The Amazing Spider-Man:
***/*****, or 7/10
One of
the most respectable and thoughtful things about this year's biggest
Marvel movie, The Avengers, is the way it was set up in the
first place, introducing the various superheroes individually before
assembling the team itself, thus establishing a shared, epic
cinematic Marvel universe very close in feel to the comic books it is
based on, yet not so convoluted as to alienate audiences unfamiliar
with the wondrous world of Marvel Comics. It was a huge gamble, but
fortunately for the studios involved and for the many fans of the
characters and their films, it payed off big time, smashing many box
office records, thus paving the way for a 'Phase 2', another large
scale five year plan, not only adding sequels to the Iron Man,
Thor, Captain America and Avengers films, but
also kickstarting more Marvel projects to tie in with this brave new
world on film, including Guardians of the Galaxy, Ant-Man
and Nick Fury movies. Such foresight and careful planning
unfortunately can't be detected in the Sony Pictures' franchise of
that other much beloved Marvel character, Spider-Man, who after an
initial hugely successful trilogy of movies ingratiously was denied a
third sequel because of creative differences between the studio and
the top people involved, making the former take the much dreaded
'reboot road' instead, restarting the movie franchise all over again
only a decade after it first originated. It's a kick in the groin,
not only for the webslinger himself, but also for his legions of fans
and even regular audiences across the globe, who now get treated to
another take on a character who's origin story is no secret to
anybody.
Of
course a different approach had to be taken to avoid the new flick,
now titled The Amazing Spider-Man (and so at least respecting
Spider-Man's first own comic book series of the same name), feeling
too much of a déjà vu compared to what we've seen before. Warning!
Spoilers! Undoubtedly inspired by the success of the recent
rebooting of the Batman franchise, the studio opted for a darker
beginning for the otherwise merry and witty superhero, heavily
involving the absence of his biological parents – something Raimi's
trilogy largely ignored – who left their little son Peter Parker
(now played by Andrew Garfield) to be raised by his Aunt May (Sally
Field) and Uncle Ben (Martin Sheen) and were supposedly killed in a
plane crash shortly after their departure. Drawing inspiration from
the Ultimate Spider-Man line of comic books, Peter's parents
were involved in shady genetic experiments involving the
crossbreeding of humans with animal species, which is of course what
the origin of Spider-Man is all about. Unfortunately the subplot
concerning Peter's mommy and daddy is largely left unresolved the
moment Peter's investigation into his past leads him to his father's
close colleague Dr. Curt Connors (Rhys Ifans), a one-armed scientist
working for the sinister Oscorp Company, further attempting to
crossbreed species, in his case humans and lizards, in an admittedly
somewhat silly, comic-y attempt to regrow his lost limb, with dire
consequences.
However,
under the direction of Marc Webb (I'll refrain from using 'nomen
est omen' remarks here, since that has been done to death
already), whose director's credit of importance prior to this gig
only included the acclaimed romantic comedy (500) Days of Summer,
it's not all creepy experiments and traumatic childhood incidents
that form the prime ingredients of Peter Parker becoming Spider-Man.
Clearly establishing Peter, performed by Andrew Garfield of The
Social Network fame, to be a typical high school kid, Webb also
finds time for lighter scenes developing the romance between him and
Gwen Stacy (the beautiful and talented Emma Stone). Peter's previous
movie girlfriend Mary Jane Watson is left out altogether in favor of
having him hook up with his original lady love from the comics, even
though this might confuse audiences since Gwen was already featured
in Raimi's Spider-Man 3 (then played by Bryce Dallas Howard).
Stone plays off wonderfully against Garfield's Peter Parker: unlike
ex-Peter Tobey Maguire, he seems more appropriately aged to
convincingly pull off a high school teenager, and he does a better
job at playing both Peter and Spidey, carefully balancing between
being too much of a nerd and too cool a superhero to believably be a
nerd in real life. However, unlike Stone, Garfield is found guilty of
overacting in his display of various ticks and goofy mannerisms when
first feeling spider powers within: but playing a regular human
being, Stone just has it easier, while the task of carrying the
picture falls on Garfield's shoulders, which he does it adequately
enough. The lighthearted scenes of teen angst and young love between
the pair form a stark contrast with the gritty look into Peter's
family issues, but they are a necessary part of recreating the
Spider-Man persona, since the webslinger was always a lighter, easy
going and cheerful superhero to begin with. In fact, it's clear Webb
has more experience with romance and teen drama than he does with
superheroism, considering the scenes between Garfield and Stone on
many occasion feel more compelling than the action stuff, which of
course is also a major must-have for any superhero movie. Plus, the
smart and ambitious blonde Gwen is a welcome reprieve from the naive,
childhood traumatized redhead Mary Jane from the previous films:
unlike the latter Gwen does not find herself in grave danger at the
hands of nasty supervillains at least twice per film, at which point
her only solution seems to scream for her hero to come and rescue her
very loudly. Apparently there was still some room for improvement
left in Raimi's otherwise superior tackling of the franchise, which
Webb eagerly accepts by making Gwen an independent young woman who's
at least as smart as her boyfriend and shows much more tact and
discretion when the going gets tough.
And
tough it gets for poor Peter Parker. First, he has to contend with
the bite of a genetically enhanced spider, which is what you get for
sneaking into a lab which is clearly marked off-limits due to
biohazards. The result is Peter not only gets superhuman strength and
reflexes and the ability to walk on walls (even when wearing shoes),
he also gets a lot grumpier, to the point of treating his loving Aunt
and Uncle in a very ungrateful manner (the many occasions where he
immediately plunders the fridge when coming home, all the while
ignoring their sound advice, are a good example of his douchery), as
well as breaking an excessive amount of stuff both at home and in
school. Obviously, this leads to the obligatory life lesson that with
great power must come great responsibility, a value the audience
already had learned in obnoxious preachy detail in Raimi's films, but
is also too important an element in Spider-Man's origin to be
ignored. And so, Uncle Ben bites the dust again, shot dead by a
thief, and Peter knows he shouldn't be an ass and help people with
his new found abilities instead of acting like a dick. Only took an
hour of the film to set this up, thus making half the film a
redundancy for retelling things that didn't need retold, except for
the mounting sexual tension between Gwen and Peter. Fortunately, from
here on out Webb gets the opportunity to develop the story more as he
sees fit, now that the back story is firmly on people's minds again
(though it can only be called arrogant on the studio's part to think
it never was in the first place). However, there's still plenty of
unresolved things left, so we can only assume the truth about Peter's
parents is left for the unavoidable sequel. Considering the dull way
it was handled here, that's not something to look forward to too
much.
After
Uncle Ben has died, Peter looks for the criminal who did it, acting
like a vigilante and beating up people who were not at all involved,
though many of them were caught in the act of unlawful behavior
anyway. This gets him on the radar of police captain Stacy (Denis
Leary), Gwen's father, who feels nobody but law enforcement should
clean up society's sinister side. This ideological conflict between
Peter and Stacy is one of the movie's strongest additions to the
overall Spider-Man film franchise, though in itself it's not
entirely new, considering a similar difference of opinion was
witnessed in the previous trilogy between Peter and newspaper edition
J. Jonah Jameson (a beloved normal human character from the comic
books who was present throughout Raimi's films, but sadly remains
completely absent in The Amazing Spider-Man), but is handled
on a more serious note here instead of ending in skits of comic
relief as it did before. It also adds fascinating but underused
conflicts of interests for Gwen, who has to choose between her
loyalty to her father and her love for her boyfriend. However,
Spider-Man's main problem in this film lies not in the police issuing
a warrant for his arrest, but in a scientist losing his objective
thinking because of his obsession for personal enhancement on a
genetic scale.
Like
Gwen Stacy, Curt Connors was already introduced in the previous
Spider-Man films, but was never put to full use. Originally,
Raimi had planned a fourth Spider-Man film which would see him
evolve into the bad guy Lizard. Ironically, Raimi left, but Lizard
stayed and is now the first supervillain Webb's new Spider-Man faces.
As an introductory nemesis, Lizard may not have been the best choice,
especially considering the rather ridiculous diabolical ploy of his
to release a bioweapon that would turn the population of New York
City into lizard people like himself (and what is the silly deal with
him attracting all those little lizards in the sewers? I'll have you
know under normal circumstances lizards would just die in such an
environment. Shenanigans!). However, in relation to the subplot taken
from Ultimate Spider-Man concerning Peter's father dabbling in
biogenetics and the personal connection between Peter and himself
this implies, he's the logical choice, considering the other
available Spidey foes, Norman Osborn/Green Goblin and Otto
Octavius/Dr. Octopus, have already been used in Raimi's films (though
one of them does get his fair share of references and possible sequel
set-ups in this film). Rhys Ifans portrays the “mad scientist”
affectionately as a sympathetic but obsessed man who too desperately
means to improve his body, which affects his mind as he finds his
judgment impaired when his solution transforms him into a huge lizard
man. Oddly enough, unlike the Lizard of the comics, he seems to fully
retain his mental faculties instead of becoming more beast than man,
which makes it all the harder to accept his final weird wicked
scheme. However, the creature he ends up becoming does make for a
decent amount of action scenes, including a rampage on a bridge, a
high school confrontation between him and Spider-Man and an
impressive though overly digital final battle on top of a skyscraper
when he fights both Spidey and Captain Stacy. However, Webb
ultimately disappoints where action is concerned, considering there's
not nearly as much fight sequences as one would expect from a
superhero movie, mostly because of the excessive focus on retelling
Spidey's origin story and dragging his parents into the mix. At least
the action that is present feels dynamic enough, but we would have
wished for more. Better luck next time.
And
there will unmistakably be a next time, considering the amount of
unresolved plot lines and the extra scene after the main end credits
which sets up the next movie's bad guy very similarly to the way The
Avengers did, except the precise identity of this villain still
remains somewhat of a mystery (quite frustrating if you're a long
time avid comic book fan like me). However, it's clear this new
Spider-Man franchise, like its predecessor but unlike the
superior Avengers franchise, doesn't look much further into
its own future than a few years down the road, a tactic that, if not
changed soon, will undoubtedly lead to yet another unnecessary reboot
in the next decade. Unlike the many superheroes that form the
Avengers, Spider-Man still stands alone, so if it's amazement
you're after in your marvels, this is not where you should look for
it.
And
watch the trailer here:
