Thursday, October 1, 2026
*** 1/2 out of *****
MPAA rating: PG-13 for sequences of action and violence.
running time: 136 minutes
The Amazing Spider-Man is a beautifully mounted, though dramatically disappointing, reinvention of Columbia Pictures' incredibly successful comic book franchise. Eager to keep the cash flowing after the first Spider-Man trilogy achieved a worldwide gross just short of $2.5 billion, the studio spent around $215 million to produce this reboot, which has already grossed over $400 million in its first eight days of release.
The best element of the picture is its superb 3-D special effects, created by Sony Imageworks. These ground-breaking visuals bring Spidey and his New York City playground to life in highly realistic computer environments. The most breathtaking sequence, created wholly in the computer, shows Spider-Man webbing his way up New York's 6th Avenue. Careful viewing reveals the actual New York City buildings, the vehicular traffic (including food carts!), citizens and, of course, our hero, moving at high speed with the swooping camera alongside, ahead of, under and over him. If you're looking for thrills, seek no farther.
Would that the rest of the film had the excitement and scope of its effects work. But sadly, it doesn't achieve the artistic or dramatic success of this summer's The Avengers. Nor does it touch the heart as The Dark Knight did, or tickle the funny bone as the Ironman series has done.
It may be that the film's director, Marc Webb, tried to bite off more than he could chew in the drama department. Instead of being aimed purely at fan-boys who regard the snarky super hero as their high school soul mate, this version has its sights set at a bigger demographic. Hoping to attract hordes of female viewers as well as the reliable male audience, Webb was brought on as director because he showed such promise at depicting romantic entanglements in his romantic comedy, 500 Days of Summer, in 2009. This was a gamble, as summer tentpole pictures are usually handed to proven big-budget talents, not to indie wunderkinds.
