The Amazing Spider-Man (2012, U.S.)

Oh, how sad I was to find this movie so run-of-the-mill. I had heard such great things about it and I'm a huge fan of Andrew Garfield, but alas, it just felt like every other super hero movie, really.

I'm not sure what it was. The cast was great: Andrew Garfield, Emma Stone, and Rhys Ifans usually stand out to me. Sally Field and Martin Sheen were really great as Peter's aunt and uncle. I enjoyed the focus on the science aspect. The action scenes were good. So why did it seem to fall flat?

The only thing I can think of is that I was not convinced by "The Lizard." His initial transition was good, but then he just seemed to fall on the corny side as far a supervillains go. So that's really all I can come up with. It was good, but it didn't blow me away. Another victim of hype.

Rating: 3.5

(500) Days of Summer (2009, U.S.)

I have never been more wrong about how much I'll like a movie based on the preview. It was pretty awful. A sweet, adorable, wonderful guy falls in love with a stupid, horrible, shallow bitch. Errr, girl. This was reinforced by the fact that I've always loved JGL and disliked Zooey Deschanel.

There are some interesting elements, such as when JGL busts out into a cheerful song and dance in the middle of the street and everyone dances like it's Bollywood and cartoon birds fly around the air. It's priceless. They also attempted to use flashbacks to illustrate how Summer was never interested in Tom, and he was misreading the situation. The only problem was that it was already painfully obvious the first time the scene was played.

This is a case of a great idea with terrible execution.

Rating: 2.0