Review of The Amazing Spiderman, directed by Marc Webb

Throughout the course of my life, I would never say that I was a Marvel fan. I never cared to watch any of The Avengers movies when I was in school, as everyone else was gushing about them, and I found the fans that I was surrounded by to be kind of annoying as to how much they projected their identity through the franchise.

That was high school me, and now I’m an adult who also studies subcultures and gender within society. Now I don’t care about what makes other people happy in terms of movies and fandoms (as long as it’s healthy and not impacting them negatively), but I still never really cared for Marvel.

But now I’ve seen some Marvel movies. I watched The Amazing Spider-Man with my sister, as we used to have nights where we would pick a movie from her collection and watch it together on our living room couches. Our parents never joined us, and it would just be the two of us watching the movie. Sometimes we did it every other night.

The Amazing Spider-Man was her pick, as I would definitely not be someone who picked this out. I usually went for the Disney or Studio Ghibli movies that she had in her collection. I am glad I watched this though as an Andrew Garfield fan—I still often think about his performance in Tick, Tick….Boom! and how well he did in that.

I’m starting to ramble, so let’s get into the review!

After being bit by a spider, a high school student discovers he has powers.

This movie begins in the past, where Peter Parker finds out his father’s office at home has been tampered with. His parents gather their belongings, specifically some documents that were hidden in the office, and then drop Peter off at his aunt and uncle’s house. They don’t reappear from that point on.

We then move into the present day, where Peter Parker is a teenager. He’s bullied at school because he’s awkward, although he’s pretty smart, and has a crush on Gwen Stacy. But when he finds out a certain Dr. Curt Connors, who works at Oscorp, was friends with his father, Peter sneaks into a field trip group there.

Connors works in genetics between species, and that’s how Peter ends up bit by one of his genetically modified spiders. Soon after, he develops abilities like a spider, which freaks him out at first. Dr. Connors, at the same time, is working on being able to regrow limbs like certain animals.

Peter then goes through his father’s papers and discovers something big, which he gives to Connors. When he comes home, he gets into an argument with his uncle, who tries to find Peter after he storms out of the house. His uncle is shot and killed, and Peter goes after the killers with a mask and spandex suit, creating the beginnings of his iconic costume.

He then goes into the vigilante business of taking down criminals on the street after school. Gwen invites him to a family dinner at her place, and there he finds out her dad is the police chief that has an axe to grind against Spider-Man. Then Peter tells Gwen in private about who he really is.

Dr. Connors is fired after refusing to inject drugs into live humans. He injects it into himself instead, then finds out his arm, which is missing, has grown back. He then becomes a reptilian monster that’s out of control, and he was unable to stop his supervisor from leaving to go inject more people with it.

Peter hears about this and stops Dr. Connors from killing people on the bridge, but now the police are after him and Connors. He Dr. Connors in the sewers of NYC, but is attacked and flees before he can stop the lizard man. Connors then discovers who Spider-Man is, and then decides to take down Peter in his school.

Peter breaks into his lab in the sewers, then realizes that he is planning to turn everyone into reptiles just like him. He’s going to release a gas from the Oscorp tower, leading to this, but then Peter is caught by the police. Gwen’s dad realizes who Spider-Man is, and lets him go to stop the lizard. Gwen also then helps create an antidote. They take down the lizard by using the antidote, making everyone go back to normal.

However, the lizard kills Gwen’s dad as his one last move, and he asks that Peter stay away from Gwen. After this, Peter listens, but it makes the two miserable.

The film ends with Dr. Connors being visited in jail by a mysterious man. He asks if Peter knows the truth about his dad, but Dr. Connors tells him to leave Peter alone.

Overall Thoughts

It’s a solid super hero movie, I’ll admit that. I have a soft spot for the Spider-Man movies, but I don’t care for the other Marvel movies as much as I should. I feel like this one has more of a solid storyline, and relies less on the bang bang boom elements to draw the viewer in.

I also love Andrew Garfield in general, and I think he did such a good job with this movie. He has such a good range as an actor in general, and this proves it to me.

I’d watch the second movie. I don’t know when, but I imagine you’ll find out when I get there through this blog. I don’t plan on going away any time soon, that’s for sure!

Watch this if you haven’t already and are interested in doing so. You probably won’t regret it.

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