There
are many warm scenes between Peter and Gwen, along with Peter
interacting with his Aunt May (Sally Field) and Uncle Ben (Martin Sheen)
not to forget a young Peter (Max Charles) losing his parents (Campbell
Scott and Embeth Davidtz) without knowing why. There is a family dinner
scene where Peter meets Gwen’s father Captain Stacy (Denis Leary) who is
the police chief, her mother and her siblings, that goes from a Norman
Rockwell scene to a misunderstanding between the father and Peter. There
is also teenage bullying by Flash (Chris Zylka) with Peter getting his
revenge when he becomes Spiderman.

 It
is when he gets bitten by a spider and becomes Spiderman that you not
only clap but remember that you have seen this before and you wait for
the special effects to kick in and they do just as you know the villain
will and he does. No longer do we have Peter gliding all over in his
skateboard and off we go as Spiderman has a great scene with special
effects, and good acting, from both actors in a rescue from a car over
water.

Without
comparing past actors in the various roles it is easy to say that
Andrew Garfield has to be the thinnest Spiderman ever and certainly not
to be forgotten puppy eyes. Though Spiderman and Gwen don’t have that
upside down kiss moment, which will always be remembered from the first
movie, Garfield and Stone do share chemistry adding to their story.  All
the actors, directed by Marc Webb, in a screenplay by James Vanderbilt,
Alvin Sargent and Steve Kloves, bring something to the film but,
unfortunately the villain, the Lizard Man, was a poor choice, not the
actor but the role. At the end of the credits it looks like he might be
back for the sequel but, hopefully, not.

“The
Amazing Spider-Man” will hold your interest whether you go for the
comic hero aspect, the special effects, the love story and/or the
background story and if one of the elements doesn’t interest you they
will very shortly get to one that does.