..It takes the high school bit of Raimi’s flick, expands it to three acts, then sutures in a scientist/green alter-ego thread, this time in the shape of Rhys Ifans’ Curt Connors/The Lizard. The result is a mixed bag, beset by muddy plotting and decent (not jaw-dropping) action set-pieces but enlivened by a focus on people and strong performances, especially from Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone.



This is solid rather than spectacular blockbuster filmmaking. When Parker finally suits up, we get a return to the irreverent wisecracking of Stan Lee and Steve Ditko absent from Raimi: this is your sarcastic, neighbourhood Spider-Man (“Oooh, my weakness is small knives”), nonchalantly sneezing webbing to apprehend villains or beating up street hoods — to use Andy Townsend parlance — for fun.



Graced with great performances from Garfield and Stone, The Amazing Spider-Man is a rare comic-book flick that is better at examining relationships than superheroism. If it doesn’t approach the current benchmark of Avengers Assemble, it still delivers a different enough, enjoyable origin story to live comfortably alongside the Raimi era.



I guess some embargo has been lifted somewhere, as the very first (official) reviews forhave appeared. So far early Twitter reactions to the premiere in London last night have been positive, but by no means overwhelmingly so. The general consensus seemed to be that while all of the performances were spot on, the movie fell a bit flat in some other areas, and that seems to be reflected in Empire's 3 star review which you can read some excerpts from below..Of course this is only one review, more are now beginning to appear.award the movie 4 stars, and in summing up say -Similarly,Writes - "".writes -Pretty positive overall then, if not quite the enthusiastic response many were hoping for. Of course the only reviews that matters come from CBM, and you can check out what our own Josh Wilding has to say abouta little later on.