Jimmy Aquino and The Amazing Spider-Man

The Amazing Spider-Man opened in limited midnight screenings last night and I was there! First off, many ask the question: Why is there already a new Spider-Man movie when the last 3 starring Toby Maguire and directed by Sam Raimi were so recent? I can answer that. Kind of. What I think happened is that Marvel doesn't have the rights. Sure, they are involved and helped produced the movie with Columbia Pictures, but Columbia's parent company, Sony, owns it all. And Sony did not want to give up those rights. Especially with all of those Marvel Studios films doing so well. After Spider-Man 4 talks fell through with Raimi and Maguire, they all felt a 4th film wasn't warranted. So, they decided on rebooting it all with a new director in Marc Webb and quickly cast Andrew Garfield as the new Spider-Man and Emma Stone as his love interest Gwen Stacy. 

There. Caught up? 

Onto the new film. I'm just going to give some mostly non-spoilery highlights (though a few so be WARNED). Overall, I really enjoyed it but just feel like it didn't have that "wow" factor that I felt with the first one or even the recent The Avengers or either of the 2 recent Batman films. 

1. Fantastic cast. Garfield really gets the angst of his role and finds the glee in his powers and in love. Stone is magnetic on screen. Every single time. And powerhouses Martin Sheen as Uncle Ben and Sally Field as Aunt May? COME ON! They were just awesome. Can't wait to see more of Field in the sequels. An Aunt May you care about and that matters! (Nothing against the Aunt May from the previous flicks but she was a bit forgettable). Rhys Ifans was great as Curt Connors/The Lizard really walking that line between madness and sanity. 
2. Many moaned about another origin tale and I'm guessing the filmmakers heard them as the origin is really rushed. I was mostly fine with it but it did seem like it just ran through. "Hey, I've got powers. Cool. Let's do this!" 
3. Peter Parker is more of a loner in this film as opposed to a nerd. Sure, he's still a science nerd (as is Gwen) but they play more on the loner side of things. Seemed to make sense for today's teens. Also, on the science nerd note. Seemed like the web shooters were developed/mastered rather quickly but get they were trying not to dwell too much on origin.
4. Great chemistry between Garfield and Stone. No wonder they're a couple in real life. They must have been in the wooing/courting phase during shooting. They really work together onscreen. The love story is nice and not overly soppy. 
5. A couple of very touching moments that may or may not have caused a little mist in my eyes. 
6. Great special effects. From the web swinging to The Lizard transformations. 
7. Concentrated more on story and character development then superfluous action sequences. Though the ones they had were spectacular. Still, would have liked just a tad more action. 
8. Great Stan Lee cameo. One of the best actually.
9. Some plot holes that left me scratching my head but I got over them. Like what happened to Curt Connors' boss, what actually happened to Peter's parents and what made Spidey stop chasing after a certain bad person.

Like I said, I liked it a lot but it just didn't knock me over. I wouldn't say it was amazing, but it was pretty cool. Go see it and swing back to let me know what you thought. (That pun was ouch-worthy).