The first reviews of The Amazing Spider-Man have started to swing in from across the sea

Last Updated on August 5, 2021

THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN had its premiere last night in London, and the general consensus is that it’s a pretty good movie. On a deeper level, the general consensus seems to be that THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN is mainly about the love story between Peter Parker/Emma Stone with some action elements thrown in, rather than the other way around. Which might be refreshing for some, and piss some others the f*** off, but either way it’s the SPIDER-MAN movie we now have and I’m all the more interested to see it for myself.

As The Telegraph (4/5) puts it, “the film’s second half offers more than enough bungee-swinging through Manhattan’s concrete canyons, immaculately rendered in vertiginous, silky-smooth 3D, to satisfy thrill-seekers of either sex. What’s refreshing is how Webb makes those action sequences count: with a plot that rests almost entirely on the romance between his two leads.”

And here are some selected reviews from across the board:

Time Out London (4/5): Webb and the film’s writers have done a smart job of making a snappy blockbuster with few obvious pretensions: ‘The Amazing Spider-Man’ is light on its feet and feels both intimate and expansive, smoothly making the transition from hanging out in school corridors to hanging off the sides of buildings. Webb offers no radical rethink about how to craft a comic-book summer movie, but still he delivers a enjoyable rush over a patchwork of genres – romance, action, sci-fi, horror and comedy (there’s almost one for every leg of a spider) – while avoiding bumps at the joins… ‘The Amazing Spider-Man’ feels like a romcom upgraded to include 3D and industrial cobwebs.

The Guardian (4/5): “Webb successfully treads a fine line between keeping the hardcore superhero-movie fans happy and injecting a dose of meaningful affect… In re-engineering Parker into the introspective, uncertain male more typical of his previous film, Webb is aided by a terrific performance from Andrew Garfield, who brings a genial unflappability that allows him to negotiate the often-ludicrous demands of the superhero plotline… It’s the successul synthesis of the two – action and emotion – that means this Spider-Man is as enjoyable as it is impressive: Webb’s control of mood and texture is near faultless as his film switches from teenage sulks to exhilarating airborne pyrotechnics.

SFX (4/5): Even when he’s hunting down villains, he’s still just a teenager, living in the real world, dealing with everyday problems, and the film captures that enduring Spidey spirit perfectly… the broad strokes are familiar, but the details are intriguingly shuffled, amended, expanded and reinvented… Andrew Garfield is brilliant. Whether his slightly less nerdy, but slightly more nervy Peter Parker is better than Tobey Maguire’s is debatable, but his Spider-Man is magnificent… Emma Stone is possibly even more impressive as Gwen Stacy, mainly because she triumphs over a rather blandly-written role… There’s a brilliant score from James Horner too. For the first time in many a year, you may be humming a superhero film theme tune on the way home.

Total Film (4/5): “A young buck made testy by grief, a rebel without a comb, Garfield nails all bases here, star DNA aglow. Stare-y eyes melting, he’s winningly earnest; lithe of physique, he delivers in the dust-ups; blithely gatecrashing Gwen Stacy’s bedroom, he gives good dreamboat.  And like any story worth telling, this one’s still ‘all about a girl’… Enter Emma Stone, weapon of sassy destruction as arch and direct, confident yet relatable first Spidey-love Stacy… The wall-to-wall ruckuses leave the “untold story” of Peter’s parents largely untold, its threads left loose in a fashion that frustrates given how many story strands here were unthreaded in 2002... It isn’t perfect but this reboot’s wins outweigh its wobbles. The leads charm, the action crackles and the grooves are well-laid for part two. Untold story? Next time, then.”

London Evening Standard (2/5): “Director Marc Webb aims for a new realism, stripping away the brio of Sam Raimi’s 2002 version with Tobey Maguire.  He also dispenses with much of the character and sass that always made this character fun. It’s not Garfield’s fault: he is a convincingly troubled, inarticulate Peter Parker, a springily athletic Spider-Man, and has awesome hair. His greatest enemy is the script. That, and the rather wearisome 3D.  Webb’s film is slow on plot, skimpy on character development… Webb saves up most of the emotional punch for a downbeat, wet-eyed ending in which Garfield and Stone are superb.”

As for those of you who, like me, were never quite convinced by this movie’s realization of The Lizard:

The Guardian (4/5): “It’s only towards the end, when there is no choice but to revert to CGI – as Rhys Ifans’ Lizard goes on the rampage – that The Amazing Spider-Man gets a little less amazing: artoony reptilian carnage has just lost its power to enthral if it’s rather obviously happening inside a computer.”

SFX (4/5): “Rhys Ifans is fine as Curt Connors, and does his best as The Lizard, but there‘s nothing special about him as an opponent. He’s not even a particularly well-visualised villain, blandly designed and often falling foul of some of the film’s less convincing CG. It’s a real shame that with so much invention going into the rest of this movie makeover the villain feels so off-the-shelf.”