The Amazing Spider-Man
Columbia Pictures
By: Chris "Sledge" Douglas
The Amazing Spider-Man.
After I saw this movie for the first time, my friends asked me what I thought of it. They'd seen it, and they reacted pretty positively to it.
My reaction to this fourth Spider-Man film from Columbia?
Meh.
A big resounding "meh."
In fact, specifically I remember saying that this movie just felt empty. It had decent moments, but overall just felt like there was no heart.
Now, I'm noticing I come around on my opinions a lot more these days. Maybe it's a symptom of getting older and more jaded to this sort of thing. Or maybe I just have strong initial reactions, but then calm down considerably. Who knows?
Plus, I just felt it was way too soon to do a reboot of a franchise whose last movie was just a few years earlier. In fact, plot elements such as Dr. Curt Connors being the main bad guy seemed to only be there because the previous franchise would have gone there anyway.
So I decided to watch it again. And here is what I thought.
Parker's parents and their relevance
One of the big selling points of this picture is the added background provided by showing Peter Parker's parents and what happened to them. I thought then, and still think now, that having Peter's parents so heavily mentioned did little to add to Peter's origins. Peter's aunt and uncle have always been Peter's surrogate parents, and therefore this addition served little more than as a cheap way to connect the hero with the villain, as Peter's father was working with Dr. Connors at some point.
The portrayal of Uncle Ben and Aunt May
I thought Sheen and field portrayed Uncle Ben and Aunt may PERFECTLY. The acting chops of both were spot on, as I could completely buy them being a family. Incredible chemistry, not only between them, but between themselves and Peter as well.
Garfield's portrayal of Peter Parker
I initially didn't think that Andrew Garfield's portrayal of Peter Parker did it for me. I had thought that Toby Macguire had pulled off the lame nerd aspect of Parker well enough. I also thought that Garfield played Parker alot "cooler" than he should have been portrayed. The idea of nerdy Peter Parker being a "sk8r b0i" also was just too much for me at the time.
Upon a second viewing, I found Garfield's portrayal to show a very subtle and subdued nerdiness. he is visibly nervous when dealing with girls, and not to mention awkward at times. We can really see this when Uncle Ben reveals the fact that he has Gwen's picture on his computer. The awk, awk, awkwardness is plenty tenable.
His intelligence is much more evident in this film then the previous films. We are told that Macguire's Spider-Man is smart; here, we are shown exactly how smart he is.
Above all, I found Garfield's Parker emoting to be much more realistically portrayed.
Garfield's portrayal of Spider-Man
I really had no problem with Macguire's portrayal of Spider-Man in the Raimi trilogy. I thought he was plenty heroic, but it still seemed like Peter Parker behind the mask. I don't remember having any problems with Garfield's portrayal when I first saw the film, but nothing really stuck out.
On this second viewing, I can really appreciate Garfield's Spider-Man a hell of a lot more. He is behind the mask both physically and psychologically, so he can be much wittier and gregarious, allowing him to be the wisecracking Spider-Man many fans wanted to see from the get-go. This also helped me appreciate how much "cooler" Peter Parker himself seemed. It really shows in his Spider-Man persona, and that's a good thing.
Gwen and Parker
Gwen and Peter act like a normal young couple. They react to each other in exactly the way I would expect such a couple to. I had absolutely no problem with this portrayal.
The Music
Maybe a big part of my empty feeling in regards to my first viewing had to do with my reaction to the score. Music plays a HUGE role in how I enjoy movies, and this film, while competent in the incidentals, did not wow me with the main theme. Spider-Man's theme sounds a little to "generic hero music" to me, and not at all like a signature that I'm supposed to ONLY associate with Spider-Man. Love or hate Danny Elfman's score in the Raimi trilogy, but at least one could associate that overture with only being for Spider-Man. This score felt like it could have been for ANY super hero.
Extra good points:
- I thought how Peter's Spidey Sense
manifested itself on the subway to be brilliant. His fighting ability all being instinct was an excellent idea. It's almost as if he has to fight to NOT show his new powers. That's awesome!
- Flash is awesome as a douchebag bully. And Peter's revenge against him, now that he has his powers, is not only perfectly justifiable (after all, if someone has been bullying YOU for that long, wouldn't YOU want to show this person up?), it is also awesome fodder for his Uncle's criticism.
Not to mention, his apology to Peter after Ben dies is as good enough of a "face turn" as one can ask for.
- Speaking of the this, the new version of "if only Peter had stopped that guy, his Uncle Ben would still be alive is not only better than that of the previous films, it's better than that of the comics. The irony is very real and very understandable, and Garfield portrays a Peter who is DEEPLY affected by his death. Sally Field also shows tremendous emotion when her Aunt May reacts to it as well. Very nicely done.
This also gives us a Spider-Man who is absolutely DRIVEN to do what's right. Sure, he had those tendencies before, but it is absolutely much more believable this time.
However, I am still not satisfied with the explanation of how he came up with the suit. Sure, the mask is explained well, when he crashed through the roof of the pro-wrestling gym (and denying the die-hards another chance to bemoan any further diversions from their beloved canon). But while the general structure of the suit is explained, the webbing and the spider logo are not. However, that's still better than what Raimi's films gave us.
The Lizard's motivation still boggles the hell out of me. It is never sufficiently explained how "removing all of humanity's weaknesses" turns into "turn everybody into lizards." Oh well. At least it lead to some fun confrontations.
All in all, The Amazing Spider-Man was a MUCH better experience a second time around. If Raimi's versions had never existed to muddy up my initial reaction, I would have loved the hell out of this movie.
Oh yeah, and Stan Lee's cameo is perhaps one of the best he has ever done!
Favorite Scene: When Spider-Man is trying to save the little boy from the burning car, and he gives him his mask in order to build the kid's courage. Absolutely brilliant.
0 comments:
Post a Comment