![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
patentdragonAs promised...
The Amazing Spider-Man presents a significant question: just when do you "reboot" an existing franchise, in particular a successful one like the Sam Raimi-helmed Spidey trilogy? There's no dancing around the issue, unlike the "not really an Alien prequel" business with Prometheus - so, how does this movie fit, if at all...
You might level a substantial criticism at this movie for retelling Spidey's origin, but how Peter Parker becomes Spider-Man is a fundamental key-stone to the whole story. By investigating his lost parents, and his father in particular, young Parker brings about the creation of one of his greatest foes - the Lizard - and comes away with more questions and answers. This movie can certainly tick the box for "bringing something new to an existing story".
Anyone who enjoyed the first trilogy will find very little "overlap", beyond "this is Peter Parker, high-school underdog - he gets bitten by a genetically-engineered spider (not radioactive)". Some elements of Peter's world are completely left out - his working at The Daily Bugle, and Spider-hating boss J. Jonah Jameson, for example - but what is left makes for a quite satisfactory back-drop for the events to come. This is a more personal story than Raimi's first movie, taking some factor's in the heroes journey and expanding upon them - the "burglar" that helps to define Spider-Man by killing Uncle Ben plays his part, but his story is clearly not done. Another "tick" earned, it seems...
There are, however, some niggles. "Niggles" as in significant gaps of plot, such as "if the process that created the Lizard was so hard to piece together, and required Peter's input from his father's notes, just how does an antidote become something that can be produced in eight minutes?", and a final act and ending that, dare I say, feel, errrr, lifted from Batman Begins, if only in spirit as far as the final race to save the day is concerned. The more you analyse "ASM", the less... substantial it seems, and that's a shame.
Oh, and why, when he's gone to such lengths to protect his identity, does Peter leave name-stickers on his camera...?
The use of 3D should have lifted the film beyond the "average", but again, the lessons of
Avatar escape other film-makers. Stuff "pops" out of the screen in a 1950s B-movie style when you should be feeling the urge to "lean" into the web-slinging through the concrete canyons, feeling the momentum... but it just doesn't happen. This was filmed in 3D, but it all felt tacked on afterward, and maybe The Dark Knight Rises - strictly 2D - will show that "vanilla" film-making is still far from dead.
So, does the film suck? Hardly. It has its faults, and Andrew Garfield isn't as "immediate" as previous Spidey Tobey Macquire, although Garfield gets in a lot more Spider-banter than Macquire's take on the character was sorely lacking. The fight scenes are a good deal more dynamic than the original trilogy, with the only possible exception being the battles with Doctor Octopus in the second Raimi movie, which is still in my mind the definitive Spidey movie - and that, based on this production, isn't a claim to fame that will be rewritten any time soon.
Well, there's always 2014, and the sequel to this film...
The Amazing Spider-Verdict... A brave effort, which may just lead to more satisfying future films, but this definitely falls into third place in the rankings of Spider-movies as it stumbles over some self-imposed pitfalls... 7.5/10
Elsewhat... Bad luck, Andy Murray.
The Amazing Spider-Man presents a significant question: just when do you "reboot" an existing franchise, in particular a successful one like the Sam Raimi-helmed Spidey trilogy? There's no dancing around the issue, unlike the "not really an Alien prequel" business with Prometheus - so, how does this movie fit, if at all...
You might level a substantial criticism at this movie for retelling Spidey's origin, but how Peter Parker becomes Spider-Man is a fundamental key-stone to the whole story. By investigating his lost parents, and his father in particular, young Parker brings about the creation of one of his greatest foes - the Lizard - and comes away with more questions and answers. This movie can certainly tick the box for "bringing something new to an existing story".
Anyone who enjoyed the first trilogy will find very little "overlap", beyond "this is Peter Parker, high-school underdog - he gets bitten by a genetically-engineered spider (not radioactive)". Some elements of Peter's world are completely left out - his working at The Daily Bugle, and Spider-hating boss J. Jonah Jameson, for example - but what is left makes for a quite satisfactory back-drop for the events to come. This is a more personal story than Raimi's first movie, taking some factor's in the heroes journey and expanding upon them - the "burglar" that helps to define Spider-Man by killing Uncle Ben plays his part, but his story is clearly not done. Another "tick" earned, it seems...
There are, however, some niggles. "Niggles" as in significant gaps of plot, such as "if the process that created the Lizard was so hard to piece together, and required Peter's input from his father's notes, just how does an antidote become something that can be produced in eight minutes?", and a final act and ending that, dare I say, feel, errrr, lifted from Batman Begins, if only in spirit as far as the final race to save the day is concerned. The more you analyse "ASM", the less... substantial it seems, and that's a shame.
Oh, and why, when he's gone to such lengths to protect his identity, does Peter leave name-stickers on his camera...?
The use of 3D should have lifted the film beyond the "average", but again, the lessons of
Avatar escape other film-makers. Stuff "pops" out of the screen in a 1950s B-movie style when you should be feeling the urge to "lean" into the web-slinging through the concrete canyons, feeling the momentum... but it just doesn't happen. This was filmed in 3D, but it all felt tacked on afterward, and maybe The Dark Knight Rises - strictly 2D - will show that "vanilla" film-making is still far from dead.
So, does the film suck? Hardly. It has its faults, and Andrew Garfield isn't as "immediate" as previous Spidey Tobey Macquire, although Garfield gets in a lot more Spider-banter than Macquire's take on the character was sorely lacking. The fight scenes are a good deal more dynamic than the original trilogy, with the only possible exception being the battles with Doctor Octopus in the second Raimi movie, which is still in my mind the definitive Spidey movie - and that, based on this production, isn't a claim to fame that will be rewritten any time soon.
Well, there's always 2014, and the sequel to this film...
The Amazing Spider-Verdict... A brave effort, which may just lead to more satisfying future films, but this definitely falls into third place in the rankings of Spider-movies as it stumbles over some self-imposed pitfalls... 7.5/10
Elsewhat... Bad luck, Andy Murray.
