Thoughts on The Amazing Spider-Man
I've had mixed feelings about this movie since seeing it. However, it was a friend named Jason Merrill who helped me put this movie into perspective, along with my mental comparison to the Ang Lee Hulk movie. I remember comparing his Hulk movie to The Incredible Hulk with Ed Norton and contemplated. Was there anything I liked about either one, and was there anything I actively hated? After realizing there wasn't anything I actively hated in the Norton flick, but there were things I truly despised in the Ang Lee film, my opinion was formed.
So I thought about how this movie plays out. Peter is left by his parents with May and Ben after after the parents figure out someone might be after them. There's a whole conspiracy mentioned involving Curt Connors and Norman Osborn, to be fleshed out more in the presumably coming sequel. I didn't have too much of a problem with this aspect as it's been shown in the comic that Peter's parents were SHIELD agents who pretty much did the same thing. Now they can't use the SHIELD angle due to that being strictly a Marvel / Disney / Paramount thing that Sony can't touch, but the potential spy agency bit can still be used.
But anyway, back to the film itself. Martin Sheen and Ally Field are pretty cool as Ben and May, but then I never had a problem with Cliff Robertson and Rosemary Harris doing their portrayals in Sam Raimi's first Spidey flick. Gwen and George Stacy were both decent as well, generally intelligent characters who had good moments to shine. Curt Conners was written about like you might find in a Spidey comic. He gets a serum for his missing arm, turns into an insane Lizard creature and comes up with a crazy scheme for the wall crawler to stop. I'd no real issue with him or his actor (Rhys Ifans) at all.
Which leaves the title character himself... and this is where the best and worst aspects of the film begin.
As I understand it, Andrew Garfield is a British actor, so I have to give him props for not showing it at all here. He acts and sounds like an American teen. The thing is, his character's a dark brooding emotional teen constantly angry about having no parents, who shifts to being a clumsy photographer at times. In short, he's written not as Peter Parker but Bruce Wayne, and this is a bit annoying. The character is written with two emotional ranges and only partially is there any semblance of Peter as he's been constantly written over the decades. For many years, Peter's been... well a nerd, who gets release from putting on a mask after contributing to the cause of his uncle's murder and learning from it. When Uncle Ben in inevitably shot here, Peter becomes Spider-Man for the sole purpose of tracking down the murderer during a good chunk of the film and much of what inspired Peter to become Spidey is changed considerably for this movie. Also, as Peter accidentally displays his newfound abilities (in some occasionally hilarious moments), he increasingly does so in public where everyone can see it, but no one seems to notice that this inept kid can suddenly do awesome stuff out of the blue about the same time this guy in red and blue suddenly appeared. Incidentally, can we keep the mask on Spider-Man sometimes? The script has him take off the mask so often you start to wonder if he hates having a disguise or something. It's these parts of the screenplay that kept taking me out of the movie and making me think 'hey, doesn't anyone see what's going on here?" and that shouldn't happen with the flow of a film. As a moviegoer, I should be completely glued to what's going on.
Like I said earlier, the movie has good and bad to it. I did enjoy the action and web-slinging sequences. Also, it was cool to see Spidey get help in key scenes late in the fiolm. Won't spoilt for those who havent seen the movie, but these were kinda cool and gave NYC a bit of character. The thing is, I wind up thinking about the question Jason asked me; "If this were the first ever Spider-Man film, what would you think of it?" I realized that I'd be thinking and breaking down what i liked and didn't like about this movie just as intensely as I have in these comparative writings, whereas when I saw the first movie that Sam Raimi did, I didn't have the inclination to analyze /criticize that film nearly as much if at all since I was totally into it (even with the Green Goblin's weird costume and the organic web shooters).
I'm writing an article about the best comic-to-movie adaptations (which I won't finish until after I see The Dark Knight Rises) and in the end, even though The Amazing Spider-Man, is a decent movie, I'm not inclined to change that article to accommodate this film.
Grade: B
