New Spiderman lacks bite
MOVIE: The Amazing Spider-Man
REVIEW: Niall Boyle
RATING: 7/10
Reboots are all the craze in Hollywood at present and the new Batman trilogy leads the way as the shining example of how to get it right.
But something about the new Amazing Spider-Man is just amiss.
Granted it has got all the high-jinks and web-slinging from your friendly neighbourhood Spiderman, but you can’t help but think director Marc Webb could have done things better.
Andrew Garfield, who hit the big time in The Social Network, doesn’t quite pull off Peter Parker as well as his predecessor Tobey Maguire.
His version of Spiderman is wracked with more teenage angst and this retelling firmly focuses on Parker’s emotional turmoil as high school geek with superhuman powers.
But at times, you could be mistaken for thinking this new release had strayed into romantic-comedy territory.
Fans of the wall-crawler will also be disappointed with the lack of action throughout.
Rhys Ifans lines up against Spiderman as the film’s antagonist, the Lizard. The Welsh actor doesn’t provide the same presence as Willem Dafoe did as the villain Green Goblin in the film’s original outing.
The film also misses the male camaraderie that James Franco and Maguire had in Sam Raimi’s original.
Despite its shortfalls, Emma Stone impresses as love interest Gwen Stacy and Martin Sheen does an admirable job as loving Uncle Ben.
Webb’s version of Spiderman isn’t the highly-polished crime fighter we’ve come to expect, leaving plenty of room for development in undoubted future sequels.
Die-hard Spidey fans, however, will look past this movie’s flaws and enjoy his latest big screen outing.
