The Amazing Spider-Man is still a good six months from our cinema screens but tonight we were invited to a very special peek at the film’s new trailer, followed by a tantalising sizzle reel.
That wasn’t the only surprise of the night, as key figures from this new take on the iconic webslinger were present in a truly global capacity, with Rhys Ifans taking the stage here in London, Emma Stone and producers Avi Arad and Matt Tolmach broadcasting live from Rio, and director Marc Webb and Peter Parker himself Andrew Garfield being beamed over from across the pond at LA and New York, respectively.
For anyone whose Spidey-senses were tingling a little after the first rather lacklustre glimpse of the friendly neighbourhood crime-fighter a couple of months back, you can all now relax. From the footage screened tonight, Webb appears to have made a sleeker and grittier version of the character, framing him in more of a real-world setting (or as close as can be for a guy who is able to crawl up walls) and re-tweaking the origin angle to provide a slightly different interpretation of the legend.
An early scene between Gwen Stacey and Peter Parker at school offered a funny and awkward interaction between the pair, echoing that same astutely-observed look at young romance which characterised Webb’s debut feature 500 Days of Summer. Thankfully, the director looks like he has more than what it takes when dealing with the bigger, action-heavy carnage, and the shots of Spidey swinging through his beloved Manhattan really benefit this time around from the technology being at a level which can really sell that web action. Everything looks a little ramped up this time around, and in particular, the sequences shown where Parker discovers and begins harnessing his new-found powers had a thrillingly visceral and grounded feel to them.
Time will tell if all these segments will add up to a truly spellbinding whole, but for the moment, I’m sure the lucky fans who had the chance to view this footage (the trailer is being released in the wee small hours of the morning) will undoubtedly be bumping The Amazing Spider-Man back up to the top of their most-anticipated summer features of this year, alongside the Bat.
