New Spider-Man. New series. New story. Is it truly Amazing or does it fall short? Here are my thoughts on the first installment of the reboot of the series and a comparison of it to the previous trilogy.
*Note: here's a link to the article I wrote beforehand about some predictions I had for the film: http://www.comicbookmovie.com/fansites/Superceptive/news/?a=61070
WARNING!!! - Contains spoilers below. Do not read if you have yet to see the film and wish to avoid, well, being spoiled.
GENERAL THOUGHTS
Before I get into the specifics, let me say that this is a movie that I feel is fun and entertaining but not necessarily "good". There's a lot that I thought was very interesting and I enjoyed but there's also a lot that I found problematic. It's much easier to break them down into a good/bad section and pinpoint things than to become verbose in paragraph form.
THE GOOD COMMENDATIONS:
1. Andrew Garfield nails Peter Parker, 100%. Not enough can be said about that, but not much more needs to be said. He clearly understands the character and is able to pull it off entirely.
2. Lizard's look was not as bad, in my opinion, as everyone was freaking out about. It could have been better, sure, but things can always be better, and I was happy with it. I'm of the group that thinks this version of Lizard makes more sense than him being a LITERAL giant lizard with a huge snout and such. Take that for what you will.
3. OSCORP. Feels like a true superpower of a business and something we can take very seriously, does it not?
4. Really liked the crane-perch idea. I would have preferred it without the mislead and I think it would have worked better as a sequence in the second or third film instead of this, but I still liked the idea a lot.
5. Peter as a skateboarder to help explain his flexibility, loved it.
6. If they were instinctively trying very hard to give this a modern and realistic feel to the non-superhero sections, they pulled that off rather well. Flash felt like a legitimate bully. Peter wasn't over-the-top nerdy with a pocket protector and whatnot.
THE BAD NITPICKING:
1. They tried to cram too much into the movie with too little time to tell, and a lot of it was unnecessary. We basically sat through 2 or 3 films worth of fluidity in one movie as if we were looking at bullet points instead of actually experiencing it.
1a - Gwen's romance with Peter exists as basically 4 scenes (meet-date-confession-breakup) and they could have made the entire first film out of just the first and second.
1b - Curt Connors needed more time with the audience. I never got to know the man enough to care about him in any way. He also had virtually no time with Peter to set up any kind of true friendship to build anything upon.
2. Ratha was pretty pointless and if you're going to have a character like that do virtually nothing, why not make him someone from the comics just for fun?
3. Some references felt forced, like Peter falling into the wrestling ring.
4. Unless they're planning BIG things for Richard and Mary in sequels, I think they dropped the ball. I think I was supposed to come out of this caring much more about their characters and thinking that they had a lot more weight to them than I feel that they really did. They're not Thomas and Martha Wayne from Nolan's Batman trilogy in that they resonate, they're more so comparable to Jor-El from the original Superman film.
COMPARISON TO SAM RAIMI'S FIRST SPIDER-MAN FILM:
LOVE INTEREST: Gwen Stacy has the ability to surpass Mary Jane if not just because of her charm. Dunst's MJ was whiny and annoying but I quite like Gwen Stacy in this film. That being said, I don't want to see half the next film devoted to "giving Gwen something to do" for the sake of it like most sequels tend to do (cough*IronMan2*cough) but rather make it something that can influence the story in the way it naturally was already going, like what Rachel's role in The Dark Knight was. Mary Jane in Spider-Man 2 was a distraction from the plot while Rachel's story with Harvey Dent helped move the plot along. Gwen needs to be the grease on the wheel instead of the anchor holding everything back from progressing.
ACTION: About the same between the two. Raimi's film felt like it had more action and it might have been more satisfying in bulk but Webb's film feels like the action is more like a rich piece of cake - you can't eat too much of it but you still like the taste. Both films have some innovative uses of the powers and I'm looking forward to seeing what other tricks they can pull in #2.
STORYLINE: Raimi's film had a better storyline. This was a little too simple. Osborn's decent into madness was more clearly expressed than with Connors. Osborn's retribution at the board members was setup in the film but Connors practically goes straight to "idk, big threat time?" right off the bat. Raimi was able to set up a relationship between Peter and Flash, Peter and Harry, Peter and Mary Jane, Peter and Aunt May, Peter and Uncle Ben, Peter and Norman, and even Peter with Jameson whereas this film struggles to set up Peter with virtually anybody (mainly due to time constraints).
VISUALS: Impressive, a little too obviously gimmicked in some instances, but there were some shots that I really enjoyed. The effects are believable and there's no suffering from weird lighting or crazy editing or anything of that sort. There's potential here to surpass any of the other Spider-Man films, visually, but that will only be accomplished if they can also give it a boost with story to go along with it.
CHARACTER: This Peter Parker is so much more "Peter Parker" than the one in Raimi's films. For the most part everyone is true to the character, but that's the one that goes beyond what Raimi's films showcased. Raimi has the real Spider-Man in terms of story while Webb has the real Spider-Man in terms of character.
SCORE: This one goes to Raimi (or more so, to Danny Elfman). The main theme for that series gave the impression of a spider whilst being sweeping, heroic, and emotional, whereas the main theme for this series is a little too bland for my taste. It's heroic, but it doesn't have the *umph* to it that gives it any emotional or epic feeling. At no point during my listening did I feel like I was going to have that AAAAH moment that you can get with certain songs (like for instance the crescendo of
Also Sprach Zarathustra). I didn't dislike it, but it's nothing that will be topping my favorite and most recognizable film scores lists.
HUMOR: Amazing Spider-Man wins out, hands down. The humor in this was more natural and the right TYPE of humor, more importantly. We're not laughing at the film, we're laughing with the film.
FINAL VERDICT:
I think this film suffers from the same thing that most films tend to suffer from and that's time management. In the grand scheme of things, I wouldn't have minded if this film would have skipped almost the entire first half of the film in regards to the Spider-Man origin and spent that time developing the characters more and giving them a firmer foundation to stand upon. Give us more Gwen/Peter sequences and more Connors/Peter so we have the emotion built into their relationship as opposed to just told to us. They hit some points that didn't need to be hit (particularly if they weren't going to top or equal when they happened in Raimi's film, like Peter learning his powers) and in the process had to sacrifice precious screen time that could have been used to boost plot points that don't have much to fall back on. I still did enjoy the film and I'll be seeing it again in about a week as well as looking forward to the sequel, but I'm disappointed because I expected it to be handled much better. The potential was there, but it was too put together in a sloppy way that hinders it.
DO YOU THINK THE UNTOLD STORY OF SPIDER-MAN SHOULD HAVE BEEN TOLD OR NOT?