Tangled web

The Amazing Spider-Man isn’t so amazing, actually, and is a reboot of a remake, or a remake of a reboot, or a remake rebooted, and remade, rebootingly. It’s hard to keep up with these franchises when they swish back and forth all the time, determined to squeeze every last penny out of cinemagoers who should have more sense, yet don’t seem to mind sitting though the same film over and over.

This has an excellent cast: Andrew Garfield, Sally Field, Martin Sheen, Emma Stone. It is 3D. The CGI is state-of-the art. And, fair play, it does try to inject meaningful emotion. But it’s a superhero movie and sticks to the basic recipe: tries to be serious, a few comic asides, and then gets down to the business of thwacking set piece after thwacking set piece as good battles evil until only one prevails, and it’s never evil. Honestly, even my own ennui had ennui, which would have been fine, except they kind of felt they’d met before, and just yawned at each other.

Directed by Marc Webb (yes, yes; get over it) this is an ‘origin’ story, although not the first origin story, as that was made by Sam Raimi ten years ago. So this is a remake of a reboot of an origin story? I don’t know. You tell me. Anyway, Garfield is Peter Parker, whose parents mysteriously died in a plane crash when he was little, and who now lives with his nice Auntie May (Field) and his Uncle Ben (Sheen), who may have invented that boil-in-the-bag rice which is so handy. We’re never told.

Auntie May and Uncle Ben keep looking worried and keep saying, ‘We know we’re not your parents, Peter…’ which seems a bit of a waste of Field and Sheen, but there you have it.