Just saw The Amazing Spiderman in IMAX 3D. It was pretty good. The use of 3D is very good. I am finding that if a film is primarily CGI then it's a pretty good bet to see it in 3D. IMAX for me is a treat for certain movies.
I'm not going to go into the plot of the film so must as to just give my thoughts and feelings about the movie. I figure most of you already know the story.
From the teaser I mention that sometimes the whole of a movie is greater than the sum of its parts...This is what happened to the Avengers movie. With exception to Ironman, the other films (Hulks - plural), Captain America, and Thor...were just OK films...3/5 Stars. I actually thought Thor was a bit weak. - All this is Box office aside. However, from these films Marvel made a pretty good, some would say great...I'll say good, Avengers film.
So how does this piece of commentary apply to The Amazing Spiderman?
TASM or more specifically Spiderman movies...have had a very good run. In fact the second Spiderman movie is arguably the greatest Superhero movie of all time so far...arguably...because I prefer the original Superman. The Dark Knight films may also give it a run...but I digress.
TASM is great to look at. The CGI os VERY good, and the Andrew Garfield looks like a true to life Comic version of Peter Parker. With his wiry body and big spikey hair he looks like he's been pulled right out of the comic. The web-slinging POV and other shots are very good and usually end up in some sort of Iconic imagery. The poses that Garfield had to strike are incredible. Interesting NOTE...did you know that Garfield's eyes look like boobs? I can prove it. - Again I digress.
Admittedly I thought the lizard was going to be hokey and look terrible. I was wrong. The CGI for the Lizard was brilliant.
So now we have to get past the look of the film...ignore the bright and shiny things, that distract from meat of the film, such as acting, story, direction, etc...
This is a reboot as it were and really it falls a little flat. The movie is long or at least feels long. Some closer editing would have been welcomed. This film basically discarded most of the elements from the first 2 Spiderman films (I ignore the third) that were great, and replaced them with mediocre fill-ins. In the first films Peter Parker was a bit of a pussy, and Toby McGuire was...meh. But as Spiderman...he was awesome. The opposite is true with this film. As Peter Parker, Garfield is great. As Spiderman he's lack luster. Except for the set up shots, and poses of course, most of this film we see Peter Parker running around...and even in Spiderman Costume he takes his mask off A LOT. - We get it...Garfield looks like a comic big headed version of Parker.
He tries to take one the sarcastic personae of Spiderman since he is a highschooler...but that only works one or twice. There is clearly chemistry between Garfield and Emma Stone, but the direction of their interaction is ham handed. It's clear these two want to get a room but yet we get stuck in a Twilight non-sex scene.
Something else I didn't care for...as Spiderman he gets his butt kicked a lot. I get he's new to this and he's young, and so on and so forth...but he really gets pounded. Some will say that's a reality for Spidey...others will not like it.
Although I loved the web-slinging, it took a while to grow on me. Maybe this was on purpose...but I don't think so. Initially "Spiderman" was clumsy and his movements were herky jerky sort of fumbly. In some scenes he looks like a parkour runner than "Spiderman". I ultimately took this to be a growing pain and getting used to his powers. They did try to ground how Spiderman swung around in real science. This combined with a more realistic look and feel...I don't know...It didn't do it for me. BUT like I said it grew on me and in the more produced clips I loved it.
Flat story, flat acting, all too "human" version of Spidey, great look for Peter Parker, pretty good look for Spiderman, excellent CGI...
To me this is a case of if you could take elements from this film and elements from the originals....it would be a near perfect film.
This is not in the same league as the originals, but it wasn't terrible either. It will make money and do well, but not as well as it could have with a few tweaks here and there. I read that Sony execs didn't really care for it...I can see that. Fans will love this film...those who remember the first 2 will probably feel similar to me. ...It's just OK...leaning towards good.
I give it 2.5 - 3 Stars out of 5