Movie Review: "The Amazing Spider-Man"

There's a lesson to take from The Amazing Spider-Man. With great power comes great responsibility? Nope, not in this film. Be a hero and the media will vilify you? Nope, and no J. Jonah Jameson either. The lesson here is if you're rebooting a origin story last done less than a decade ago, don't retread the same ground with a few differences here and there to try to prove you're different. Being billed as the untold story of Peter Parker, the film was almost anything but. Instead, they opted to follow some of the classic origin, but not all.

That's where this film fails. In retreading the cliff notes of Peter's origins, without the detail and wonder of Sam Raimi's film, we lost focus on Kurt Conners. And as such, his motivations as a villain, especially at the end, was weak at best. I saw the film at midnight on opening day, and there was a good amount of people in the theater. Didn't make up for the lacklusteriness of the film.

Marc Webb directed the quaint "50 Days of Summer," a good film. That same love focus is brought here, and to be honest, it worked. That relationship between Peter and Gwen was good, if not exactly believable because it happened a bit fast from Gwen's end. Peter, however, seemed to pine on Gwen as a high schooler does, and when she showed interest in him, the awkwardness he portrayed was believable. But he also revealed his powers to her a bit too fast. It was a really big deal when Mary Jane found out Spidey’s powers in Spider-Man 2, but here, he just told her on their first real date. So, while the romance was staged right, some parts were a bit quick, and I didn’t get how Gwen fell for him so fast.

And why was the film so dark? I don't recall a single scene with spidey in the daytime, aside from the school fight. And we needed a montage. I don't have a clear grasp of how the public feels about Spidey. As soon as Parker became Spidey in Raimi’s films, we saw that the public started to support him. Here, we get some indication that a few people like him, like the guy who’s son Spidey rescued. And the media, I’m not sure what their opinion was. That what J. Jonah should be there for, for the media perspective and comic relief.  Not having him here was a missed opportunity. I was hoping he’d at least be in the end credits sequence, but no. That’s an essential part of Spidey. You shouldn’t have Superman without Olsen or the Daily Planet. And no Spidey story is complete without Jameson.

And what a bad end credits scene. Norman looks old, we saw most of that in the trailer, and I had the same feeling of meh that I had with Green Lantern’s scene with sinestro. Maybe that wasn’t Norman, but Peter’s dad? Someone else? I don’t care.

In the end, you need a director who gets the material. Nolan got the darkness and inner struggle of Batman. Favreau got the playboy nature and style of Stark. Singer, despite making the X-Men a bit more realistic, got the essence of the characters right. And of course Whedon, who made different elements come together as a cohesive whole, and made the whole shebang seemed ripped straight out of a comic. They get the material. Webb, ironically, doesn't seem to. Webb made a Spider-Man film for the masses, but not for the geeks. Take notes from Whedon for next time, Webb, because he made a mainstream movie that was geek candy.

But kudos to Garfield, fantastic Parker, and a good sold actor. I felt more emotion from him than McGuire, but he worked with significantly lesser quality material. Still, Parker felt like a teen, and Garfield played him with empathy. I wish we had more of him realizing the wonder of his new powers. For a film that retreaded so much, they focused so little on the wonder of his powers. Discovering his powers by unintentionally ripping off a girl’s shirt and beating some subway passengers? Very bad. But breaking his bathroom? Good. Spidey sense? Didn’t even know if he had it here. And Peter was stupid as Spidey. Keeping his mask off often, marking his camera while trying to fight the lizard. Not soo smart, Pete.

I don’t like to split superheroes into day and night. But some are just made for it. Spider-Man and Superman are lighter characters. They have dark moments and dark things that lead them on their journeys, but they overall represent a lighter, more promising, and hopeful side, and them fighting in the day helps signify that. Batman has psychological problems, fights more of an underground, sneaky fight, and thus fights more at night. Spider-Man in the nighttime, especially at the end with him against the backdrop of the moon, is just jarringly wrong.

The acting here was quite good, though, aside from Garfield. Sheen as Uncle Ben was really good, Field as May was surprisingly well done. I really liked Gwen's dad;in some ways he played a Jameson-type role. I think he would’ve made an excellent Osborn. Conners was good pre-lizard. But he was so against using human trials for his serum, and then he suddenly did…. and then he suddenly wanted to turn everyone into a lizard. When you can’t relate to a villain’s motives (regardless of whether you agree or not), the villain just becomes a plot device, not a character, and that’s what happened to Conners. Plus, the CGI for the Lizard wasn’t great, and the battles weren’t as geektastic and comic book like as the ones against Sandman and Doc Ock.

They should’ve followed the example of The Incredible Hulk. Quick origin recap, full story. Not half of both.

Horner’s music seemed non-epic, out of place at times (like during the romantic scenes, where silence would’ve been more apt), and just not memorable. A disappointment after Elfman’s memorable score for Spider-Man.

In the end, the trailers were right. It's the batman version of spidey. Brooding. Dark. Night. An AICN review said he becomes Spidey for revenge, not responsibility. That’s true, he decided to become Spidey to track down his uncle’s killer, and that’s basically who he targeted until Lizard became a threat. That’s the wrong starting point for the character, and further proof that Webb just didn’t get it. I’m hoping the sequel, probably inevitable at this point, will rectify these issues. This was a disappointment to the character, and will go into the growing stockpile of lesser comic book films. Let’s hope Nolan delivers and shows us, for the second time this year, what a good comic book movie really is.