The Amazing Spider Man / Rated PG-13 for violence and a giant lizard out to do bad.
Sony Pix has decided to produce another round of Spider Man movies starting at the beginning. The last trio with Toby McGuire did big time box office so it was only a matter of time before the story came back. The last trio premiered in 2002, 2004 and 2007. This means this group should carry on in ‘14 and ‘17. Then a new group will premier in 2022. That series will continue in ‘24 and ‘27. Get the picture?
The Spider Man character is lots of fun. He shoots webs and swings around the city like Tarzan in the jungle. He has super strength but is vulnerable to a particularly virulent can of Raid.
The bad guy does not know he can get this product at any Target store along with thousands of movie tie-in Spider Man games and toys so he wastes his time trying to destroy SM by ripping him limb from limb. This never works.
The story follows the prior films with the emphasis on parts of the plot changed but only in minor ways. SM aka Peter Parker is orphaned by his parents who leave the story in the first few minutes and leave the kid at his Aunt and Uncle’s house. They sacrifice weekly trips to Vegas and concentrate their time and money on bringing up little spidey. Uncle Ben (not the guy on the rice boxes) is played by Martin Sheen. His fate is about the same as the 2002 film. Aunt May is Sally Field. She worries and frowns a lot.
The villain who is missing a limb runs an animal experimental lab where he is trying to find a way to mix genetics and combine different species DNA so he can regenerate limbs. He wants his arm back. Eventually it works. The arm comes back but then he turns into a giant lizard and sets out to do bad, evil, lizard deeds to NYC. His genetic material can regenerate parts a lot like The Terminator. This means he is hard to kill. Even if you decapitate him, within 15 seconds a new head pops out. This is not good for Spider Man. Not good at all.
Along the way many of the teenage getting even with the bully and resolving his frustrating love life events occur right on schedule. Only when they get to the CG efx does the film get to Spidey swinging around and kicking bad guy tush. With a reported 215 million bucks budget this means the efx are top notch.
Also top notch and easily the best part of TASM is the score by James Horner. JH won his Oscars for the song and score to Titanic (1997) . His best works were for the film Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan (1982) and the film Sneakers from 1992 (the title does not refer to tennis shoes). It had a dream cast featuring Robert Redford, Sydney Poitier, Dan Aykroyd and others. Sneakers was a gem of a suspense heist style story. JH’s masterful themes from these two films are re-stylized and add a great background to the Spider Man saga. The score is available on CD from Sony and costs less than a pair of tix to the film. Buy the CD. Watch the film. Wait for the first sequel coming up following the timeline back at the beginning of this review.
Rated 3.2 out of 4.0 cans of Raid. Target is having a sale.