I am in no way am writing this to circumvent Bryan Young’s previously posted review of this movie. His early review convinced me to go see the film, even though a lot of the trailers left me wondering why the movie was made in the first place. Then I saw it. I was so immersed and impressed with this movie, that despite a few tiny flaws, The Amazing Spider-Man is unequivocally now my favorite movie ever. After seeing the movie, I felt that I had a burning need to share my feelings. As such, there may be minor spoilers contained within. I’ll do my level best to keep things vague, but you have been warned.

I have an uncanny ability to completely shut off expectations when I go see a movie on the big screen. As soon as the lights go down, I belong to the movie, and it has my undivided attention. Admittedly, this doesn’t make me an excellent film critic. Case in point, when I went to see Superman Returns, I loved it. Subsequent viewings brought me to my senses, but the things I loved about that movie still stand. ASM had a similar affect on me, but this time it wasn’t so much a wow factor as it was a realization. This movie has heart.

A large portion of the movie is character introductions and the like. I don’t think Peter Parker even got bit until about an hour into the film. Browse any geek website for a minute, and you’ll hear cries of why this is unnecessary.  The Raimi movie already established the origin, so why retread? I was firmly in that camp myself. I’ve changed my opinion though. This movie had to re-establish the mythos because of how everything is set up. The characters aren’t exactly the same in the previous movies, and this is a good thing. The way the characters are presented and how it relates to the origin all follow an internal logic that is pretty astounding if you think about it. The actors aren’t simply going through the motions or playing established archetypes. They are truly three dimensional, and when the emotional beats happen you care all the more because of it, even though you know what’s going to happen. It made the movie more real than I could have imagined, and that alone makes it a gem in my eyes.

Of course, the movie’s central character is Peter Parker/Spider-Man and if you can’t relate to him, the movie falls apart. Thankfully, Andrew Garfield is not only up to the task, he exceeds my expectations. Peter’s character arc is slightly different in the movie, as he has abandonment issues, growing up without parents. This is particularly felt with the absence of his father. That’s not to say that Uncle Ben isn’t the kind and wise surrogate he’s always been, because he is. It’s just that in this movie, Peter’s father is the catalyst for everything. Growing up without a father myself, I felt like I really understood Peter’s motivation to uncover the events leading up to Richard Parker’s disappearance, not to mention to really “know” what kind of man he was. The path this leads him on not only ties into the origin nicely, but also sets up many possibilities for future films. In particular, I really like the subtle way the filmmakers go about Norman Osborn. Nothing is explicit (unless you count the mid-credits scene), and it make my anticipation for the sequel higher than normal.

Continuing with Peter, once he gets the fateful spider-bite, I found it pretty interesting how the road to becoming Spider-Man played out. There is the obligatory discovering powers scenes, but they are done with such a sense of whimsy that even though everyone has already seen this play out over other mediums something like a million times before, it somehow feels fresh. No wrestling Macho Man Randy Savage here, folks.  The way Uncle Ben’s fate plays out feel more natural as well, it felt a little coincidental to be honest because the sequence between not stopping a robbery and the fatal shot happens so quickly. It’s one of my only little gripes with the movie. What happens after though? That made me start to hate the movie.

You see, after Uncle Ben’s murder, Peter goes full-on vigilante. He’s cocky, self-assured, and definitely not a hero. In short, grieving Peter is kind of an asshole. This includes the much lamented in trailers “small knives” scene. His cocksuredness even gets him the attention of one Gwen Stacy. This made me groan a little too. However, when Gwen invites Peter to meet the family, including Denis Leary as police captain George Stacy, things start to turn around. While it is true that it is Uncle Ben that teaches Peter about power and responsibility, it’s Captain Stacy that shows him how to be a true hero. Never is that more apparent to me than the bridge scene…

This scene makes me well up every time I see it.

In fact, the movie does scenes with this much emotional impact so well and so often, I’m not ashamed to admit that multiple times this movie made me weep like someone stole my lunch money. And if that isn’t an indicator of how successfully the movie works, nothing is. You’ll notice I didn’t really mention the Lizard at all, or the movie’s central conflict. There’s a reason for that. For me, those bits are just icing and an already pretty good slice of cake. Good as that is, it’s not why I love this movie. For reviews of those bits, look elsewhere.

ShazBot Score: 9.6 out of 10 Lightning Bolts

High Points: Emotional resonance, strong characters, well-woven story

Low Points: Series of coincidences, The Lizard’s face (he looked like a Goomba from the terrible Super Mario Bros. movie!)

It is my pleasure to report that The Amazing Spider-Man isn’t a bad movie.

It’s fun, it’s true to the characters, it works generally well. Some parts work better than others and what it gets right, it gets very right. What it misses on, it misses widely.

The story is exactly the same one we got in the trailers. It’s the origin story of Peter Parker and how he got his powers, only this time his parents are vaguely kind of involved. He’s abandoned with his Uncle Ben and Aunt May and his selfishness costs him everything and his drive for vengeance turns him into a hero.

The broad strokes are the same as you’ve seen a hundred times. The details are different. Some of them work remarkably well. I think Martin Sheen did as well as anybody could following up Cliff Robertson as Uncle Ben and sold the part with a heart and resonance that you need out of the character. Andrew Garfield, for his part, worked very well both as Peter and as Spider-Man. I really liked Tobey Maguire’s dopey Peter act, Garfield is much more wry, witty, and slightly more self-assure.

I’m not trying to compare the Raimi and Webb Spider-Man movies. I’m really not. I did everything I could to banish them from my head before I went into the theatre, but they’re just too fresh in the lexicon of superhero films. It was hard to divorce myself completely from making comparisons.

As for the villain, The Lizard works well enough. His best moments were the most comic-booky, from his sewer lair.

Emma Stone and Dennis Leary as Gwen Stacy and her father Captain Stacy are probably the aspect of this film I like the most. She works better as a love interest for Spider-Man than anyone has and Captain Stacy is so perfect to his comic iterations and his place in the story that it’s impossible to dislike him. And it’s the story of the Stacy family I want to see continued into the sequel. I will instantly forgive all the complaints about this film I’ve had if it is, indeed, setting the stage for a dramatic film version of The Death of Gwen Stacy.

For me, this movie easily surpassed Raimi’s Spider-Man and Spider-Man 3, but it just didn’t have the runway space to fly above Spider-Man 2, which is hailed in most competent circles as a masterpiece of superhero cinema. There is no single moment in The Amazing Spider-Man that is better than the fight on the subway or Peter inadvertently revealing his identity to Mary Jane in the boat house. But I think moments that powerful take time. And if Marc Webb and the cast stays on, and there’s minimal interference from Sony, and the writers do their job well, we’ll have a sequel full of those moments to look forward to.

More than anything, that’s what I’m excited to see. Past the origin, I want the sequel. I suppose that’s as high of praise as you can give a movie.

ALSO: Do NOT see this movie in 3D. I don’t easily get headaches, but this film in 3D gave me one. And the colors were so much more rich and vivid when I took the glasses off. And since so much of the film was set at night, it was impossible to see what was happening with the 3D glasses. Even when it was bright it was hard to make out finer details. At one point, Flash Thompson arrives in a Spider-Man shirt and I couldn’t even tell with the glasses on.

The Amazing Spider-Man
7/10 on the Big Shiny Superhero Scale

Bryan Young is the author of Operation: Montauk.

Hot Toys released some new photos of The Amazing Spider-Man movie figure. With the reviews of the movie slowly rolling in and most of them positive, I am super excited for this figure. Seems like a bit of a rushed announcement since it includes some concept art and an unapproved head sculpt. My Hot Toys expert predicts this bad boy to be around $200. Check out what Hot Toys had to say:

One of the most popular superheroes is back on big screen as a new chapter in the Spider-Man legacy. To celebrate the launch of The Amazing Spider-Man movie, Hot Toys is proud to present the 1/6th scale Spider-Man Limited Edition Collectible Figurine from this summer blockbuster. The movie-accurate Spider-Man collectible is specially crafted based on the image of Andrew Garfield as Spider-Man/ Peter Parker in the movie, highlighting the newly developed head sculpt, highly detailed costume and accessories.

(Note: Spoilers do not begin until the SPOILERS line in this article below the photograph.)

We’ll have an official Big Shiny Robot review of The Amazing Spiderman for you July 2nd, but in the meantime we wanted to bring you some comments trickling in from Japan about the film. Kotaku East reporter Richard Eisenbeis was on hand for the Japanese premier, and has provided some valuable context in his article about why Spiderman does so incredibly well in Japan:

“Japan loves Spider-Man. I mean they LOVE him. It’s not the same with other American superheroes—Batman, Superman, and most of the recent Marvel movies tend to do poorly in at the Japanese box office…Perhaps it’s due to his similarity to Japan’s own masked superhero—heck, he even had a live-action, power ranger style show in the late 70s. Because Spider-Man is a sure hit in Japan, his movies often get released in Japan before the rest of the world.”

He goes on to review the film, saying fairly good things about the handling of the origin story, the strength of the supporting cast, the fantastic performance that Martin Sheen has given as Uncle Ben, and some thoughts regarding directorial choices in relation to the film’s use of 3D. Though his review seems to be a bit on the first-watch-is-super-awesome side, I’d say that his review is balanced enough to suggest that the film is pretty good. To me, this is great news, because I’ve honestly been a bit nervous about this project from the start. I really did like Sam Raimi’s first two Spiderman films in the early 2000’s and was cautiously optimistic that this movie would still rock even though it hasn’t been that long since we saw Spidey swing onto the big screen.

WARNING: SPOILERS START HERE!

What’s the not-so-good from this review? Eisenbeis mentions his mixed feelings about how much disbelief we are expected to suspend given Peter’s secret identity and currently available technology (and there are choices made in the film that imply “that both the company and the police are incompetent—not the way you want your potential antagonists to be portrayed.”). He also expresses serious frustration with the fact that Spidey has his mask removed more than once, and subsequently reveals his identity to more than five people throughout the movie. On the surface, that does sound like a rather poor creative choice to me, but I’ll be watching to see how it’s handled (along with Eisenbeis’ other points) when I get to see the movie for myself next week.

What do you think? Will you be seeing The Amazing Spiderman when it hits theaters? Check out Eisenbeis’ review (WARNING = FULL OF SPOILERS) and then sound off in our comments section!

I am a bona fide Spider-Fan, and I’ll give anything with the ol’ webhead a chance. While I still have a few lingering doubts about this summer’s upcoming The Amazing Spider-Man, as long as it stays true to the roots of the character it’ll be fine in my book. On that note, current spider-scribe Dan Slott turned me on to what appears to be Spidey’s first ever live-action appearance, albeit in an unofficial form. From 1969, we get the famed Don Glut’s last Marvel fan-film, and thanks to the magic of YouTube, we can all share in the fun! From uploader Fudgebudger:

The first ever documented Spider-Man fan film, and the first (unofficial) live action appearance of Spider-Man from 1969! This was produced by Donald F. Glut and was his last amateur film (he had produced many other Marvel fan films before this) before moving on to write for classic cartoons like Transformers and Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends.

I love the costume (Don Glut is wearing the red and blues himself), it looks heavily inspired by Steve Ditko’s work. And notice the use of the Captain Action Spider-Man figure for web swinging and wall crawling; that goes for huge bucks now. The villain in this fan film, Dr. Lightning, is not a real Marvel character and was just created by the guy’s making the film.

So without further ado, Don Glut’s seminal Spider-Man!

“>httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n4HQn6rsJ38

Sure, the effects are of definite fan quality, and the acting is just “OK”, but underneath that is evidence that Glut “gets” Spider-Man, especially the late 60’s version of the guy. He’s quippy, acrobatic (webslinging in a mountainous area must have been murder!), and is surrounded by tragedy. The music is also truly epic as only proto-70’s funk can get. He gets the essence of the webhead down, and it definitely gave me a geeky smile. What do you guys think?

Below is a clip of Peter Parker taunting Flash Thompson on the basketball court. It shows a little bit of Peter being a smart ass, and a whole lot of the soundtrack. I like the playful strings lightening up the mood for what fanboys are assuming will be a dark and dreary Batman rip off. I imagine the same fanboys will be upset that Peter is fooling around on a basketball court instead of hanging out inside a gym locker.

This only gets me more pumped to see the wall crawler on the big screen next month.

Hot Toys FaceBook page released this teaser image of their upcoming Spider-Man figure along with the caption that follows.

The Amazing Spider-Man will be swinging into theatres in 3D next month! This will mark a new chapter of Spider-Man in his long-established legacy!

Celebrating the launch of this summer blockbuster, we are proud to present this Amazing Spider-Man collectible figurine with finely made and newly developed costume, as well as the Peter Parker’s head sculpt!

Fans may already know that we have solid experience in developing the detailed costume for Spider-Man and we apply a similar technique to this new costume which will have the most movie-accurate cutting that fans have been expecting for long! More amazing photos will be unveiled soon! Stay tuned!

From the photo  we can spot some key ingredients for a great Spider-Man figure. On his wrist we can see the web shooter featured prominently in the trailers. His costume looks to be made of a thicker material, similar to the Black Suit figure I reviewed previously. This new figure also comes with a head sculpt of Andrew Garfield. This was another feature introduced in the black suit Spider-Man that helped him avoid having a chubby neck. All and all I am very excited to pre-order this Hot Toy.

Below is the new “Extended Trailer” for the Amazing Spider-Man movie coming out this July. The trailer starts with a new scene we haven’t seen yet. The Lizard seems to be running amok tossing cars off a bridge while Peter tries to save each one. One of the cars still has a little boy inside. A pretty strong scene, at least for me. The last 10 seconds involve a new bit revolving around Peter and Gwen. Other than that, you’ve seen it all in pervious trailers.

Last year Hot Toys put out the Spider-Man 3 version of Spider-Man in his usual red and blue outfit. While ultimately I was excited to add him to my collection, he fell short in a few ways. When Hot Toys announced the Black Suit version I was definitely on the fence about it. After I saw the photos of him with the Sandman base, I couldn’t resist.

This figure comes with the exact same accessories as the blue and red suit. A bunch of extra hands and quite a few different web options. The only difference is an extra head of scary Peter (not to be confused with Emo Peter), and the Sandman base. The Sandman base is just under a foot tall. He comes with two different right hands, a fist or a mace.

Black Suit Spider-Man is definitely an improvement from his predecessor. The fabric of the suit feels thicker and less likely to rip. The various hands are made out of a softer plastic, making it much easier to swap them out. The classic blue and red suit was extraordinarily difficult to swap the hands. The plastic was very hard and the ball joints would get stuck.

Probably my favorite improvement is his chin. Because you can swap out his head, the fabric is sewn in a more form fitting fashion. This fixes the chubby neck look of the previous installment.

All and all this one was a must have. It is probably one of my favorite Hot Toys, if not my favorite. The most surprising thing to me is how much I could love something to come from Spider-Man 3.

With Avengers opening tonight and all of the (apparently well-deserved) hype surrounding it, it’s easy to forget there’s another Marvel hero getting the silver screen treatment this year. That’s right, the Amazing Spider-Man is also almost upon us. I’ll admit it. Spidey is my favorite Marvel character, but the trailers so far have me very ‘meh’ about it, but the newest one is definitely interesting with what it does reveal. Take a look, and I’ll elaborate afterward.

“>httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_crmRbeGsBQ&hd=1

OK, so first off, Gwen definitely knows that Peter is Spider-Man in the film. That’s an interesting way to go, and an avenue that was never explored in the comics apart from “What If?” tales. Second, I love wise-ass Spidey. The weakness joke is pretty funny. I do hope not all of the Spider-banter is super snarky, but it’s still better than total stoicism. Also of note, there is a subtle hint in there that Peter is already enemies with an Osborn. Could it be that this isn’t the origin movie that we were led to believe? I’ll admit that this is pure speculation on my part, but if so… I’m not a big fan of the quick shot action scenes. I know Spider-Man is a quick and nimble character, but there are ways to do it that don’t involve a lot of darkness and quick cuts. The same goes for the web-swinging scenes. Those get more of a pass because they still look cool, even though they’re dark.

All in all, this trailer helps my anticipation of The Amazing Spider-Man leap from “total indifference” to “Hey, maybe I will see this movie opening weekend!” Tell us what you think in the comments!