Film Review: The Amazing Spider-Man

This article titled “The Amazing Spider-Man – review” was written by Jason Solomons, for The Observer on Saturday 30th June 2012 23.05 UTC

Even superheroes have gone romcom this week. Having previously directed (500) Days of Summer, Marc Webb brings a touch of high school sweetness to his new spin on Spider-Man. Casting the likable Emma Stone, from Easy A and Crazy, Stupid, Love, as Spidey’s love interest and classmate proves a slick move (although this is one of those American movies where every kid at school looks at least 25) and Andrew Garfield rises to the challenge of mooning over her while bantering with a giant lizard and trussing up numerous hoodlums.

For all its action sequences and swoops and swings, I found it hard to get remotely excited by The Amazing Spider-Man. It exists in a vacuum of familiarity and although Garfield’s twitchy, spiky playing of Peter Parker brings new shades, this is hardly a re-reading of Hamlet. Perhaps Joss Whedon’s Avengers Assemble really was a game changer in that the lone superhero movie now leaves you feeling shortchanged – unless of course, you’re a New York construction worker, in which case you must be coining it in rebuilding the city after the latest Marvel character has destroyed it.

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