MY AMAZING SPIDER-MAN REVIEW

By Barry Dutter

AMAZING SPIDER-MAN is the first chapter in the new film trilogy from Marvel. It could be subtitled, THE MYSTERY OF PETER PARKER’S PARENTS. This is the first time an attempt has been made to tell one semi-continuous story over three movies with the same Marvel character, in the tradition of DC‘s latest BATMAN franchise.

AMAZING SPIDER-MAN is the best of all the Spidey movies that have been released to date. It loses a lot of the campy/jokey elements that marred the Sam Raimi movies. Raimi’s first Spidey movie made Peter Parker out to be the biggest nerd/loser of all time, getting mocked on by every kid in the school, including what looked like a twelve-year-old girl on the bus.

Raimi’s movies mostly played it straight, but his “comedy” scenes were so over the top and campy, they brought the whole series down. (I will never forgive Raimi for having Peter use his Spidey powers to deliver a pizza in Spider-Man 2.)

Biggest problem with the Raimi movies was that Peter was too much of a  crybaby. In the new movie, Andrew Garfield turns on the waterworks, too, but not nearly as much as Tobey Maguire did.

I love the fact that this movie eliminates the organic web shooters and goes with the mechanical ones instead. It just makes Peter Parker seem smarter if he invents his own gadgets. By losing that element, Peter just seemed a little less smart in the Raimi movies.

Overall, Garfield does a decent job as Spidey. He does a convincing American accent, though he does come across as the world’s oldest high school student.

The AMAZING SPIDER-MAN is a better movie than the AVENGERS by virtue of the fact that it only has one super-hero and one super-villain in it, thus it‘s more linear, not as complicated. Having said that, the story for ASM is not perfect. There are some flaws, and they are big ones.

For starters, there is the (yet again) deviation from the comic book origin. Sigh. My favorite part of the original Spidey origin in the comics is the way that Peter Parker tried to use his powers to become rich and famous on TV -- the same thing that you or I or any real person might do. For some reason, all the movies have left out this crucial part of his origin, and I’ve never understood why. Oh well. Maybe the next reboot will have it…

As far as the actual story that is in the movie: this seems more like the origin of ULTIMATE SPIDEY than the one in the Marvel Universe, but whatever. We’ve kind of gotten used to the Marvel movies picking and choosing elements of both universes.

As the movie begins, Peter Parker has apparently never spoken to Gwen Stacy, even though he sits behind her in class and they are apparently the two smartest kids in the school. Kind of weird that they would have never spoken before, huh? But ok, I get it, it’s  a movie, it’s fun to watch characters meet for the first time.

I know a lot of people are saying that the romance with Gwen and Peter is the best part of the movie, but I feel the filmmakers dropped the ball here in a number of ways.

For starters, Peter and Gwen don’t even get to have their first date together until after Peter’s Uncle Ben dies. Peter never even asks out Gwen on a first date, leaving Gwen to become the aggressor. The actual first date is an a awkward dinner where Peter gets in an argument with Gwen’s police captain dad. Later on that same date, Peter reveals his secret ID to Gwen and makes out with her for the first time. That’s an awful lot to cram into one date. It all felt kind of rushed to me.

The filmmakers seem to have had a hard time deciding what the most important element of the movie would be: the mystery of Peter’s parents or the romance with Gwen. (The trailer for the movie teases several scenes offering clues to the Peter’s parents mystery -- including a line about Peter‘s powers not being an accident -- but none of those scenes is in the finished film.)

I usually don’t like Dennis Leary in anything, but he acquits himself nicely here. I remember Captain  Stacey as being more kind and fatherly, not the sarcastic smart-ass we see here, but whatever. Leary fits the character as written.

Emma Stone is not pretty enough to play Gwen Stacy, but then, I’ve always said that Kirsten Dunst was not pretty enough to play MJ, too. Problem is that artist John Romita Sr. drew both girls looking so sexy and glamorous, it’s hard for regular girls like Kirsten and Emma to measure up. Despite not physically fitting the part, Stone is okay in the role.

A few story points I have to comment on:

There are too many scenes where Peter should be apologizing to Aunt May and Uncle Ben for his increasingly outrageous behavior but instead he says nothing. I guess this is what it means to be "emo": wear a hoodie all the time and never actually speak, apologize, or offer explanations for why you are getting the crap beaten out of you every night. I call it lazy screenwriting.

Some viewers griped that J. Jonah Jameson is not in the film. You don’t really miss him. Capt. Stacy fills the role of Spidey’s main human antagonist nicely.  They can always have JJJ in the next movie. I appreciate that the makers of this movie tried as hard as they could to differentiate this movie from the previous three by focusing on different characters and situations. The Spidey mythos is so rich and well-layered there are many different elements to focus on. (This movie doesn’t even mention Mary Jane, or the fact that she lived next door to Peter and always secretly knew his secret Identity from day one, which is a piece of ret-con from the comics that has always bugged me.)

The Special Effects are better this time than in the Raimi films. The web-slinging scenes no longer look like they are part of a video game.

The part with the cranes was very corny and didn’t work for me at all. It seemed like something out of Raimi‘s run.

Captain Stacy commands a police force of several hundred men, but when he finds out his daughter is in danger at the top of the Oscorp building, he decides to go there alone. I know this allows him to have some private moments with Peter, which helps the story, but it doesn’t work at all from a logic standpoint.

The Lizard is a decent villain. Gotta feel bad for the actor (Dylan Baker) who played Curt Connors in all 3 Raimi movies but never got to transform into his scaly alter ago! That guy has got to be kicking himself now!)

In the screening when I watched THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN, the projector stopped at one point, and the audience sat waiting for about 10 minutes for the movie to start up again. A smart-ass in the crowd had the biggest laugh of the night when he shouted out, “I’d give my right arm for this movie to start up again!” That’s an inside joke for all you Lizard fans out there…

Gwen Stacy seems to have made all her fashion choices in the 1960s and gotten stuck there. With her "mod" headband and "groovy" thigh-high boots, she's like a girl out of time! But no one else seems to notice.

At first sight, Sally Field seems too young to play Aunt May. This is the first attempt to play Aunt May as a younger woman and overall it works.

This movie features the deaths of 2 major characters that are close to Peter Parker. I think that might be one too many. Might have worked better to save one of the deaths for the next movie. It’s like they tried to cram 80 issues of continuity into one movie.

In the 1960s comics, Peter’s parents were secret agents. Here, Peter’s dad is a scientist, which is a bit they took from the Ultimate universe. As always, it bugs me any time I see a deviation from the OMU (Original Marvel Universe), but I guess I can allow it this time if it creates a nifty new reason for Peter to have gotten his powers that ties in with his dad’s experiments.

The mystery villain who pops up in the end credits sequence and then disappears in a flash of lightning? Rumor has it that it's Electro! 

Peter never did catch that burglar who killed his Uncle Ben. Guess they gotta save something for the sequel, but it sure felt like one hell of a loose end from this movie.

I’m curious to see the final fate of Peter’s Parents and which actor they will get to play Norman Osborn. I’m guessing we will see a revitalized Green Goblin in the third chapter of the trilogy. I’m hoping this time they get his costume right! (No crappy Goblin armor!)

Spidey's silver booties are the worst thing in the movie, but thankfully, you barely see them.
 
Finally, best Stan Lee cameo yet!