I set out to watch The Amazing Spider-Man yesterday. I bought the ticket, traveled to the theater, waiting for the movie to start and after countless commercials, what I was a passable Elsewhere story.

OK, I called it an Elsewhere story, and there were be some of my geek people, those who are true geeks, who will realize I applied a DC Comics book to a Marvel book. A person who claims to be a fan of comics would know this. A person who has passing knowledge of comics probably wouldn't know the difference. That, in a nutshell, is the problem for me with the Amazing Spider-Man.

First of all, this story isn't about Peter Parker from the comics but is about a modest living Bruce Wayne. See, this Spider-Man had parents who were working on some secret project, and one night after a break in they spirit young Peter to his aunt and uncle's home never to be seen again. Why, if they are running from someone, would his father leave a leather case with secret equations in it with the uncle, to be discovered later in the basement by the teenage, super hunk Peter Parker years later? That's one of the many unexplainable plot points used not to give light to the story but to try and fill holes in the plot.

There is no denying that the actors playing Peter Parker and Gwen Stacy have great chemistry together. Every time they were on screen together I was transported to an interesting teenage romantic dramedy. If you had a young Reese Witherspoon and Ryan Phillipe cast in the parts it would be a flawless fit. The thing is that's not the Spider-Man story. Peter Parker was a geeky kid, a kid girls wouldn't give a second look to, a kid that would be bullied by the jocks. As much as they tried making this Peter Parker like that, the actor never pulled it off. The script wouldn't allow him to become that Parker. That's why I almost jokingly say this is a Bruce Wayne story. His parents are missing, he longs to understand what happened to them, when his uncle is killed on the street by a thug (no more wrestling match, take the receipt money and let the bandit go) Peter seeks out revenge by becoming Batman. Yes, he becomes Batman because he decides to hunt down every criminal that looks like the guy who killed his uncle. The killer of his uncle becomes Peter's Joe Chill. (yes geeks, another Batman reference)

There are some odd leaps of logic in this film which is best illustrated when we first meet the teenage Parker. There he is, camera in hand, just like we remember him from the comics, and he gets beat up pretty quick and as he examines his camera we see it's a film camera, not a DSLR, but a honest to goodness chemical based camera. It's a minor little thing but it got me thinking if Peter was taking pictures for school why would he have a film camera in this day and age? Sure enough, later on he talks about how he was doing some Photoshop work on a picture and has a couple of pictures on his computer. So he goes from film to digital?

I know, it sounds like a pretty minor almost stupid point in the movie, but it's those annoying bits that start to pile up in the movie, getting to a point where, near the end of the film, things that shouldn't work are supposed to work because of tiny inconsequential things that happened earlier. Understand those minor things aren't gotcha cool stuff, they are things that remind me of a James Bond film where the one thing given early in the movie has one purpose only and it conveniently fits at the right moment in the movie.

This film suffers like other recent comic book movies from wanting to be epic and at some point they realize they want to be a franchise and they work themselves into a corner they can't easily get out of. Let's have The Lizard make a gas to infect the whole city, let him use that gas on some police officers, but we can't have police lizards running around by the end of the movie so let's have the teenagers come up with an antidote for the gas, which took the good doctor at least days to perfect (and that's being generous in the time-frame of the movie) and they come up with an antidote in eight minutes. Let's have a hero, who has been a hero for maybe two months (again being generous with film time) have at least public sympathies with him when all he has done is get a few punks off the street and saved some people on a bridge. Yes, his pictures went viral (so we are told) but for a crucial thing to work at the end of the movie (which was very similar to a scene in the first Spider-Man) the public had to really be behind this guy and there is no evidence for that admiration in this film. It just happens.

Another in a long line of annoying things for me in this movie, why wear a mask when almost everyone of importance knows who you are. If you see the film you will be surprised how many people know who he is and wonder how will his identity stay secret.

Shamefully, you will not hear the words, “With great power comes great responsibility.” The basic hallmark to the Spider-Man myth and it's not there. Like I said, this didn't feel like a Spider-Man movie but almost works as a Batman movie, until about the last third of the movie where the special effects guys take over and any heart from the movie is drained. The actors are likable in a romantic comedy sort of way and if this were a romantic comedy it might be an OK film. If this were another superhero film maybe the storyline would work, but as a Spider-Man film, this isn't Spider-Man, it's not an Ultimate Spider-Man and at best it could be a very weak Elsewhere Spider-Man.