The Amazing Spider-Man in 3D

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As a lot of you know by now, my six year old loves superheroes.  He has a hard time deciding who his favorite is between the Hulk and Spider-Man, so he was obviously really excited and looking forward to seeing Spider-Man in the theater.  He's been counting down to the day it came out since the date was released!  We weren't able to go on the 3rd, since my husband was at work late, but we did go yesterday afternoon and we all three really enjoyed it.

First off, let me admit that no one in my immediate family has read any of the Spider-Man comic books.  We've seen some of the cartoons, and the three films that starred Tobey Maguire, but that's pretty much it.  So we know that the storyline is quite different than those films, but we don't know how much it stuck to comic book roots.

Andrew Garfield plays Peter Parker/Spider-Man.  This was the first thing we had ever seen him in, and we all thought he did a good job.  He wasn't the same type of Peter Parker we are used to, but that's not necessarily a bad thing.  Other stars included Emma Stone as Gwen Stacy, Denis Lear as Captain Stacy, Martin Sheen as Uncle Ben, Sally Field as Aunt May and Rhys Ifans as the Lizard/Dr. Curt Connors.

This film starts with Peter as a child, on the night he moves in with Uncle Ben and Aunt May. It just shows that single night, before fast forwarding to when Peter is in high school, but it proves to be a very important night. Peter's parents drop Peter off, along with a briefcase, that Uncle Ben and Aunt May store in the basement and forget about.

Peter is a pretty good child and generally does what's expected of him.  He stands up for the underdog, even if it lands him in trouble.  He seems to have a pretty good relationship with boy his aunt and his uncle.  As he is helping his uncle he stumbles upon the briefcase that belonged to his dad, and his world starts changing.

The briefcase leads him to the company where his father worked.  He meets his father's best friend and fellow scientist, Dr. Curt Connors.  This is where Peter gets bit and develops his powers.  He forms a friendship with Dr. Connors and helps him with some stuff, without giving away that he found it in his father's notes. Before he knows it, things get out of hand.

With a little bit of help from his girlfriend (the only one he tells about his secret powers) Spider-Man manages to save the day.  The movie ends in a way that leaves no doubt that there WILL be a sequel.

Like I said before, my family and I all liked the movie. We saw it in 3D, and while some of the scenes were pretty awesome, I'm still not positive it was necessarily worth the extra cost.  My guys both seem to think all movies are better in 3D, though, so they both disagree with me on that.

Elliott liked that this was a funnier, sillier Peter Parker than he was used to.  He thought the movie was just a little bit scary, but not too bad.  The scariest part for him was when someone died.  He says the movie was appropriate for kids 5 and up, as long as their parents are around to talk about the scary parts after the movie is over.

The Avengers in 3D

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The Avengers just arrived in theaters May 4th, and has a lot of big names in the cast.  Mark Ruffalo as the Hulk, is the only star that didn't reprise his role from a previous movie in the franchise.  Robert Downey, Jr is back as Iron Man (Tony Stark), Chris Evans is back as Captain America (Steve Rogers), and Chris Hemsworth is back as Thor.  Scarlett Johansson comes back as the Black Widow (Natasha Romanoff), a part she played in Iron Man 2.  Jeremy Renner reprises his brief role as Hawkeye (Clint Barton) from Thor, as well as Tom Hiddleston playing Loki again from the same movie.  Samuel L. Jackson stars as Nick Fury again, as in the previous movies.


My son has recently discovered the thrill of super hero movies, and had been counting down the days until the Avengers came out.  He's a big fan of all of the Avengers from the movie, and Hulk is even his favorite superhero of all time.    We knew this movie was going to be a big deal, so we bought our tickets early in the week from Fandango, after deciding on a late Saturday afternoon showing, in 3D.  I'm glad we bought our tickets early, because the theater was insane!

We see movies in the theater relatively frequently now, but my son usually gets a little antsy before they are over.  He doesn't disturb others, I can just tell he's getting tired of it.  At The Avengers he didn't show a single sign of being tired of it.  He was glued to it the whole time.  He did get lost once or twice with the subtitles (he's in kindergarten, but reads over 2 grade levels ahead), but otherwise loved it.

His favorite character was the Hulk, of course.  He thought he was really funny in this movie, and loved it when he punched one of the good guys, almost as much as he loved it when he got the bad guys.  He did say that one part was sad (I won't say which part, though, because I don't want to give any spoilers), but that overall it was a GREAT movie.

My husband really liked it as well.  Iron Man is his favorite character, and he thought he lived up to expectations in this one.  He said before he was worried that the characters wouldn't be as much like they were in their previous movies, in an effort to make them all work together in a movie.  He was pleased that they didn't change much.

Overall, I thought the movie was pretty good.  It was definitely full of action and violence, but I assume everyone knows that going into it.  I don't know that seeing it in 3D was really worth the extra price, though.  A lot of the movie takes place after dark, so the 3D glasses made it almost TOO dark at times.  You could still see what was going on, but in my opinion it would have been better with a little more light, since the scenes were so long.

Even though my son is asking to go see it again (not in 3D) at the theater, we won't be doing that.  We WILL be buying it after it comes out on blu ray, though, to add it to our collection.

If you are interested in seeing the other movies about the individual Avengers, you can check them out here: The Incredible Hulk, Captain America, Thor, Iron Man, and  Iron Man 2.