A remake that’s also a reboot

A remake that’s also a reboot

We dwell in an era of acceleration, which may be why the “Spider-Man” series demands a reboot merely 10 years after its first film and five years after its most recent one. “The Amazing Spider-Man” is, in its broad strokes, a retelling of Sam Raimi’s “Spider-Man” (2002), but we’re not going to care about the broad strokes here. This is a more thoughtful movie, and its action scenes are easier to follow in space and time. If we didn’t need to hear Spidey’s origin story again and we didn’t at least it’s done with some detail and better reasons for why Peter Parker throws himself into his superhero role.

Parker is played by Andrew Garfield (“Never Let Me Go”), who at 28 looks too old for high school, although so do most movie teenagers. His key quality is likability, which he shares with Tobey Maguire. Gwen, his classmate and girlfriend (Emma Stone), is a grounded young woman who needs some convincing to bond with Peter, probably because Garfield’s take on Spidey is sometimes a few strands short of a web: he does showoff stunts at school; he takes chances with his newfound powers. This is the first Spider-Man who can leap off a skyscraper and make us wonder if he has a plan.

The origin story takes at least an hour to tell, and I liked that; it seems to me that CGI superhero movies often go on autopilot during their big action climaxes. We learn how Peter lost his parents and came into the care of Aunt May (Sally Field) and Uncle Ben (Martin Sheen, replacing the late Cliff Robertson). Finding dad’s old-fashioned briefcase in the attic, Peter also finds some brilliant scientific work about cross-species interbreeding I’m not sure what those two were doing up there before they died and it leads him to the Manhattan skyscraper of Oscorp, your typical comic-book mega-corporation with a madman at the top.

The screwball scientist is his dad’s old partner, Dr. Curt Connors (Rhys Ifans). One arm down, he’s obsessed with regenerating it by injecting himself with lizard genes lizards being able to replace lost limbs (almost instantly, it seems). Connors overdoses on lizard juice and becomes the hyper-violent Lizard, who rampages around and knocks cars off bridges with its tail.

Meanwhile, naturally enough, the cops blame a midtown trail of destruction on Spider-Man, and wouldn’t you know that Gwen’s father is police chief Stacy (Dennis Leary)? So there are various close calls and reconciliations, plus the movie’s single best action scene when Spidey has to rescue a boy from a burning car dangling from a bridge; the kid is able to assist in his own rescue after putting on Spidey’s face mask. I doubt the mask has magical powers; it just gives you a psychological boost.

That also might help explain why Peter/Spider-Man spends so much time not wearing the mask. That and Andrew Garfield is very good-looking and when he does wear the mask it reminds me of Hellboy wearing a screen door.

With the best of the series’ supervillains, Doc Ock, Raimi’s “Spider-Man 2” (2004) remains the best of all the “Spider-Man” movies. This is probably the second best film. The Lizard is not especially inspired; he appears to have a dramatic range limited to that of Godzilla. Fortunately, though, the climactic battle atop Oscorp Tower is intercut with parallel action involving plucky Gwen, who risks her life attempting to immunize all New Yorkers against turning into lizards.

Director Marc Webb knows that effective CGI action has to be slow enough for us to comprehend it; and although sometimes thrashing about in a rage, the Lizard does make sense as Spidey’s opponent.

A technological footnote: Peter/Spidey depends on cell phones which save the day when he urgently instructs Gwen to quick! find the blue serum! Peter Parker is still a photographer (and still using rolls of film); and while we see a front page announcing that The Daily Bugle has again been published, Peter doesn’t seem to freelance for it anymore; no doubt he’s been downsized. The credit cookies promise a sequel, and I suppose by the time they make it, Peter will have switched over to making videos for YouTube.

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