MOVIE REVIEW - The Amazing Spiderman

New this week, The Amazing Spider-Man going to challenge a ton of box office records.

I, like you am having a little trouble keeping up on who is playing Spider Man these days, what Spidey is up to, where we are in the saga, and is this a remake, or.....well....you know. This has been made for a few reasons. One, there's this new 3-D now, and IMAX 3-D. And the studio wants to make a ton of money. Both good reasons.

The Amazing Spider Man stars Andrew Garfield, Emma Stone and a real nice supporting cast in a pretty good story, going back to the origins of Spider-Man. How Peter Parker becomes the vigilante folk hero, and how he balances that secret life with his real life. This story has been told in various forms before at the movies, and this is not a continuation of the previous flicks. It in essence is starting over.

Of course the new 3-D and serious special effects will thrill millions of fans who will flock to this over the weekend and in the weeks ahead. The recasting will help introduce the character to a whole new generation of fans, and keep this franchise going. Some of this is very well done, and some of this is monotonous, and slow to develop. As fantastic as some of the special effects with Spider-Man are, it's a whole lot of the same thing over and over again. Although, there is some fun here, and they didn't lose Spidey's sense of humor.

Garfield is fins at Spider-Man, and the rest of the cast is fine including Sally Field, Martin Sheen, Denis Leary, and Rhys Ifans. Emma Stone is strangely cast. Stone was brought on board to sell tickets and she will. I am a HUGE Stone fan as well. But Stone is 24 years old, and a real, grown woman. She has taken on a nice string of adult roles lately in The Help, Crazy, Stupid Love, Friends With Benefits, and the soon to be released Gangster Squad. Here we are supposed to believe she is a 17 year old high school kid. I'm not buying it. She looks way down the maturity track as opposed to Garfield. She is supposed to be his girlfriend, when she looks way more like his student teacher, or his big sister. Not her fault. Too much money to pass up. This role is also way beneath her. She has far outgrown these kind of non-challenging juvenile roles. As lovely as she is, she looks wildly out of place here.

There is nothing really wrong with this movie. It is somewhat fun, but this is ground traveled before. Many of these movie s really look the same, and this does too. New cast, new effects, and music and you can breathe life into an old franchise.

The Amazing Spider-Man. Fun for new fans, and more of the same for old ones.