Does The Amazing Spider-Man hold up?

Let’s find out:

So we start off with Richard (Campbell Scott) and Mary Parker (Embeth Davidtz) dropping off their son Peter (Max Charles) at Uncle Ben Parker (Martin Sheen) and Aunt May Parker (Sally Field). 

Years pass. Peter grows and is now played by Andrew Garfield. Flash Thompson (Chris Zylka) bullies Peter and Peter has a crush on Gwen Stacy (Emma Stone). 

 We then meet Dr. Curt Connors (Rhys Ifans) and Peter helps him work on the decay rate algorithm for Dr. Connors’ missing right arm. 

We then get Uncle Ben’s “With great power comes great responsibility” speech in this, and…

Uncle Ben’s “With great power comes great responsibility” speech in this sounds like a high schooler trying to copy part of a Wikipedia page for a homework assignment or paper without getting caught. Or, it sounds like a high schooler or a college student trying to paraphrase a citation for a homework assignment or paper without getting hit with a plagiarism charge.

Speaking of plagiarism, Uncle Ben’s death in this is very similar to his death in the Tobey Maguire movie (complete with Peter having a  I missed the part where that is problem/not my policy) moment.

Anyway, Peter becomes Spider-Man so that he can avenge Uncle Ben’s death.

We then meet police captain George Stacy (Denis Leary), who is Gwen’s father, and…

Rom-com shenanigans!

…Gwen finds out the truth about Spider-Man. 

Rajit Ratha (Irrfan Khan) wants Doctor Connors to start human experiments; but, Connors does not want to. Ratha decides to start human experiments at a veterans hospital. In desperation, Connors experiments on himself and he gets his arm back. However, Connors turns into the Lizard, and…

Sounds like a drug commercial.

With this medicine; you will get your arm back. Side effects may include: turning into a Lizard, severe brain injury, diarrhea and death.

Anyway, Connors tries to stop Ratha. This leads to Spider-Man saving people on the Williamsburg Bridge. 

The Lizard goes after Peter at Peter’s school. Peter discovers that Connors wants to turn humans into lizards, and…

1. You’ve seen this in a billion superhero movies.

2. Sounds like a 1950s sci-fi movie.

Anyway, Captain Stacy discovers that Peter is Spider-Man.

Gwen helps in this, and…

This is a refreshing change from the Sam Raimi movies where Mary Jane Watson/Kirsten Dunst needed to be saved constantly. 

Anyway, Peter is able to share the antidote. The Lizard injured Captain Stacy. Captain Stacy asks Peter to stay away from Gwen. Captain Stacy dies and Peter to Gwen is all “Hey, your dad’s dead. How is he going to know?”

A man visits Connors and the man wants to know if Peter knows the dark, scandalous and uncensored truth about his (Peter’s) dad. We find out that Peter is in the dark and Connors tells the man to keep away from Peter.

The Amazing Spider-Man is a mixed bag/a fine Spider-Man movie. Gwen/Emma Stone gets good writing/acting and she gets to be active. Flash gets character development and that rarely happens for bully characters. Garfield works as Spider-Man and post-bite Peter; however, I had trouble buying him as a nerd. The movie falters when it is copying from the Sam Raimi movies and that especially happens with the Uncle Ben stuff. Connors/Ifans gets a more grounded approach; however, he is not as memorable as the villains from the Raimi movies. I also felt like the Raimi movies did a better job of explaining why their villains went insane and giving the villains time to go insane. Connors goes insane and he does so so quickly (sanity is a slippery slope). Also, some sequences drag.

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