Overall: A-Cast: B+
Plot: A
Special Effects/Stunts: B+
Similarity to Comic: A
Director: Marc Webb
Comic Company: Marvel
Stars: Andrew Garfield, Emma Stone, Rhys Ifans
Rating: PG-13
See the IMDB page
See the Rotten Tomatoes page
This movie was better than it's three predecessors in almost every way. But first things first, the thing that really sold me on this movie was this one simple fact; Andrew Garfield cries a HELL of a lot better than Toby Maguire, the movie is worth seeing just for that.
The Good: The first thing that jumped out at me was how much more like the comic this movie was compared to the first three. Spider-Man shooting webs from a contraption on his wrist instead of his actual body and having his love interest be Gwen Stacy instead of MJ were simple changes to make and made the movie a lot more likeable. Another big plus was that Spider-Man got his sarcastic, smart ass attitude back, which was lacking in the previous films.
The plot was solid, I appreciated how they used a villain that hadn't been done before and also eluded to the Green Goblin at the end. The cast was good too, I think it needed maybe one more nigger name at least, but the mid level actors really stepped up. I am usually not a huge Emma Stone fan, but she really won me over in this movie, as did Andrew Garfield. Martin Sheen did well as Uncle Ben and Denis Leary held his own quite well as Gwen's dad/police captain.
The Bad: At some places the CGI of the Lizard wasn't as good as it probably could have been, and a lot of the scenery was pretty obviously CGI, which at times got a little distracting. I didn't like how at the end, Spider-Man was so hurt that he could barely swing and get to the Lizard, but once he got there he was fighting as if nothing had happened. I know that the hero is supposed to win no matter the circumstances, but that was a little bit of a stretch.
My other nick on this movie is that right at the end they show a shadowy figure that we can only assume is the Green Goblin. However, throughout the whole movie they didn't even mention him. Oscorp was brought up several times, and even the name Norman Osbourne was mentioned once or twice, but nothing n how/why he is the Goblin or why he wants to apparently kill Spider-Man. Questions that I'm sure will be answered in the sequel, but for now they serve no purpose other to drive us crazy.
The Interesting: "With great power comes great responsibility" has always been and will always be the main message behind Spider-Man. So... Where was it in this movie? Uncle Ben had his dying scene and spouted off some similar message, but not those words, and why not? I can't find much online that provides an adequate explanation other than "they didn't want this movie to be too much like the last ones". Really? This movie is far better than the last ones, they shouldn't have been so worried about a single phrase.
Peter's parents, let's talk about that. They are involved in some weird backstory with Dr. Connors? Okay they made it work for this movie, but that's not how it goes down in the comics is it? I like that they tried to tie them in somehow, but there is never really any closure with it, maybe in the next movie, maybe not. It's probably best that they leave it a loose end, but we all know how Hollywood is sometimes.
Conclusion: Considerably better than the first three movies, this Spider-Man film is what the last director and group of actors was probably going for but couldn't achieve due to money reasons, and lack of available CGI technology back in 2002. I highly recommend seeing this movie, probably more than once.
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