Spider-Man not so amazing

Director Marc Webb (500 Days of Summer) might not have been the right guy to lead a reboot of the Spider-Man series. Sure, The Amazing Spider-Man reveals more of Peter Parker’s emotional side. But it’s also a real bore that gets too caught up in character development and forgets to advance a plot of any magnitude.

In the beginning, we see just how much of an outsider Peter really is. Picked on by the cooler kids at school, the shutterbug skateboarder doesn’t appear to have any friends. It doesn’t help that his parents mysteriously disappeared when he was very young, leaving Peter’s Uncle Ben (Martin Sheen) and Aunt May (Sally Field) to raise the poor kid. Peter’s life takes a drastic turn, however, when he discovers his father’s old briefcase and tracks down Dr. Curt Conners (Rhys Ifans), his dad’s former lab partner. The two were working on a top-secret project that would mix human and animal DNA.

In the search to learn more about his parents’ quick departure, Peter sneaks into Dr. Conners’ lab and ends up with a bite from a genetically modified spider. As a result, he begins to develop spider-like strength and reflexes. His superpowers, however, aren’t enough to save his uncle, who gets gunned down after trying to apprehend a criminal turning Peter into a vigilante of sorts. Peter dons a red suit and dubs himself Spider-Man, and his attempts to fight crime catch the attention of Captain George Stacy (Denis Leary), the father of Peter’s brainy and beautiful girlfriend Gwen (Emma Stone).

The ultimate battle, however, is between Peter and Dr. Conners, who becomes reptilian after injecting himself with a special serum previously untested on humans. Predictably, the sinister and super-strong lizard-man has a plan to take the city over. Spider-Man must stop him before he can release a threatening chemical cloud.

At 136 minutes, this film is simply too long. The plot takes so much time to get rolling, when Peter finally emerges as the crime-fighting superhero, it’s too little, too late. It doesn’t help that the 3-D effects aren’t particularly impressive and the segment in which Peter and the Lizard duke it out while on one of the city’s bridges doesn’t make the best use of the computer-generated graphics. The acting is strong across the board, but The Amazing Spider-Man isn’t crafted well enough to leave the impression that this reboot was merited.