Thu May 23 18:54:46 SAST 2013
Thu May 23 18:54:46 SAST 2013

Call for flight of adventure

Jul 13, 2012 | Xolani M Shezi | 0 comments

I Expected the latest Spider-Man to be a letdown because of the absence of the series' leading characters, Tobey Marguire and Kirsten Dunst. How wrong I was.

WEB POWER: Andrew Garfield as the new Peter Parker in Spider-Man.

But before I rattle on about how great Andrew Garfield as the new Peter Parker and Emma Stone as Gwen Stacy are in The Amazing Spider-Man, I have something to say.

I will miss Marguire and Dunst, though they were kind of getting too old to keep on playing teenage roles.

And in the shortage of new feet-sweeping moving concepts, the Spider-Man must go on saving souls from evil men.

Both Spider-Man and the adversaries he tackles up in the air have one thing in common: they all live double lives. When it suits him, Spider-Man is the orphaned Peter Parker who lives with relatives - an old man (Uncle Ben) and woman (Aunt May).

The old man dies, and Parker, having been "accidentally" bitten by a spider, suddenly changes his gear to become Spider-Man to avenge him.

And then there's this girl in the neighbourhood whom he likes but who sees him as a "very sweet" friend at first, until he saves her life several times.

Then she falls helplessly in love with him and for me that's questionable - why must you fall for someone on the basis that they have done something for you?

In The Amazing Spider-Man, the Peter Parker story goes back to the beginning and as a boy, through his eyes we see that his father's study has been ransacked.

His parents are still alive but after the break-in they take him to live with Uncle Ben and Aunt May.

In high school Parker softens up to Gwen Stacy but is afraid to let her know. It is at this point that he discovers his dad, a scientist of note, worked with the one-armed and cunning Dr Curt Connors (Rhys Ifans) at a company called OsCorp, where he gets bitten by a spider.

Parker makes the innocent mistake of handing his father's cure for degenerating body components to Connors.

He has no idea that his dad's former-colleague has been given an assignment by his senior, Dr Ratha, to find a cure for dying OsCorp boss Norman Osborn.

When pressure mounts he takes the cure (in the form of flu shots) himself and the effects are dire - his skin becomes scaly and green, reminiscent of a lizard's, but the good news is his other arm has grown back.

Yep, he's the Lizard Man, and a crazy one at that - he tosses cars all over the place and Spider-Man has to apply his "web" power in his bright white socks and blue and red costume suit to stop him.

The camera movement is as swift as Spider-Man's fast-paced jumps and runs - I advise you to start training your eyes to keep up so that when you're in the cinema you don't get dizzy spells. The script calls you to take a flight of adventure.

For me, Garfield is the ultimate Spider-Man (sorry Toby) and is less of a nerd than Marguire.

Title: The Amazing Spider-Man

Director: Marc Webb

Screenwriters: James Vanderbilt, Alvin Sargent and Steve Kloves

Cast: Andrew Garfield, Emma Stone, Rhys Ifans, Denis Leary, Campbell Scott, Irrfan Khan, Martin Sheen, Sally Field and Chris Zylka

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