Marc Webb’s reboot of the Columbia Pictures / Sam Raimi Spider-Man trilogy is entertaining enough, yet its very existence is troubling.  Let me address that for a moment.  Raimi’s trio of webbed movies were released in 2002, ’04 and ’07.  Thus, it has been only five brief years since the silk-spinning vigilante last graced the big screen.  Just five years!  The traditional Hollywood method of reboots (when it rarely occurred) was to wait a couple of decades — or longer — and present its subject in some new perspective, a la Zorro or Superman. Now here comes Columbia, again in cahoots with Marvel for the source material, looking to cash in again and again (The Amazing Spider-Man 2 is already being planned for a 2014 release).  It would be one matter for a Spider-Man series to continue ad infinitum, like James Bond, Godzilla, Indiana Jones or the Star Trek universe, but to reboot and start all over again from the beginning after just three fantastically successful adventures seems utterly outrageous to me.  With this precedent it won’t surprise me to see Batman rebooted by 2015, and that prospect is ridiculous.

The movie itself starts from the beginning, detailing how Peter Parker (Andrew Garfield, in a twitchy but likable performance) gains his spidey senses, begins to woo Gwen Stacy (a blonde, comely Emma Stone) and battles a mutant lizard (Rhys Ifans) that threatens to start an evolutionary revolution in New York.  The human scenes are a bit sticky and slow compared to the whirlwind of special effects shots of Parker swinging around Manhattan, while the battle / fight scenes take place so quickly that they defy logic (they just look cool).  Granting the necessary suspension of disbelief for the basic premise, plenty of other moments take place that make one scratch one’s head as to how and why; or where a particular character disappears to; or if any of this matters at all.

There is nothing extraordinary or, I dare say, amazing about The Amazing Spider-Man.  It is fairly entertaining of its type, very earnest and with very little humor, but it does look as if its budget is present on the screen.  Yet this is a movie that has no reason for existence other than to make money for its parent studios.  Why couldn’t they have spent the money on bringing Childhood’s End or Rendezvous with Rama to the screen, just to pick two great, classic Arthur C. Clarke books that have yet to be filmed?  This is a perfect example of how Hollywood has its collective head up its butt, proving again that money trumps creativity.  ☆ ☆.  5 August 2012.