I am left with one perplexing question after watching this film though. When Peter encountered the spider that bit him there were hundreds if not thousands of the things in the lab making super webs. If creating spiderman was that simple then why aren't there more spidermen?

If you see this movie, try to sit through the credits, I made the mistake of leaving early and so missed the mega lead in to the sequel! Unfortunately the extra footage didn't include Nick Fury doing some more recruiting. Alas I read somewhere that this Spiderman reboot will not be likely to cross over to Avengerdom because of copywrite restraints... Though you can google that if you're into that sort of legal stuff, as for me I'm going to put on this red and blue unitard and try to jump off this building with this webbing I've been collecting from my bedroom ceiling, if you never see another review from me it's because my life long dream to be a super hero has ended in a coma.

I'll give this film a 6 out of 10 because as much as I loved the last three flicks and the actors and characters I had come to love, I was still entertained enough and inspired enough to want to buy Spiderman Pajamas.