The Amazing Spider-Man

[Toby Linden]

I have seen 'The Amazing Spider-Man' yesterday here in Germany and it looked...amazing. This is without doubt the best looking RED movie that I've seen thus far ('Prometheus' hasn't opened in Germany yet). John Schwartzman did a fantastic job in terms of the cinematography. The colors looked beautiful and the 3D was quite subtle, but still delivered a great sense of depth. Besides the technical aspects of the film, the plot was fantastic, too. The film really took its time in order to establish the characters, their motivations and conflicts. In short, go see it! It is definitely well worth seeing.

[Sergio Perez]

Loved the look of the film. Again, amazing looking blockbuster and good 3D. Great pacing on the action scenes and great representation of Spider Man's "movement" both in the swinging and in the fighting, something that looked worse in the Raimi films. Colors looked fantastic, images crisp and bright for a 3D movie. Color interpretation different from Raimi's, but fitted the movie very well. In terms of images, this is another triumph for Red. Congratulations!!

Now, for the worst part, in my opinion. Story wise, being a huge Spider Man fan for more than 25 years, I felt a bit disappointed. I think the lead actor is a very good dramatic actor, and could work for probably an older Spider-Man, a Peter Parker of the later Mary Jane, Clone years, but as the High School bullied kid, definitely not. His characterization is just, for the lack of better words, too "Twilighty" : lost is the charm of the innocent nerdy kid that was raised up to be a good student with the right principles by his uncles in the comic book, and in is a back row sitting, skateboard ridding "emo" outcast, angry with his daddy issues, not necessarily bullied by being a nerd- SMALL SPOILER- that is reserved to someone else in the film where he intervenes- END OF SPOILER (. In Raimi's Spiderman, Peter Parker was much more in the "essence" of the "early" Spiderman. This one while phisically looking closer to its comic book counterpart, was probably just poorly characterized in his high school form. The actor was, like said previously, though, giving his all and delivered in the key dramatic moments. The characterization of Peter Parker the man, for me, fell short to the essence of the comic book character. It works here, though, if one doesn't consider the comics and considers this a "film" with no back story or past in other media.

For those not into the comic books , this is a solid film, with good, serious dramatic performances, good support cast but with the usual "convenient" plot holes or "omissions" to allow for the story to develop. An entertaining time at the movies, but I cannot help but feel disappointed with the "loss" of some of Peter Parker's most appealing aspects, which was his "innocence" in high school- even after becoming Spider-Man.

However, this new "Spider Man" world was created, so lets see where they take this in Part II. There's potential-provided they take into account a good story- to take this into Dark Knight territory. The acting potential is there on the "surviving" cast. Looking forward to 2014 to see if The Amazing Spiderman was really a good move in terms of a reboot. They set all the foundations (like Nolan did with Batman Begins). Now it really depends on what comes next. There's much competition nowadays in the Super-hero film scene, so they need to make this stand out on the next release. Because even if this "reboot" succeeds, it cannot be avoided that people will have an aftertaste of "being there and done that" or "Deja vu" with it.

[Anthony Vu]

I saw the movie last night and I thought it was well done.

I've been reading Spider-man comics for over 25 years as well and I felt that Marc Webb's interpretation of Peter was good. I wasn't disappointed at all. I suppose I'm the type of person who is curious about the director's translation of Peter Parker, much like how comic book writers and artists creatively change Peter Parker. Stan Lee's Peter Parker is very much different from Todd McFarlane's. Even in the animated series, Peter had different personalities depending on the series' director and character designers. There are many variations of how to approach Peter, that I wouldn't go as far as to put him in one particular characterization that is deemed perfect.

The thing that really stood out to me was the visual look. The theater I was watching at was showing The Amazing Spider-Man with a 4k projector, so I thought it was a digital output. I'm not sure what the theater was doing, but it REALLY looked like film to me. I was simply blown away by the quality and color. Super sharp images and great cinematography. Prometheus had moments where I felt the footage looked video-ish. But not Spidey. Great movie. I enjoyed it quite a bit.