Prior to watching this, I had some intense biases against this movie. For starters, Andrew Garfield, the guy playing Spider-Man, is British, and I had a hard time imagining him pulling off a convincing Brooklyn accent. Second, our main villain is the Lizard, even though I would have preferred a Spider-Man movie to begin with the green goblin as it did in the original series with Tobey Maguire. Third, this Spider-Man makes gadgets that shoot the webs. It’s not a superpower in this one. While more true to the original comics, I preferred that it was a superpower. What’s cool about having to make gadgets that do that? Let’s throw some creativity in there and make it more interesting. Fourth and finally, we just watched the Spider-Man saga and now we’re starting over? Already? It like just happened.
I try not to go into movies with biases but it was hard not to with this one.
Something I’ve noticed with video games and movies featuring Spider-Man is that there are really two different Spider-Mans. There’s the one I like: the one who has had a crush on Mary Jane forever and displays admirable traits like loyalty, humility, intelligence. The one who is friends with Harry Osborn and has a close relationship with Uncle Ben and Aunt May.
There’s the other one: he’s still picked on, but he’s cocky and has an attitude problem. He thinks he’s better than everyone else once he gets his powers and trash-talks/jokes around even when he’s in a serious situation. Harry Osborn nor Mary Jane are ever mentioned. Peter’s relationship with his grandparents is close to nonexistent, and we’ve already talked about how he has to make an invention for the web-shooting.
The original trilogy with Tobey Maguire was with the first Spider-Man. This one features the latter. Andrew Garfield is portraying someone entirely different from who Maguire portrayed and it shows in the final product. I’m not saying I can’t feel for this Spider-Man. I’m just saying it’s harder for me to relate. I can’t really see myself being this Spider-Man, while the opposite is true of the previous Spider-Man. For the most part, Garfield’s acting isn’t bad, but it’s not spectacular. It’s got nothing on Maguire’s. The supporting cast isn’t bad, but once again, it’s nothing spectacular. The action scenes are involving and integrate the audience well, but I’m not thinking “cool” or “that’s awesome” every two seconds like I have in other superhero movies, like in the original trilogy.
The movie gives Aunt May and Uncle Ben limited roles and act like they didn’t play a significant role in his life like in the previous movies. Sally Fields barely says anything the whole movie and Aunt May played such a prominent role before. It was an aspect I missed in this movie.
Once again, if you’re new to my blog, I’ve always ranked movies on a scale of 0-100 (I don’t know why, I just always have). Here’s the grading scale.
90-100 It’s a great movie and definitely one worth buying. (Iron Man 3, World War Z, 42, Just Go With It, Real Steel)
80-89 It was a pretty good movie and definitely one worth seeing, but it doesn’t quite scratch my top ten percentile. (Jobs, The Truman Show, The Hunger Games, The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, Gangster Squad)
70-79 It’s okay but I’ve seen better. It has its moments, but it has its flaws, too. (The Usual Suspects, 21 Jump Street, Escape Plan, Captain America: The First Avenger, Dawn of the Dead)
60-69 It’s got plenty wrong with it but I still got enjoyment out of this one. (Pacific Rim, The Long Kiss Goodnight, Disaster Movie)
50-59 This movie isn’t intolerable but it’s not blowing my mind either. I’m trying really hard to get some sort of enjoyment out of this. (Along Came Polly, Aliens, Alien Resurrection, Full Metal Jacket, Thor)
40-49 This movie is just mediocre. It’s not doing anything other than the bare minimal, so morbidly boring that sometimes I’m actually angry I watched this. (Patriot Games, The Great Gatsby, Pitch Black, Alien)
30-39 Definitely worse than mediocre, the 30’s ironically define the 1930’s, full of depression, lack of accomplishments, poverty and just so dumb. (The Contract, Pride and Prejudice)
20-29 What did I just watch? Cliches, stupidity, nothingness, did I mention stupidity? Just…wow. (The Sum of All Fears, Thor: The Dark World)
0-19 Watching this movie resulted in one or more of the following: seizure, loss of brain cells, falling asleep/unconsciousness, feel you wasted your time/day, accomplished nothing for you, left the movie knowing less about it then you did going into it, constantly asking yourself why you came to see this movie, or near-death experience. In short, staring at a wall was just as entertaining as watching this movie. This movie deserved a sticker or a label that said, “WARNING: EXTREME AMOUNT OF SUCKAGE.” (Midnight Cowboy, Dark Fury, Alien 3)
My score for The Amazing Spider-Man: 80.
This movie kept me entertained and I was interested to see what happened next, but it has nothing on the original trilogy. I’m not sure why they needed to make another Spider-Man so soon after the Maguire ones. I know the third one was unsatisfying, but I don’t see how that means you should just start all over.
*SPOILER ALERT* IF YOU DON’T WANT THE MOVIE SPOILED, STOP READING!!!
*SPOILER’S EDITION*
Peter Parker gets his powers and goes to school like always. Then he catches a basketball that Flash and a couple of his friends were playing with and he taunts Flash to take it. Flash can’t do it because of Peter’s fast reflexes and that the ball is sticking to Peter’s hand. Then he drives past Flash with the ball and dunks, breaking the backboard. What? Peter Parker doesn’t do crap like that. That’s not who he is. Here he’s arrogant, cocky, and self-centered, and that’s not who Peter Parker is supposed to be in my mind. Later, he taunts police officers and criminals. He also does so many stupid things that you have to wonder how no one knows he’s Spider-Man. Gwen Stacy and him are watching the football team practice and Peter catches an errand pass , and flings it back at the field goal post, denting it throw that was at least 50 yards away. How does he get away with that? No one thought that was abnormal or better yet, thought he should have to pay for it?
Then at the end, Gwen Stacy’s dad is dying and makes Peter promise that he will leave Gwen alone for the sake of her own safety. Peter doesn’t attend the funeral or help care for Gwen during her loss in any way. She stops by and asks him what’s up, and he says he can’t see her anymore. At the end of the movie, he’s at a lecture behind Gwen and the teacher says something about “don’t make promises you can’t keep”. Peter whispers into Gwen’s ear “but those are the best ones.” So you made a promise to a dead man and now you’re going to break it without even trying to keep it? Wow, that’s low, man. Heck, Peter didn’t even make a promise to anybody and he still stayed away from Mary Jane for a while because he didn’t want to put her in danger. Once again, Peter showing he only cares about himself and only cares about the romance he can have with Gwen now rather than keeping her safe. This Spider-Man is a jerk.
wordsofwistim 