Starring: Andrew Garfield, Emma Stone, Rhys Ifans, Denis Leary, Sally Field & Martin Sheen.
Rating: ★★★★
When you have the rights to one of the most famous superheroes of all time, and you don’t want to give them back to the comic book company that created him, what do you do? Reboot time! After all, you might as well get your mileage out of the character, and also try to make as much money as possible in doing so, right? It’s not like someone could actually come up with something completely new and original now, is it?
Regardless of my personal feelings towards Hollywood’s crusade to churn out as many derivative movies as possible, as you can see from my rating, I actually enjoyed this one- it was a really good film. Of course it was never going to be as good as Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man, but fortunately they intentionally steered this movie down a very different route, which made it much more interesting than I thought it would be. And it was in 3D!
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| Spider-Man saves the day... |
The story, to begin with, is pretty similar, with Peter Parker (Garfield) getting bitten by a genetically modified spider and developing superpowers (although this time, he makes his own webbing- so comic geeks the world over can rejoice!), but they add a lot more exposition about his missing parents and how he came to live with his Uncle Ben (Sheen) and Aunt May (Field). There is of course the whole villainous subplot with Dr Kurt Connors (Ifans) transforming into a monster, and this ties in closely with his father’s disappearance but is never fully explained, as they are, of course, lining it up for a sequel (post credits ‘stinger’ included). And there’s the love story, but this time it is with high school student (she doesn’t look sixteen to me!) Gwen Stacey (Stone), whose father George (Leary) just so happens to be the Captain of the police department.
The Amazing Spider-Man is a real slow burner. Seriously, this movie is incredibly slow moving. I can’t imagine anyone under the age of eighteen actually being interested in it- they would probably think it is extremely boring. Where the 2002 version is fast paced, frenetic and energetic, this one is ‘indie’ and ‘alternative’, and intentionally gives off an ‘emo’ vibe. It seems to me that they want it to appeal more to women and adults, as considerably more time is spent talking about Peter’s feelings and emotions. Don’t get me wrong though, I liked it, as it was different from Raimi’s version, and I thought it was well paced, even though it was essentially a slow burner. There wasn’t much action, there was far more character development, so I just feel that, on the whole, it might alienate people would just want to see Spider-Man beat people up and swing from buildings.
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| There is an awful lot of cuddling and looks of longing between the leads... |
There are also some rather large gaps in the plot which are briefly glossed over, and I think that the filmmakers did this because they assume that the audience has seen the 2002 version, and so don’t want to repeat things. For example, they don’t really show him developing his powers- we are meant to just assume that he learns how to become an acrobat by practicing his skateboarding moves. To be honest though, we really don’t need to see this all again anyway, and the film’s running time is long enough without any extra padding of cliché ridden scenes that have been stuffed into every superhero movie since Raimi’s version.
Garfield plays Peter Parker very understatedly, giving a very internal and angst-y performance, which suited the film. Stone, who I thought I could never like again after her performance in the truly mind numbingly awful movie Easy A, was very good, and I surprisingly didn’t want to slap her in the face (although she still deserves to be after making Easy A). Together, they were a likeable couple and were involving to watch. One thing I liked about Gwen was that she wasn’t predictably taken hostage at the end by the villain; she actually ended up helping Spider-Man instead of just needing to be rescued (which she did anyway). Sheen gives a touching performance without the tackiness of the ‘great power’ speech and when with Field, they have some humorous moments. Ifans’ role cycles between scientific genius crackpot and psychotic evil villain, and they try to make you sympathize with him and hate him at the same time, which can sometimes feel forced and haphazard. But when he becomes a monster he looks cool and destroys things, so it’s fun to watch.
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| When will super villains learn not to test volatile serums on themselves? |
The 3D sequences are the most amazing thing about it. Seeing Spider-Man flying from buildings and off of bridges is fantastic. The part in the science labs with the spiders falling on him also works very effectively in 3D, as do the moments in the sewers, which are probably the most exciting action moments in the entire movie.
I love Raimi’s Spider-Man trilogy (even the third one- I know it has terrible problems but I still like it!), but the one thing I hate about all three of them are the stomach churning vomit inducing pro-America cheese ball sequences. Just as this film was drawing to a close, I sighed in relief, thinking that we had made it through an entire Spider-Man movie without having to watch someone sing the American national anthem. Unfortunately, I was wrong, and the cheesy crap that litters the other three films unavoidably reared its corny head here too. It may not be as tacky as the previous films, but it is still a sickeningly sweet and slushy scene.
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| Gwen and Peter get up close and personal... |
The Amazing Spider-Man may not be amazing, but it is very good. Young children looking for a standard action packed superhero film might be disappointed, and possibly bored by this character building drama, but I wasn’t. I really enjoyed the entire movie, and even though my loyalty will always lie with Sam Raimi’s vision, this was still an exciting, compelling, visually impacting and entertaining movie.
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