Who would have guessed Nick Fury appears at the end of The Amazing Spider-Man? Just kidding! Although that would have been cool. Anyways, for this review I'm going to do things a tad differently, I'm going to take the Amazing Spider-Man and compare it to Sam Raimi's Spider-Man to see how they hold up. I know it probably won't be fair for one of the movies, but hey, this is the era of The Gritty Reboot, the Amazing Spider-Man wouldn't have gotten made if Raimi's 3rd movie didn't bomb and need a reboot. Let's get started.
So the Amazing Spider-Man was about a kid who gets bitten by a poisonous spider and gets super sick, he spends most of the movie in the hospital being kind to all the other sick folk which earns him the name, the Amazing Spider-Man. He dies at the end, it's tragic. Naw, that didn't happen, but do I really need to say what does? It's Spider-Man, kid gets bit, kid is now superhero, fights a giant lizard. It's pretty standard, but then, so was Raimi's, they're both superhero films, pretty standard stuff. This one, though, does something these new reboots are doing, revealing an origin that not many people are aware of. This provides a moderately new and fresh take on the hero, they don't expand on the origin plot too much in Amazing, but it's still there. Points to them.
Now we get to the cast and let me tell you, they're the most amazing part of the film. Sure Tobey was nerdy, but Andrew felt real, he wasn't just some nerdy kid with glasses, he was a nerdy kid with glasses who also wears contact lenses. Seriously though, his interaction with Emma (the love interest) felt a thousand times more realistic and awkward than anything Tobey and Kirsten could dish out. Flash Thompson also had a slightly bigger part, wasn't just some jack-ass bully. The bad guy Rhys Ifans (the lizard) wasn't my favorite though, his acting was good as Curt Connors but his Lizard dipped into Raimi's Schizo-Villain territory. Martin Sheen's Uncle Ben on the other hand, loved him. Sure he didn't feel as warm-hearted as Cliff Robertson's Ben, but Sheen felt like a mofugen parent and that counts for something. Overall, I'd have to give the point to Amazing for accomplishing the "gritty realism" aspect quite nicely with the characters.
Let's have the directors battle it out now. In one corner: Sam Raimi of Spider-Man. In the other: Marc Webb of The Amazing Spider-Man. Raimi had experience and plenty of movies under his belt and it showed in his movie with pomp and circumstance. Webb is fairly new, only doing 500 Days of Summer before this and a ton of music video directing. From a directorial stand point, Raimi did a far better job. A friend of mine mentioned that Amazing was paced wrong at points and I'd have to agree. Granted, most of it was stuff from Raimi's Spider-Man that they had to get out of the way quickly to move on, but other parts had it too. That being said, Webb did a decent job for being new to the major motion picture. However, I've got to give the point to Raimi on this one.
I'm going to talk about something now I've never mentioned before in my reviews: the score of the film. I'm only doing this because the Amazing Spider-Man had an interesting score. James Horner did the score for Amazing while THE Danny Elfman did the score for Spider-Man, yup, THE Danny Elfman. Both composers have given the sound to many a movie, Elfman however, is more recognized if you've watched any Tim Burton movie recently. I have to say, Elfman's work on Spider-Man was fantastic, it kept things fast paced and yet blended seamlessly into the movie, which is what a good score should be. Horner's work though, didn't. Most of the film had what I think was an indie rock soundtrack and even good moments like one with the lizard resorted to cliche monster movie piano strikes. Don't get me wrong, it's cool, just not fitting. So ultimately I'm giving the point to Raimi's Spider-Man.
Well that leaves them tied, how are we going to break this. I know, I know, which one stayed closest to the source material. I'm just going to say this now, the Amazing Spider-Man did. Raimi's Spider-Man had the Goblin in the movie and no Gwen Stacy. Instead we got the classic bridge scene but this time Mary Jane was the one being tossed off it and naturally she had to be saved. The Amazing Spider-Man takes Parker back to highschool with his first love, still has the bully Flash Thompson, but also gives us NYPD's George Stacy as a character. So I'm going to have to say, The Amazing Spider-Man wins.
It was a close call and the Raimi films are still really good and changed the way people think about superhero movies, but the Amazing Spider-Man is the result of that. It was allowed to be taken more seriously and had great effort put into it, yeah it had it's problems, but I feel it's the superior film. I give it an A+, see it for yourself, who knows, maybe you'll like the Raimi one better or something.
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