This post includes a lot of spoilers so if you have not watched the movie yet and you don't like spoilers then you probably don't want to read on.
I finally got to watch the Amazing Spiderman today. It does not follow the previous series starring Toby Maguire, its kind of a reset or a new series if you like. A few things bugged me about this movie. I enjoyed it, no doubt, I thought it was very fun almost like a Disney movie but I was not drawn into the story, I was just puzzled most of the time.
The first thing I noticed right from the start is how long it took for the movie to get started. They went into more details about Peter's life as a boy when his parents were still alive. It was nice to get to know his parents, I don't think the previous series concentrated on that part of the story but I feel like it was unnecessary to go into so much detail. Pretty much the first hour of the movie was all this pre-story before he became Spiderman. I felt quite impatient with this approach, I think with the Toby Maguire series we kind of know the Spiderman story so it didn't require a whole hour to reharsh the story we already know.
I felt this Spiderman is a little too reckless, he took off his mask so many times revealing his identity too early. I'm surprised they allowed that. The part where he saved the kid was fine and when he was cornered towards the end, I guess can't be helped but the other times I thought it was uncalled for. I guess the directors wanted to show the juvenile Spiderman but I thought it was too reckless.
In the animated series I watched while I was a kid, Spiderman relied on his spidey senses and Its nice to see them bring a bit of that out in this movie. I thought it was a nice touch. He's spidey senses have clearly not matured yet and that could be an area to develop in any subsequent movie.
Finally the thing that I didn't quite think about until this movie was those darn webs. Are they bio-degradable? Or do they stick around after they have been spun? And another thing, why didn't anyone from OSCORP recognise what is effectively their research being used in such a public way. Someone must have seen those webs and thought, hmm, that looks familiar.
All these aside though, I thought it was a nice movie. I get the feeling that its geared towards the younger generation. There might be more movies in this series since we haven't met Maryjane yet. The Spiderman story is not complete yet without her, forget Gwen.
-ONWARD!