The Amazing Spiderman Review

Before I begin this review I have to say that I'm not a fan of the superhero genre at all, in fact I have something of an allergic reaction to the word "superhero". I know of Spiderman because of popular culture and so on, but I generally ignore movies based on comic books. So you probably know more about Spiderman than I do. This review is by a complete outsider from the genre, I haven't watched the other Spiderman films or read any of the comics.

So why, you may ask, did I even watch this movie? Because of Andrew Garfield. And the trailers, but mostly Andrew Garfield. His performance in "Never Let Me Go" was nothing short of amazing and I thought that this might be more of the same. So, with that said, here's my Amazing Spiderman review:

World-Building: Decent
Characterization: Great
Plot: Starts great, but weakens near the end

This movie was decent and enjoyable. As I said, I'm not a fan of the superhero genre in general, but I was able to watch the entire movie without any major annoyances. Andrew Garfield was great as Spiderman, but I didn't find his performance here as awesome as it was in "Never Let Me Go" - of course, it's not a fair comparison because the deep and poignant back-story, the tragedy that was in "Never Let Me Go" isn't present in this story.

The other characters were ok, though too much time was spent with Gwen and the whole love story. It became tiresome after a while, especially when her dad turned out to be the police chief.

What I liked most about this movie was Peter's longing to find out more about his parents and to be honest he didn't find out too much in this movie. The parts with uncle Ben were great, and I loved the part when he walked out of the house and uncle Ben went after him. It was well done and had potential, but again, less intensely emotional than it could have been. Also, they didn't fully explain his anger in a convincing way.

The plot in the beginning, with his searching for answers was great, but when it shifted to him suddenly deciding to go after the Lizard it became too quick and hastily-put-together. Also, the Lizard's turn to evil wasn't really explained. Are lizards innately vicious and dangerous? Because that's the only explanation I can think of for his sudden changes in behavior.

Throughout the movie I never felt a sense of real danger for Peter.Gwen's father being the police chief should have created some tension, but even that turned into nothing when Gwen's father didn't get any suspicions and even listened to his tip about Dr. Connors.

Overall, it was a decent movie that you can enjoy, but it doesn't really say too much that's deep or that induces deeper thought.