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It’s a hard pill to swallow that after four increasingly terrible Spider-Man films I’ve come to realize that my childhood hero, the wise-cracking-nerd-turned-spider-man Peter Parker is, at least according to Hollywood, nigh unfilmable. Marc Webb’s newest incarnation gets three things right: Andrew Garfield, Emma Stone, and Spider-Man’s lithe physicality. And that’s it. The rest of the film is a ponderous slog through the now painfully over-trod origin story of our webbed hero. Where some have said that Webb has “Dark Knighted” the franchise, I’d argue that it’s more of a Twilighting of it. The focus shifts from frantic web-slinging (not to say there isn’t scene after scene of kinetic if not pointless city-swinging) to a burning love between Stacy and Parker. Yes, the two leads are both skilled youth and the chemistry is subtle and sweet, but the film does nothing with it. Instead a terrible adaptation of a great villain (The Lizard, played by Rhys Ifhan, very handily showing why Nob Hill is the only film anyone remembers him in) is squeezed in to the spaces between kissy faces and heavy-handed character development, with all the requisite “Spider-Man beats” checked off the list. What kills me about Webb’s adaptation is that it doesn’t even have the gall to be enjoyable terrible, instead it putters along at some half-speed, so mired in inertia that it can’t even muster a solid showing of superhero camp.

This is everything, everyone hates about Hollywood, barb-wire wrapped around yet another shit-show of a Spider-Man film.

I’ll go flip open one of my Spider-Man packed long boxes and try to ease the pain of my shaken inner child.

Title: The Amazing Spider-Man
Year: 2012
Country: USA
Language: English
Genre: Action, Fantasy
Director: Marc Webb
Writers:
James Vanderbilt
Alvin Sargent
Steve Kloves
Stan Lee
Steve Ditko
Cast:
Andrew Garfield
Emma Stone
Rhys Ifans
Denis Leary
Martin Sheen
Sally Field
Irrfan Khan
Campbell Scott
Embeth Davidtz
Chris Zylka
C. Thomas Howell
Jake Keiffer
Stan Lee
Rating: 6/10

Watched a 2D version in the cinema, and now the aftertaste is quite irony since the redux deliberately put an “amazing” in its title, the storyline basically sticks together with Sam Reimi’s first instalment, parents left him, grew up with uncle and auntie, bitten by the spider, uncle died, a mad scientist with a genetic mutation, blah blah blah… (and finally, save the world and lose the girl).

Bully scenes are as stale as anyone could imagine, and
what makes me sick is the blatant boosting of worship of “the strongest the best” principle (e.g. Flash’s inferior stance of friendship after being humiliated by Peter Park’s basketball antics), if this is the canon Hollywood mainstream products consistently not only inculcate Americans’ minds, but also export to elsewhere, for which the dictatorial tone really should come under the lash. Competitiveness is beneficial in certain amount, but it is not the most chief way to gain success and fame, period!

The biggest feat of this reboot is that they find a rather right couple to enliven the tedious plot, Garfield and Stone both have captivating charisma even though they all have long passed the high-schooler’s age, and they are plainly adorable on screen, they can hone up all the hoarse dialogues to a much pleasant tier which one can properly endure with a blithe smile. The villain, Rhys Ifans does make an impact, but hurdled by the role’s curbed dimension, barely could be claimed memorable. Let me skip Sheen & Field pair thereafter.

About the CGI visual stunts, I remembered the teasing trailer did impress me with its close-up intimacy with all the spider-jumping and swinging, but in the film, luckily the night-time environment has an edgy to the spider-man dangling among the concrete jungle. even without 3D glasses, the vertiginous effect is pretty intimidating, but cannot be completely satisfied.

Director Marc Webb, from (500) DAYS OF SUMMER (2009, an 8/10) proves to be no more than a qualified hacker, no superimposition shots this time. Anyway it’s typical Hollywood prerogative, we detest it while being ensnared to its resource cornucopia, a dilemma which we have to ruefully swallow.

(Originally posted at www.tkatthemovies.com)

A Los Angeles Times column attributed the Spider-Man reboot, just ten years after Sam Raimi’s first, to a general disinterest in old movies. The author is surely not alone in his skepticism, but I don’t necessarily take issue with this quick turn-around. Though with different titles and characters, movies and TV shows often feel like pale imitations of each other, and entitled demands for “originality” appear grounded in a distorted, nostalgic view that disregards a history of retelling stories extending back to ancient times. If anything, recycling character brands adds pressure to differentiate. (Tim Burton’s “Batman Returns” and Christopher Nolan’s “The Dark Knight Rises” have less in common than most romantic comedies.) So I don’t really mind that they rebooted the franchise, but I mind that they traded Raimi’s energetic vision for something as safe as Marc Webb’s The Amazing Spider-Man.

Superhero tentpoles have been some of this summer’s best movies, particularly with disappointing efforts from Ridley Scott, Oliver Stone and Pixar. Spider-Man stands as a cut below the rest, perfectly fine but never as effective as its Spidey predecessors nor its comic-based peers. Story unfolds with a refreshing clarity that’s welcome in a time of increasingly convoluted plots, but the emotions never hit as deep as they should. It is a decent start, perhaps to be followed by a stronger sequel unburdened by a perfunctory origin story.

Raimi’s trilogy worked so well in part due to heart-on-its-sleeve romance. The first two captured the essence of an all-consuming crush, and there was a sincerity that made even the most eye roll-worthy exchanges moving. The Amazing Spider-Man fails to establish such warmth between Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone. The leads have such great chemistry, demonstrated in the effortlessness of the banter, but the film is unconvincing in suggesting why Peter Parker and Gwen Stacy are meant for each other. She sees him stand up to a bully, they sit next to each other in class, and that’s essentially all there is to it. The director of the film also gave us (500) Days of Summer, a flawed but moving portrait about the highs and lows of relationships. None of that emotional resonance is here. The romance is taken for granted, relying on the notion that these two must be together because that’s always the case.

Part of what makes this romance ineffective is the half-baked depiction of Peter’s inflated ego. The deservedly maligned third installment of Raimi’s trilogy at least committed to uncovering the warts of its hero. The same starts here but with little consideration for what this means for the character. When Peter attacks a former bully actually just offering his condolences, he disregards the weight of the responsibility that comes with his strength. Elsewhere, he stubbornly defends his alter ego to Gwen’s father (Denis Leary), and Spider-Man lays on the snark as he takes on a car thief. The film never truly deals with the consequences of these shortcomings. Peter can do or say whatever he wants, but at the end of the day, Gwen and Aunt May (Sally Field) are there to assure him that he’s good.

The film touches upon but never explores a number of fascinating ideas, particularly with its villain. Dr. Curt Connors (Rhys Ifans) becomes a monster in a fight against the fragility of the human body. The vulnerability serves as a crucial driving force, but the movie never takes a step further to pick apart this latent fear of mortality, the sort of existential weight that makes Nolan’s Batman saga so effective. Still, Dr. Connors’ initial resistance to the pressure of higher-ups feels true to this relatively decent character, so his decision to ultimately offer himself as a human lab rat for his cross-species genetic work feels forced. Not all villains need to be explained, but complexities go unexplored and consequently the Lizard becomes nothing more than just another baddie tearing up New York.

Perhaps the core problem of this film is the utter lack of character development and opportunities for the fine cast. Stone, Ifans, Leary, Field and even Martin Sheen as Uncle Ben feel somewhat incidental. They all do solid work in their respective roles, but their characters are peripheral to the journey of Peter Parker. And Garfield isn’t allowed to demonstrate the depth of his chops either, as his Spider-Man moves through the story but never seems to think or feel as much as merely react to his surroundings.

As I catalog my reservations and doubts about The Amazing Spider-Man, I feel like I’ve given the impression that this was an unpleasant experience, but that’s far from the truth. The action scenes here lack the buoyancy of Raimi’s set pieces, but the effects in Webb’s movie offer a new take on the city-jumping gymnastics of Spider-Man. The flying here is more operatic than manically comic, and it suits the more serious approach to the material. The Lizard moves with such a keen understanding of space and time that makes the creature so effective and at times truly terrifying. And while the dialogue is not nearly as funny as the repartee in Joss Whedon’s The Avengers, the visual comedy as Peter adjusts to his newfound powers is perhaps the most fun to be had in this movie.

Most comic book adaptations in recent memory have empowered me as a staunch defender of the trend. Not all of them are great, but some of them are the best movies being made. A.O. Scott of The New York Times has on numerous occasions argued against these movies. But in a column, he once said, “Thinking in categories — high and low, trash and art, entertaining and “serious” — is a shortcut and an obstacle.” This should also apply to these “superhero movies,” and to assume they’re all equally deserving of our cynicism is perhaps antithetical to the idea of criticism. I’m not saying we should embrace all of these movies with open arms, but critics should be willing to engage with an open mind because there’s great (The Dark Knight trilogy), awful and the so-so in between. The Amazing Spider-Man falls in with that final bunch. Many viewers were happy with the movie, but I’m guessing the specifics haven’t really stuck with them. Chances are they will have the much more gripping Dark Knight Rises on the mind.

Nur fünf Jahre nachdem Sam Raimi den letzten Film seiner Spider-Man-Trilogie über die Leinwände dieser Welt hat flimmern lassen, kommt nun Marc Webbs Neuauflage des Comicstoffes in die Kinos. Mit dem Ziel, bisher unbekannte Facetten des Superhelden zu beleuchten, verspricht The Amazing Spider-Man zunächst komplexe und düstere Blockbusterunterhaltung, die es versteht, sich von ihren populären Vorgängern gekonnt abzuheben, scheitert letztendlich aber, trotz Potentials, an den hohen Ambitionen.

Weiter zur vollständigen Rezension…

Was it all a dream? After twenty-five years of creative and financial struggles, Sony and director Sam Raimi finally struck gold and started a successful Spider-Man franchise. The first Spider-Man, an idea first conceived when Richard Donner’s Superman movies determined that there was a future for comic book heroes in mainstream cinema (after the Batman serials of the 40, which nobody took seriously in the first place, were largely forgotten and action heroes segregated to television), smashed the box office during the summer of 2002 and the franchise never waivered since, not even with the heavy handed third installment which even Sam Raimi held in disdain. It was an uneven body of work, to be sure, but always fun. The high point was part two, an endless fountain of energy of a movie.
A fourth film was inevitable and, indeed, went into production soon after the release of Spider-Man 3, with at least two more sequels intended. There were talks of introducing The Lizard, but the final villain of choice seemed to be The Vulture. Then, as if out of nowhere, Sam Raimi announced he was pulling the plug and dropping his involvement. He cited a restrictive time schedule with Sony as the cause, but his quick return to home territory with Drag Me to Hell suggests he had tired of the franchise. Too bad, because the arc, as far from perfect as it was, was left unfinished and good things seemed to be coming its way. A fine cast including John Malkovich as Vulture and Anne Hathaway as Felicia Hardy (who would eventually become Black Cat) were in the line-up. Ah, what could have been. We shall never know beyond some very limited conceptual art depicting Spidey fighting what appears to be a giant gargoyle. Be that as it may, Sam Raimi went to Oz, Malkovich got to play super baddie in Transformers: Dark of the Moon, and Anne Hathaway did become a feline nemesis not to Spider-Man but to Batman in Dark Knight Rises.
Perhaps, though, Sam Raimi’s take had run its course. The second movie is widely considered the best Spider-Man yet, but his third disappointed most fans. When he closed the door, Raimi gave Sony his best wishes for a reboot that had been in discussion as a potential backup when production troubles became evident. The film that came of this, The Amazing Spider-Man, is not so much a rethinking as a clean start. Both The Amazing Spider-Man and the first Spider-Man strike close to Stan Lee’s heart, though in different ways. Raimi’s vision was almost pure fantasy, not too far removed from basic vampire lore. Peter Parker becomes a human web-slinger after being bitten by an ordinary spider. Lee, it seems, was taken in by the grandiose of myth, though Spider-Man himself was a product of a time when suspicions of unregulated government testing ran high.
The Amazing Spider-Man, however, operates almost entirely on science-fiction, not too far flung from real science according to research conducted at Nexia Biotechnology in Quebec where spider genes were inserted into mammal glands to produce artificial silk. Parker is again bitten by a spider but under different circumstances. In the first movie the bite occurred during a school trip to a museum, in this movie Parker is stung while exploring the Oscorp facility, where his long lost father was conducting covert genetic research. Director Marc Webb makes a big deal out of the possibilities of cross DNA, but is also cautionary about its dangers. If the original trilogy had the soul of Dracula, the reboot bears the warnings of Frankenstein. Tellingly, Raimi’s work was tinted in the golden hues of a sun baked New York, while Webb paints his backgrounds in cold shades of blue and red. It feels like an awe inspiring walk through a state of the art science institute.
Chronologically, The Amazing Spider-Man (as the title, taken from the first comic book series Spidey appeared in, suggests) follows Lee’s footsteps more rigidly. Spidey’s heart has been turned to Gwen Stacy, his love long before Mary Jane came into the picture. True, much of the picture is a rehash as it would need to be if it is to start at the hero’s origin once more. One could argue that a remake of a movie just ten years old was unnecessary. Indeed, no concrete reason was put forward by Sony why they couldn’t just pick up where they had left off with a new director on helm. But, this was the movie that was made and the only question that really matters now for a reboot so close to the original is, how does it hold up? Fortunately, The Amazing Spider-Man can hold its own against a lot of what was done before.
Webb’s emphasis on the human factor far exceeds the forced mechanics of the first movies and he has an excellent cast to work with. Both Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield are talented actors offering much to admire, but in The Amazing Spider-Man, Garfield is allowed to absorb us in all the angst, insecurities, and even the joys of being a teenager. The common complaint, in fact, that the movie is half over before Parker wriggles into the skin tight blue and red suit (and that he is hardly seen in the mask even then) is really hardly noticeable since it is as a common teenager and not as a soulless CGI creation swinging in between the buildings, that Garfield truly shines. The shots of Spider-Man standing high and mighty above the city he protects are nowhere near as triumphant as those of Peter Parker, an ordinary young man who has found his purpose, looking out courageously from atop a skyscraper at the world before him. The former scenes celebrate the triumph of special effects; the latter to the spirit of youth and a repressed loner’s liberation.
Even at thirty, Andrew Garfield is fast rising as one of the most talented embodiments of the all-American teen. His Peter Parker is a loner by choice and not unreasonably so. He was abandoned by his parents when very young and left to the care of his Aunt May and Uncle Ben. What little Parker knew of his father is shrouded in mystery. All he is certain of is that his Dad was a scientist working on genetic research at Oscorp. But he fills the void of an empty past with a passion for photography.
He shares a common dilemma with many young boys; he likes a pretty girl that he is too scared to talk to. But Gwen Stacy has a kind heart and reaches out to him after he is humiliated by a bully. Emma Stone is also a bit old for a high school sweetheart but her warmth is so effective we can’t help but want her there. It just so happens that Gwen is an intern at Oscorp and the daughter of the police chief, two compromising positions to be in considering what’s to come.
Stone and Garfield’s shared moments of teenage love are relatively free of the common over-pumped emotion and revel in the endearing awkwardness and timidity so many of us remember so vividly. Even the choice of soundtrack is commendable, suggesting Webb took the caliber of human emotion straight from Indy pics and not the kind of teen romances that seem to be the only market action movies know to borrow from. When she first asks him over for dinner, Gwen exposes herself to be as shy as Parker. Stone works wonders and the whole scene is a beautiful tribute to American young love.
Rhys Ifans’s Dr. Connors seems a promising performance for a new sort of superhero nemesis. He is no lunatic bent on world domination. His studies are motivated by good enough intentions. He wants to rid the world of pain. There is something in it for him, of course. He wants to replace his amputated left arm, but he is scrupulous. In fact, he only injects himself with the serum that transforms him into The Lizard when his conniving boss threatens to test it on unsuspecting veterans. He had some history with Peter Parker’s dad, both having researched in transgenetics at Oscorp, but the movie is foggy about the extent. Supposedly, a deleted subplot hinted that Dr. Connors may have been behind the death of Parker’s parents and that Mr. Parker had injected Peter with spider serum years earlier, marking his destiny early on. All this was scrapped, however, and what remains is puzzling.
The depiction of Dr. Connors as an ethical, if naïve, scientist raises hope for a new, complex direction for superhero movies. Alas, The Amazing Spider-Man is not it. As soon as Dr. Connors morphs into the rampaging Lizard he loses everything we admired about him and becomes a generic movie monster trashing a city. When he faces off with Spidey, the movie goes into autopilot and their battle through the buildings of New York is indistinguishable from the ending of The Avengers or so many other action movie showdowns, mixing an unsavory blend of spectacular destruction with attempts at wit. Spider-Man’s attempts to get through to him (“This isn’t you. You aren’t thinking straight.”) touch upon the humanity we first noticed in Dr. Connors but do little else. What a waste of innovation.
Martin Sheen had little knowledge of the material before taking on the role of the doomed Uncle Ben, but he does play it with uncharacteristic gentility. It’s not his fault that Uncle Ben’s inevitable death scene (when he crosses paths with an armed shoplifter) is staged and shot so sloppily, with jumpy editing and forced dialogue, that it becomes almost comical in its familiarity. It’s good to see Sally Field again as Aunt May but she appears less and less as the movie goes on. Still, she gives the movie an emotional cushion. She is old enough for maternal advice, but youthful enough for spunk. Her presence is an asset and it’s a shame there wasn’t more of her.
Denis Leary is miscast, it seems. He is hardly recognizable, but not because he is disguised. No, his physical similarities to Willem Dafoe are too obvious for the movie to pass up the chance for a subtle homage to Dafoe’s Green Goblin in Sam Raimi’s first movie. Rather, he is so out of his league as the surly Captain Stacy that his influence is minimized. He is a gruff commander of authority and an overprotective father, but he carries none of Leary’s dry wit or reluctant cloyingness even in his dying moments. The less said about a failed attempt at whimsy, Gwen’s ardent refusal to accept his invitation for hot coco downstairs while she hides a wounded Spider-Man in her bedroom is best forgotten.
But it’s Garfield and Stone that make this movie an overall improvement over the original trilogy. Fans recognize with some wariness that, judging by the comic books, Gwen Stacy’s days are numbered. This means the loss of Emma Stone and that’s the real cause for dismay. But if Marc Webb proved something in The Amazing Spider-Man it’s his eye for casting and utilization of his cast. Mary Jane will likely be a welcome addition no matter who takes the part.