After already amassing over $50 Million overseas, Sony’s The Amazing Spider-Man will finally be gracing American cinemas starting at midnight tonight.
The reboot, starring Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone, has received mixed but mostly positive reviews.
If you go see it tonight, leave a comment and let us know how you liked it! The Geeks plan on catching a show after recording the podcast Tuesday night and will amend our review to the end of the episode.
Swing on, True Believers!
Okay geeks, here is a review of The Amazing Spider-Man from the first half of Knight-Wrighter.
I didn’t really care for it, honestly. But, I suppose that the reason for that is that I set my expectations extremely high for this movie. I had high hopes for the movie and honestly, Andrew Garfield had big shoes to feel. Of all of Marvel’s super heroes, I would have to say that Peter Parker is by far the most versatile and relatable. He is one of the few characters that we as readers and fans have ever been able to identify with. Who hasn’t had girl problems, family issues, work, AND school all piled on top of one another. Not to mention trying to keep a city safe from raving psychopaths like Norman Ozbirn. Pete is just absolutely astonishing at how he manages all of that, and, at times in the comics, he gets a bit down on himself, which is quite understandable. Garfield nailed that aspect of Spidey on the head. But the comic character NEVER lets on to other people that he is an emotional, pathetic, emo-kid. The Peter I know and love remains optimistic and keeps a strong front to the public. However, Garfield just seemed overly whiny and the whitty banter that our favorite wall-crawler provides was lacking as well. I will admit that there were a few funny bits, but overall not near as much as I wanted or I thought the comic character would provide.
For example, when Peter saves the little boy, Jack, from the dangling car and returns him to his father, just before Peter swings off, the father asks, “Who are you?” Now, the comic character would NOT say, I think, “Spider-Man,” and swing off. He would say, as he has said a MILLION times before, “I’m just your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man”
Call me knit-picky or overly critical, but I guess I just feel that this is the one character that should be the best of the Marvel universe. I suppose I love the comic character so much, that no one will be able to come close to him. This is my “Batman,” Jared. I know now why you are so critical of all the reincarnations of the Caped Crusader. We as a public deserve an outstanding super hero but it will be EXTREMELY difficult to capture all aspects in just one man.
My partner in crime, Chris, disagrees with me. He enjoyed the movie as a whole, and he is a much bigger Spidey fan than I am. So I guess it isn’t a total loss. Maybe I’m just too hard to please.
I saw The Amazing Spider-Man yesterday (July 4th) with one expectation going into it, that it be better than Spider-man 3.
On the whole, it definitely met that expectation. And with apologies to the late Macho Man Randy Savage, I thought it was better than the first one in telling a compelling origin story. I think that this version (which I believe is in the Ultimate Spider-man series if I’m not mistaken) with Peter’s parents is an interesting viewpoint to take in telling the story of why Peter is with Uncle Ben & Aunt May and ties into Oscorp and such.
What I didn’t like (trying to be non spoiler): I didn’t like the “him getting his powers” scene in the subway, that was kinda stupid. Also didn’t like they didn’t really resolve him catching the guy that killed Uncle Ben (unless they are going to revisit that in the sequel). Also just personal preference, they could have just started him in college instead of high school if they were going to retell the origin story, continue on with the fresh take on it
What I did like: A) it may be blasphemy but I like Andrew Garfield’s version of Peter Parker better than Tobey Maguire, along with that I thought that the portrayals of Gwen Stacy, Capt. Stacy & even Uncle Ben & Aunt May were better than the previous movies. B) I thought building up Osborn instead of leading with him right off the bat was a good start, it lends itself to some intrigue and give it some more depth
It will be interesting to see how this leads into the sequel but they did a decent job starting off. The Amazing Spider-man won’t be the best superhero movie of 2012 (and not even the 2nd best) but it is really good in it’s own right.