A couple of weeks ago I wrote a tweet stating that I really wasn't sure about this reboot and that I had a feeling I was going to hate it. Walking into the cinema I was really bracing myself for a tedious 2 hours sat getting angry at Spider-Man being turned into a hipster. Within 30minutes or so however my fears had completely subsided and save for a few small niggles what I instead watched was a new Spider-Man film perfectly suited to what this decade demands from a superhero movie.
When I first heard that Marc Webb was to direct the film I had really mixed feelings. On one hand I thought 500 Days of Summer was a great chick flick for guys, but on the other hand I didn't want to see Peter Parker turned into a chic dressing metro-sexual who spends the whole film moping after Gwen Stacy. I have to admit I did expect Andrew Garfield to suddenly break out into a Hall and Oates dance-a-long but thankfully that never happened. Everything was played serious and grounded yet it still managed to be persistently fun and not the gritty Dark Knight-esque wannabe that some of the marketing material seemed to imply. Surprisingly I would probably say that the high school and romance portions of the film were probably the weakest, all feeling a bit rushed and underdeveloped, a problem that the rest of the script certainly does not suffer from as the tired origin story is given numerous complex twists whilst still remaining true to the core elements of the established mythology. It's clear however that Marc Webb has one of the most dynamic and interesting directorial eyes in Hollywood right now though as the web slinging and fight scenes in particular feel refreshing and exhilarating throughout.
The cast has settled into their rolls perfectly and in many ways already seem more suited to the roles than the cast of the original trilogy. Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone in particular have great chemistry and I really can't wait to see how the inevitable death of Gwen Stacy will play out. Rhys Ifans also did a fair job as Curt Connors, but I can't help but feel that The Lizard is not a strong enough villain to carry a film alone and although it worked fine here, the second film really needs to up the ante in the villain stakes. That's not to say that it diminishes just how good the first 2 Sam Raimi directed Spider-Man films were though instead I think it could quite happily sit side by side it in the manner that Tim Burton's Batman films co-exist with Christopher Nolan's. Both tell different stories in different styles which are suited for the time they were made. In this instance I'm very happy to admit that my assumptions were wrong having walked away from the cinema wanting more of this perfectly balanced new take on a franchise that a lot of people, myself included, thought should be left on the shelf.
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