Spinning a new web

Priyanka Sharma watches the latest Spider-Man movie and comes back with mixed feelings.

In a scene in Marc Webb’ s The Amazing Spider-Man, the superhero returns home after a duel on the streets, only to find himself being scolded by his aunt. Why, you might wonder. Because he forgot to buy organic eggs on his way back! It’s little elements like these that make the new Spider-Man flick, a treat to watch.

The film resurrects the affable Peter Parker (Andrew Garfield), a character sketched by writer-editor Stan Lee and writer-artist Steve Ditko in comic books published by Marvel Comics. Parker, a high-school student, is bitten by a spider, giving him superhuman powers of agility, concentration, sharp reflexes — and clinging of course.

As the Spider-Man film series gets a new lease of life, we are taken back to Parker’s childhood: the mysterious disappearance of his parents leaves him under the care of his uncle Ben and aunt May (played to perfection by veteran actors Martin Sheen and Sally Field). Parker grows up with all the makings of the classic nerd — he gets beaten up regularly by the jocks, the only female attention he receives is because of his photography skills. Like every geek, Parker too nurses a crush on the perky blonde Gwen Stacy (Emma Stone), who combines her good looks with a sharp wit, and a healthy disregard for social stereotypes. And so follow stolen glances and a few awkward encounters creating a sizzling chemistry between the lead pair. “Bugboy”, she calls him.

Garfield has big shoes to fill. After all, he will go down in history as the second Spider-Man after the endearing Tobey Maguire who nailed the role of Peter Parker in the three-part Spider-Man franchise that ended in 2007. While he might not possess Maguire’s lopsided smile — one that masked his conflicted emotions on being a ‘superhero’ — Garfield’s self-deprecating humour and awkward good looks make him perfect for the role. While he falters in a few emotional scenes, Garfield slips into the super-tight superhero suit with surprising ease.

A good superhero flick is incomplete without a notorious villain and The Amazing Spider-Man has one. And no, it isn’t Irrfan Khan. The search for his parents lead Parker to Doctor Curtis Connors (played menacingly by British actor Rhys Ifans), a scientist who wants to “create a world without weakness” and in doing so, regrow his dismembered arm. Though you might remember him as Hugh Grant’s clumsy roommate from Notting Hill (1999), this is Ifans’s moment to shine.

The most disappointing casting in the film is that of Irrfan Khan, who is nothing but an accessory to the plot’s progression. While his swagger and intense gazes — all for a 15-minute cameo — might reek of villainy, his dialogues are just plain hackneyed. More often than not, he mumbles his lines and you struggle to understand the threats that he drops by every now and then.

The dialogues fail to impress and the 3-D effects are at best ordinary; you can avoid it unless you fancy lizards and spiders leaping at you. Slightly long at over two hours, the action pace catches up after the interval. While the film exploits the classic “good over evil” plot without any suprising twists or turns, for Spider-man fans, Garfield is possibly the luckiest geek that ever lived.