Yes, i know, it's a little too late to have a review of this "amazing" movie. 

When I first heard that a reboot of the neighborhood-friendly Spider-man franchise, I was ecstatic, not withstanding that I am an avid fan of “Spidey” but because the 3^rd installment of the Sam Raimi’s  Spider-man was sub-par and really was one of the worse adaptations of the vigilante superhero.  

I felt that the 3^rd movie fell of its pedestal with an unrealistic venom suit (designed by the original creator, Todd McFarlane) and a shoddy plot with an overly emotional hipster Peter Parker. That being said, I was expecting a lot more from Marc Webb to bring a new glorious reign of a feel-good hero inclusive of web shooters and full on spandex.

Reeling into the movie with an open mind, the story begins with an 8 year old Peter Parker playing hide-and-seek with his father. He enters his father’s study and found it ransacked.  His father enters moments later, grabbing his son and a few hidden case files and leaving parker with his uncle Ben and Aunt May, never to be seen again throughout the whole movie.

Unlike the 2002 version, the movie focused on his parents’ disappearance which is the premise of Peter finding himself in the process (reminds me of the Ultimate Spider-man version, somewhat). Without divulging too much into the zone of spoilers, I didn’t like the way Andrew Garfield portrayed Peter Parker but I like his portrayal of Spidey, a very close likeness in attitude and form with the comic version.

However, Peter Parker in this version doesn’t fit very well with me, especially seeing Peter daringly fighting back against Flash in the first half hour of the movie.  Now for those of you who have never read the comic version, Peter Parker was a lonely nerd who didn’t dare to fight back to his suppressors and only fought back with Flash after his Spidey-powers kicked into gear. Peter was the proverbial luckless, naïve nerd that doesn’t get the girls in school, you know, the “real” outcast of the school.

In this movie version, he’s the cool, brooding, antsy-ridden teenager who skateboards. Far from the luckless Peter Parker I love reading in the comic books. To be fair, Tobey Maguire played a good Peter Parker (I & II) but didn’t really play the Spider-man role as good as Andrew does.

The romance build-up was too fast in retrospect, I mean there was no real struggle for Peter to get the girl, even with the “James Dean” awkwardness that would get any “I can change him” girl to fall in love with him.

The amazingly bodacious Emma Stone was playing the part of the swoon-over Gwen Stacy; I can’t help but feel that she would have been a better auburn red head, sassy Mary-Jane because her roles in previous movies showcased that sort of character.  

A side note here, I didn’t like Kirsten Dunst as Mary Jane either and practically imagined someone hotter and more Mary-Jane worthy to play that role.

While I am cool with romantic angles in superhero films, I didn’t like how much they focused on it, I really felt like I was watching a twilight-ish version of Spider-man from time to time.  But what should I expect from a director whose breakthrough movie was about a romantic comedy?

The movie also didn’t focus on the Lizard man as much as it should. Perhaps due to the Lizard man not being as big of a “movie star” as Norman Osborn/Green Goblin or Doc Ock but he could have given Spidey a run for his money if given the right premise rather than the less-than-spectacular conclusion of the movie.

The fight scenes between Spidey and Lizard man was interesting, fast pace, energetic, action-packed and suspenseful but had far too little screen time in the 2 hours and a half of the movie.

The training sequence in the movie was unnecessary and was too long.

 It was also strange to see Spidey unmasked most of the time. What’s the point of a secret identity if you’re not going to hide it?

Overall, the movie has memorable moments and can take you back to the days of reading Spider-man graphic novels/comic books, taking a journey alongside Spider-man but it wasn’t as amazing as the first film back in 2002. It was definitely better than the third installment. The movie itself felt more like an alternative universe where Peter Parker is a whole new different character, the problem with that is that Raimi’s film adaption was so close to home, you can’t help but feel like comparing both franchise to each other. Often so in the movie,  the romance bits felt like it had the teen wolf/twilight moments, which I assume got the girls feeling giddy in their seats.

The movie felt half-assed and the 3D scenes were ridiculously out of place. The beginning of the movie was realistically close to Nolan’s Dark Knight Series but took a turn for some retardation of the highest kind. It’s like the writers (Alvin Sargent, Steve Kloves and James Vanderbilt) were forced to write the movie in such a way to draw in the current trend of morose vampires and awkward werewolves.

I think my thoughts on this won’t stop the general public from loving this movie but as for myself, I am disappointed. On a brighter side, the movie sparked my willingness to read Spider-man comics once again to see what I’ve missed for the past three years or so. 

Hope dark knight rises won't disappoint.