The Not So "Amazing" Spider-Man
Saturday, July 7, 2012 at 11:00PM originally published in my column at Towleroad
Andrew Garfield hanging about on The Amazing Spider-Man set.
Déjà vu is an unsettling feeling. You can’t quite place the why and whens of it but you know you’ve experienced whatever this is before. Not so with the reboot of Spider-Man which has been optimistically retitled “THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN” for 2012. The new webslinging film arrives only five years after Spider-Man 3, that final sour note in Sam Raimi’s otherwise sweet trilogy. This déjà vu is easy to place with the “whens” and thus less unsettling if still perplexing on account of the “whys”. We’re back to summer 2002 when Peter Parker first pined for a high school sweetheart, first indirectly contributed to his uncle’s murder, first learned that with great power comes great responsibility, and first swung around a big screen Manhattan in his iconic red and blue spandex.
Franchises are the comfort food of the movies and though there’s nothing wrong with comfort food beyond its lack of nutritional value, so much depends on the delivery when it comes to the familiar pleasure. The Amazing Spider-Man spins its title card with webbing very swiftly which leaves you hoping for a zippy entertainment with key twists on the mythos to keep you engaged. But after a new corporate thriller prologue featuring Peter Parker’s heretofore unseen parents the movie settles into excessively familiar story beats. We’re forced to wait out the entire numbing origin story again and relive many story beats from the 2002 origin story, with the only major exclusions being the absence of Parker's employment at The Daily Bugle (weird) and no James Franco shaped obstacle to his girl’s affections. Other than that only the names of the major characters have changed: Blonde Gwen Stacy (Emma Stone) stands in for Redhead Mary Jane Watson (Kirsten Dunst) as the love interest Peter likes to photograph; Dr Curt Connors/The Lizard (Rhys Ifans) stands in for Norman Osborne/The Green Goblin (Willem Dafoe) as the scientist Peter looks up to whose illegal human experimentation (on himself!) wreaks havoc on his mental stability.
Once you start talking to yourself in an out of body "evil" voice, it's just a matter of time until you're a Green Super Villain. More...
Gwen & Peter make one very attractive coupleDirector Marc Webb, who made a whimsical splash with his debut film (500) Days of Summer seemed like an inspired choice for reviving the pop romantic sensibility of Spider-Man but nothing between Gwen & Peter ever lands with the force of that upside down kiss. What the new-but-also-old Spider-Man has going for it is a stronger sense of the hero's extremely flexible physicality and fighting style (Andrew Garfield has been doing his yoga).
Webb comes through with a few instances of visual invention like a scene where Spider-Man creates an entire web in the sewers to function as a motion detector and a POV shot from the superhero’s swinging point of view which featured in an early teaser. Otherwise it’s mostly more of the same which might not be such an enormous problem in a less superhero satured movie culture.
Peter Parker is still Peter Parker. Sort of.
Tobey Maguire has stepped aside for Andrew Garfield and at first Peter Parker 2.0 seems like an improvement since his lanky frame looks so very right in the skin tight Spider suit and the screenplay hands him the kind of wisecracks that comic book readers missed in Raimi's trilogy. But eventually Garfield’s long limbed swagger and emotive confidence as a screen actor starts to chafe against the character... at least when he's out of spandex. It’s all just too easy for him. Though he tears up frequently there’s none of the awkward growing pains that marked Tobey Maguire dazed portrayal. This Peter's “awkward” flirtations with Gwen Stacy are so crush-worthy that they feel less like an everyman nerd’s discomfort and more like a pick-up gimmick, like Peter 2.0 can’t imagine not nabbing the girl. Emma Stone and Andrew Garfield have fine onscreen chemistry (and offscreen chemistry too as it turned out) but their romance never once feels like the happy miracle of the Maguire / Dunst pairing, just a given from the first Meet Awkward frame. Maguire vs. Garfield is Corny Sincerity vs. Cocky Heroics... so I suppose it's a matter of taste.
The Amazing Wisecracking Spider-Man
This Spider-Man also loses the pop pleasure of Raimi's brightly colored palette (I blame Batman that most superhero movies, The Avengers aside, prefer to be dark and gritty now) and the sly joking about sexual adolescence (no sticky fluids escape Parker’s body this time that he didn’t plan on). Worst of all it has none of the joyful sense of discovery (admittedly harder to capture the fourth time around). In short it's less magical. Not “Amazing” at all.
Dr, Curt Connor’s one-armed tragedy is that in seeking to do good with cross species genetics (he hopes to restore lost limbs to combat veterans via reptilian DNA), he does evil instead. The Amazing Spider-Man’s best new image comes via Connors first transformation when he wakes to find a malformed log-like appendage where his new arm should be. He begins tearing at it with his good hand, and it turns out to be only a shell, a scaly arm cocoon. A fresh slimy new human hand emerges from its ruins. The new arm soon fails him in multiple ways. It’s a stunning icky image and even a handy metaphor for the movie. Sony would like to regrow their billion dollar franchise but this new attempt only looks promising. Dr. Curt Connors has never quite solved the problem of macular degeneration and the movie studio hasn’t really answered the question of “why does this exist?” beyond, of course, new piles of easy cash.
Grade: C-
Oscar Chances? Unlikely. I wouldn't even bet on Visual Effects (though it's a possibility) given the stiffer and stiffer competition each year and this being the fourth installment of a franchise. And one that doesn't push any technological envelopes.
Andrew Garfield, Emma Stone, Marc Webb, Reviews, Rhys Ifans, Spider-Man, Visual FX, remakes, superheroes
Reader Comments (34)
Thanks for the review Nathaniel!
I'm so not in a hurry to see this. "Eventually" is probably the word but "never" is also a possibility.
See, but hat you have to realize about this movie was that it wasn't a part of the old Spider-Mans. This is basically starting from the beginning, how it was supposed to be told. The storyline and everything that they did was bringing the comic book to the movie screens, rather than stealing a character and changing everything about him. The old movies went so off track from what the comic was, it wasn't even Spider-man anymore. This movie WAS the first couple issues of the original comic. It stayed true to it's origins character-wise, plot-wise, and relationship-wise.
Gwen Stacy was Spider-man's original girlfriend. Mary Jane only came about in a reboot series years after the release and was never a main focus of the story.
Peter Parker IS awkward and nerdy and shy. The way that Andrew Garfield portrayed him was how the character was supposed to be, not the Cocky Heroics that Toby Magoire put on.
Autumn, Cocky Heroics is meant to describe Andrew Garfield, not Tobey Maguire, and I agree with Nathaniel. When I get Flash Thompson more than I get Peter Parker, something's wrong.
I wonder how many versions of Oliver Twist you've seen. And I think that I've never heard even the most ardent fan of the Raimi trilogy call the Maguire/Dunst pairing a "happy miracle". Shouldn't they pop up on every respectable Worst Screen Couples list? But I appreciate that you're actually reviewing what's on screen instead of simply grading the director's name.
On the one hand, you criticize TASM's delivery for coming too close to the original, and on the other hand you criticize it for strewing too far from Raimi's film. And since TASM is a reboot, I find it somewhat unfair to criticize it for being a reboot. It was a polarizing film from the get-go, but I'm beginning to wonder if it ever had a chance of winning, cause it actually shows how you can approach the same material differently (and the way I see it: better), and that indeed answers the "Why does it exist?" question beyond easy piles of cash.
I find this article to be very irritating because the writer himself is acting SO superior. How about checking the box office numbers or the score on Imdb? Just because YOU think it's not all that, well, many of us went to see it without any preconceptions and without any intent to compare it to death to the previous Spiderman's. The first Tobey Maguire movie was good, but let's face it, the second one was in the mediocre only category and the last one was downright awful. This movie definitely follows the actual comic book story more and is therefore well worth watching in my honest opinion.
I say to anyone reading this, give this Spiderman movie a go, you're going to be very pleasantly surprised!
I saw it and "Batman Begins" this was not. I went in with no expectation and i was dissapointed. Emma Stone was the best thing but that's about it. Hope the sequel will be better.
Yeah let's check the box office numbers and the IMDb boards for the be all end all on a movie's worth, that's where the truth lay! God forbid a critic offer his own personal critical opinion! How dare he? Good effing grief.
The second Spider-Man by Sam Raimi is one of the finest superhero movies ever made, for one. Doc Ock is a villain for the ages, and yes the romance between Tobey and Kirsten is everything one of these movies should be aiming for.
I think I liked Andrew Garfield more than Nat did, but this movie's a total mess. Complete incoherence surrounding the villain. There's no sense of discovery - no fear to the first time Andy learns to soar through the air - he just does it, and we're off with the special effects.
Wow, I'm shocked people didn't like Garfield's Parker. I thought it was leagues above Tobey's (and I generally liked him). Overall, I was positive on the film, especially considering it was in such a hole just by existing. Looking forward to the sequel, which is always a good sign for me.
Thought it was pretty fun! There's such a weird disconnect for me between people I talk to in person about the new Spidey (mostly positive), and what I've been reading on the internet (overwhelmingly negative) Critics seem to be a bit in between, but judging by RT and Metacritic, still on the positive side. Sigh, I guess this is just the way of the internet with certain movies.
Autumn -- I have read the Spider-Man comics and you can't say that this was all that much more faithful. I don't remember anything about Peter's dad for example and I read the comic boooks. I've always loved spider-man since i was a little kid. And Gwen Stacy for example is with the Green Goblin storyline. so they're both first. Basically you'd have to smoosh the Raimi and the Webb together ;)
Chaz -- i would not have compared it so incessantly to the original if it had had anything fresh about it. It forced me into that position by being the same. I mean a green villain who talks to himself in an offscreen evil voice? almost the exact same origin story beats. I was just so bored. and I do love Spider-Man but not this one.
Willy -- wow. see, up until this one came out Dunst & Maguire's upside down kiss was pretty much considered a classic movie kiss.
JA -- oh and thank you. Spider-Man 2 is everything comic book movies ought to be. A total "A". It's bewildering to me that people let Spider-Man 3 color their perceptions of the whole trilogy so much.
Was hoping you'd like it, Nat. I don't think it's better than the first two, but I do think that Garfield + Stone > Maguire + Dunst. Both individually AND as a couple. And I love both Maguire and Dunst!
i totally agree with you Nathaniel R.
i boycotted the movie but i went to see it with some friends who like it and i disagreed with them .Finally they again saw Raimi's 2 first Spiderman yesterday and they had forgotten how great,classic cult(kiss scenes are "classic instant" and it totally deserved "best kiss award" at MTV movie awards LOL) these movies were.
THE AMAZING SPIDERMAN is NOT bad but it's too GREEN LANTERN-oriented (all CGI action scenes,fake suit....)
See, I too liked Spider-Man's upside down kiss, but not Spider-Man 2's and Spider-Man 3's self-congratulatory way of constantly referencing it. I'm sorry, but I'm unwilling to reduce six and a half hours of screentime to one single kiss. And TASM's rooftop kiss wasn't that bad either, even though it instantly reminded me of a similar scene in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. Be that as it may, I generally prefer to watch a screen couple that actually has some chemistry.
I found TASM to be my favourite Spiderman movie but I'm kind of scartching my head as to why. The story felt a bit of a mess, at times with strange plot holes, at others trying to set up the sequel. The cinematography in general was lacking and underwhelming considering the agility of the character.
I much prefered Garfield as Spiderman and I found his relationship wiih Gwen Stacey (who was a far more likeable character than Dunst's MJ) more convincing than we had seen in the previous films.
But hey, I never understood the love for Spiderman 2. I guess I like my superhero movies to be either dark, or to feel like the comic books and Spiderman 2 was somewhat lost in the middle.
Lizard wasn't a particularly great villain but what I did like was the fact that Peter Parker was responsible for creating him. Not only does this link back into the whole "responsibility" theme that is a significant in Spiderman but it meant that unlike Raimi's Spiderman, the villian and Spiderman didn't just happen to come into existance at the exact same time completely independently of each other.
Sure there were flaws and the running time was (over)long but I appreciated the character development despite not particularly liking (500) Days of Summer.
I for one am looking forward to The Amazing Spiderman 2, although I still think they should have adapted Ultimate Spiderman instead and cast Donald Glover as Spiderman.
I think the 'untold story' of Peter Parker's parents might have been that they enjoyed watching Mad About You.
I've always seen the upside down kiss as iconic because of the nature of it. It's so unique and sort of weird that no one had done it before. I don't, however, think any of its staying power has anything to do with their chemistry, because frankly, Tobey and Kirsten just weren't bringing it at all
Nat: The parents were the focus of a storyline that, I think, was around the mid to late eighties and the fallout of his "parents" being revealed as robots (it's a comic book, just go with it) led directly into a pit of depression and attempts to separate himself from his secret identity by calling himself "The Spider". Attempts to fix that depression resulted in the Second Clone Saga.
Nicholas Girling: Except Miles Morales is a VERY recent development, being less than a year old right now.
Walter: If this series is really aiming for the romantic hurly-burly of the original comics (which, because it actually takes place after the movie, the tie-in game hints at), they've got a much more delicate balance to maintain for how awkward to make the awkward where the original was free to make things as awkward as possible.
@Chaz: "How about checking the box office numbers or the score on Imdb?" Are you seriously saying that Nathaniel should base his OWN OPINION of the new Spiderman movie on what other people think, or how much money the movie's made?
Shit, I really wish I knew how to embed gifs on the comments so I could post the one of Cruella Deville doubling over with hysterical laughter. (Or maybe Condescending Wonka's "You must be new here.") Lawd.
Are all these fanboys coming from google search or what? Because they seam to not visit your blog often.
I liked the movie, I mean it definitely felt like I was seeing something I'd already seen but my expectations were on the floor, considering that to me Spider-man 2, X2 and The Incredibles are in my opinion the top super hero movies. But I found myself enjoying this, especially Emma and Andrew, the story not so much. If anything it got me excited for a sequel, hoping that they have something new to tell, as I believe by what was show in this one, it could be good.
I liked Garfield, but yeah, I agree his transformation and new powers came pretty easy to him. While I see how all that power could go straight to a teenager's (or anyone's head) and make them cocky, it all happened so fast. Those are really problems with the script and director than the actor, though.
Also liked Stone since how can you not? But I found her character to be a bit bland. It didn't help that they dressed her up as if she could be 16 going on 40.
Overall, despite some plot holes and an overlong running time, I still found this entertaining. I wasn't that excited to see it but I'm glad I did.
Nat - While I MOSTLY feel the same way about TASM, don't you think it's a little dangerous to say Spider-Man 2 is everything comic book movies should be (unless you're talking about in terms of quality then, again, I mostly agree with you).
That open heart/campy style works for Spider-Man but placing that tone on X-Men, Batman or Superman would seem largely out of place. Hell, being different is what makes Spider-Man 2 standout. Having everything fit into that mold - or the dark/gritty mold - would make it less unique and the last thing that should be encouraged in comic book films is uniformity.
Daniel -- i agree. I don't want all the comic book movies to be the same at all. But Spider-Man 2 absolutely works. And it's totally focused and it feels as joyful as reading a good superhero comic (a non-gritty one, non anti-hero type) can.
my point is: be your best self. Why make spider-man like Batman?
i do agree with the grade. i found the tone to be way off, and, similar to last year's crazy sexy love, the only thing that sparkled were moments with emma stone. i will say that the lack of a damsel in distress finale was a relief, but the bridge scene felt like a throwback to the original (and not in a good way) and garfield didn't seem to embody the role so much as perform it. for someone who so giftedly handled budding and wayward romance in his previous film, marc webb thoroughly blundered the romance (as you said). just disappointing all around.
This movie was terrible! The cast was good. The writing was fodder.
The lizard looks like killer croc (strange). Suit looked like a Nike ad.
Origin retelling was ridiculous, not spiderman. Even if it is a new
Way of telling it, it failed horribly. Never going to buy it, it jaded the
Spiderman movie take for me. I like the first 2(Sam Rami). The 3rd
Not so much. But at least I felt like I was watching spiderman and
Not the spiderman diaries (bad teen fluff).
Let me put my two cents in. I guess most of the people who liked the movie enough to want to kill anyone who didn't like it, follow Barney Stinson as a role model. That aside the movie was not bad but it was also not good enough for me to want more of it.
@Steve, I agree the retelling of the origin story did not work at all. I actually felt my heart come up in Raimi's but here it just didn't have the same impact.
@ Nat - I think this movie is like "Hamlet" without "To be or not to be." They were perhaps trying too hard to not be like Raimi's first spidey but "Responsibility, not choice" does ot work in comparison to "With great power, comes great responsibility."
I also did not feel any emotional bond between Ben/May and Peter.
And Maguire Dunst worked for me much better than the current pair. The romance seemed to be hurried over considering Webb's previous movie was (500) DAys of Summer.
steve -- the spider-man diaries. you've nailed it. that is what it feels like. I like this movie less and less the more i think of it and i didn't like it at all to begin with.
dr rohit -- agree on all counts, especially the different for different's sake dilution of the theme. weak movie. baffled that some people claim to like it more than Raimi's excellent take.
Thanks Nat. It is heartening to know that I'm not alone.
As said by a few people above ...this movie also suffers from the Christopher Nolan syndrome. He really did let the cat out of the bag didn't he?
What the makers of TASM set out to do was make "Spiderman Begins" and they have now ended up making "Spiderman Returns"
In continuation with my previous post...
This movie just didn't make me root for spidey. I guess they tried to make "Spiderman Begins" and ended up making "Spiderman Returns". The Christopher Nolan Syndrome seems to have spread to all movie producers who think "Let's make this superhero a dark one. It'll pay off as it did in that Batman movie". The parallels are just too striking
1. Both are origin stories
2. Both take a long time getting to the point where they've invented/gathered enough stuff to be the superhero
3. Loss of father makes the son broody and moody
4. The female lead doesn't actually want the male lead to continue being the hero (I'll admit its at different places in the movie)
5. The hero is directly and/or indirectly responsible for the creation of the villain
6. Both villains try to spread some gas over the city and succeed to a limit when the hero saves the day with an antidote.
7. Both the heroes start off with petty thieves before graduating to supervillains
8. Both are marked as wanted vigilantes by the police of their respective cities.
9. I'm getting ridiculous here but : Both have something to do with water lines for the hero/villain standoff at some point
a) Water mains in BB
b) Sewer Lines in TASM
10. Both give something to a kid that they meet during the movie. Even here the mean spidey takes his mask back while batman lets the kid have his scope.
If I think hard maybe more will crop up
The "why" for ANY blockbuster movie is piles of cash. It was the why for Ghost Rider 2. It was the why for Avengers Assemble. It was the why for The Dark Knight Rises.
However, there is a "why" for the audience too. Many of us (quite a few of us big Spider-Man comic fans) HATED Raimi's Spider-Man movies. And not without good reason either. While X-Men was making use of the deeper mythology of later comics, Raimi wanted his Spider-Man to be closer to the initial 60s style. For those of us more up-to-date on the comic this appeared to trivialise the characters and their relationships and gave the films a cheesy vibe which was hard to invest in. In early X-Men comics Magneto appears and dramatically announces "I am the most powerful mutant in the world", which is great if all you want is trash, but for those familiar with Magneto's background as a holocaust survivor is just groan-worthy. That was the problem with Raimi's films. They were groan worthy.
This new film is correcting Raimi's mistakes. Finally Peter Parker has the emotional depth that was previously lacking and his girlfriend is no longer simply eye candy. Even though they finally chose the Spider-Man villain who is SUPPOSED to have a kind of multiple personality disorder, they made it more of an internal conflict rather than an out-and-out Jekyll and Hyde situation like Raimi's movies did.
@ fatpie42 I can see your point of view but i also disagree with it. I have not read the Comic books that you mention. But I have seen a lot of movies based on books that I have read. I have also seen the Animated series spiderman.
Let me assure you that a larger percentage of people have not read the comic books. Also the purpose of a movie is different from a comic book. The medium is different. There are limitations to both. you have to imagine most of the action in comics. In movies, a lot of inner monologue needs to be conveyed visually.
Having said that, Whether a person likes a movie or not, is not dependent on how true it is to the source or how closely they recreate the comics panels. It depends on whether the movie in question is able to make a person react emotionally to the characters being portrayed. Whether the movie is able to make me feel the character's grief/ joy and whether I identify with the character enough to want to know more about it.
I am not going to contest if Raimi movies captured the 60s or 90s or whatever. They may have and I could care less. I also don't care whether webs are organic/mechanical. But I do care if Tobey is hurt. If he knowingly has to let go of the thing he wants the most. Because that's when I see a bit of myself in him.
I guess it says something about the movie (definitely not positive) when the best sarcastic line comes from Denis Leary instead of the hailed "Sarcastic spidey" Oh so close to the comics he's wisecracking...when? Once in the whole movie? and it just "becomes" closer to the comics...
If you want it to be closer to the comics why are you not speaking against the manner inwhich Ben Parker's death is handled? Is it not because what matters is not the way Ben dies but wwhat effect his death has on Peter?
Spiderman is endearing because he is one of us. he has to face eveyday problems while doing the hero bit. this is the same reason harry potter became so popular. He had to take classes and exams like every other kid. This Spidey is not like that.
In Raimi's movie...Peter asks if he can take a picture of te spiders for the school paper and his shot is messed up by Flash yet he says nothing. moments earlier he tells Harry that they're in the vicinity of the largest electron microscope on east coast. Those 4-5 minutes establish that..... Peter is polite, courteous, bullied essentially a nice guy definitely interested in science and is already pursuing photo journalism at some level.
Here they've spent 2 hours and they're unable to establish most of that. Is making the mechanical webs the only way of showing that Peter is a science and tech geek? And do organic webs make him some sort of arse who doesn't know anything about science? Science is musch more vast than mere tech advances that u see around yourself. It is true that science made all of that possible but technology and science are NOT interchangeable words.
I do not grudge you the way you felt about the movies but the only point you seem to be putting across is comic-movie accuracy. yes its important in some ways but only till the extent that it gives us a premise for a movie that makes me feel happy to have seen it. And TASM made me feel bored more than involved. even the credits scene seemed like something put in because of necessity of sequel rather than taking story forward
I found this video more entertaining than the movie... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GfxX-utXdvI&feature=youtu.be
your blog has represented the movie very well. I liked those part of movie that you captured. it is also well organized
While The Amazing Spiderman offered a more typical and more relevant delivery of the Spiderman that audiences wanted I did that I did miss the genuine appeal that Tobey MAguire as a much better actor than whoever was the new Peter Parker. Marvel made a major stuff-up in marketing and stroyline in the late 1990s by distorting the history of webhead and this movie reminded me of it. Tobey's Spidey vs Lizard was a must see and they missed it. Spiderman 3 was under-rated as all 3 movies are.