Reviews of Movies, TV shows & metro Detroit Restaurants

Short movie & TV show reviews and metro Detroit restaurant reviews

Monday, January 14, 2013

Movie Review: "The Amazing Spider-Man" (2012)


When I first heard that they were re-booting the Spider-Man movie franchise, I was a bit skeptical. But when I saw who was cast in the roles of Spider-Man/Peter Parker (Andrew Garfield, who is great in "The Social Network") and Gwen Stacy (Emma Stone, one of the funniest young actors/actresses in the business), I knew it had great potential. I had also heard that the re-boot was indeed quite good and I have to agree..."The Amazing Spider-Man" is a good movie.

This movie portrays Spider-Man's origins as a high school student and Peter Parker's development into a superhero. Parker is an awkward high school student who is frequently bullied. He has a major crush on Gwen Stacy who just happens to be the police captain's (George Stacy played by Denis Leary) and who also works at Oscorp which is run by Dr. Curt Connors (played by Rhys Ifans...aka Spike from "Notting Hill"). Dr. Connors also worked with Peter's father and once Peter finds this out, this begins his development into a superhero. Once he discovers his superhero powers, he begins hunting a killer & along the way, taking out various criminals. This also puts him on a collision course with Dr. Connors. I am ending the synopsis here as I do not want to spoil anything!

I thought that Garfield did a great job portraying Parker's awkwardness & innocence as a high school boy smitten with a cute girl and with his transformation into a superhero. Stone also does a nice job of playing Gwen with just the right amount of sass & confidence. The action in this movie is not over the top and/or bombastic, which I find to be more satisfying. The movie is well-written with some witty dialogue, the right amount of humor, a strong romantic story line and even a little darkness. This Spider-Man movie comes across as more real than its predecessors, at least as much as possible given that it is a superhero movie. This is due to Marc Webb's direction, who did an excellent job.

All in all, this is a satisfying, fun and entertaining movie...7.0/10 stars