The Amazing Spider-Man Review and Discussion Thread (spoilers)

Reading that it doesn't sound that positive to me. And nice the way Ebert (like a lot of reviewers) practically gives most of the story away. You can now pretty much go into the film with a checklist.

 

And that there is called missing the point.
Peter doesn't need REASONS--plural--to be Spider-man.
He got selfish, did a foolish thing, his uncle died: WITH GREAT POWER, COMES GREAT RESPONSIBILITY.

END OF REASON, singular.

 

I did the same thing, but oddly enough I had the complete opposite reaction. The film just does not hold up for me. Much of the dialogue is hokey, or awkward. The special effects have aged very poorly. While once I enjoyed Willem Dafoe's performance, now it just seems ridiculous. I also realized that after his first little rampage, Osborne has absolutely no motivation beyond insanity to keep on being the Goblin. His goal was achieved. Oscorp is back on top, and the only thing he does for the rest of the film is try to kill Spider-Man for whatever reason. He could have just disappeared back into Norman Osborne forever, and nobody would have been the wiser.

Also, minor quibble, but where the heck did the Goblin's trident in the final action scene come from? It seems to be pulled literally from hammerspace.

 

^
Some good points that I hadn't considered about the first Spider-Man film, which was my favorite, and after watching Amazing Spider-Man, still is my favorite of the Spider-Man films. Though regarding Osborn's motivation, he is insane, or at least the goblin serum fuels his psychotic breaks. Though I do think his whole spiel about ruling the city with Spider-Man didn't make much sense.

As for Amazing Spider-Man I thought it was an alright film. It didn't suck and it wasn't a retread. It tried to do things differently from the Raimi films, sometimes a bit too much, especially in terms of playing around with Spider-Man's origins.

The cast was mostly good though I feel that Sally Field got the short end of the stick. Her Aunt May gets to do nothing but look worried and ring her hands. Garfield as Peter or Spider-Man didn't do much for me. He looked too much like Hayden Christensen. That's not a downer for me because I liked Hayden in the Star Wars films, however it was distracting.

Emma Stone might have looked hotter than Kirsten Dunst, but her Gwen Stacy did little for me either. Granted Stone was better than Bryce Dallas Howard in the role, but so much of the film was based around Gwen and Peter's growing relationship and I wasn't really invested in either. A couple things I did like about her though was she was as smart, or smarter than Peter, and two, she knew when to get the hell out of the way. She was plucky, but in a common sense way.

One of the biggest issues I had with the film was not including Curt Conners's family. I think the lack of a wife and son made him less of a tragic figure and also muddled his last second conversion back to the good side. To some extent the film seemed to make Peter his substitute son (which echoed Doc Ock and Peter in Spider-Man 2), but that was never fleshed out sufficiently, just like I felt Ock and Peter's relationship was undercooked as well. One thing that just came to me, it didn't make much sense for Peter to never ask Conners about his father during the times they worked together, since Conners worked with Richard Parker and Uncle Ben and Aunt May were pretty tight-lipped about Peter's parents. The mystery of Peter's parents, which ran throughout the film and again mid-way through the credits, hasn't really hooked me.

The Lizard design put me in the mind of Abomination from Incredible Hulk, though better detailed. Overall I thought the action scenes were good. I saw it in IMAX-3D and the film overall looked really nice.

I'll go see the next Spider-Man film but I'm not stoked by the prospect.

 

Spiderman/Peter Parker has always been a rather cheesy character, slinging about and dropping sarcastic one-liners whenever he catches a bad guy.

I admit I didn't even know this movie had come out yet (it's Tuesday, for Peter's sake!). I have no desire to sit in the theater and watch it. This will very likely be a Netflix/Redbox rental for me.

 

I voted "good", but it's pretty close to "excellent" for me.

I really liked this one! Yes, spending so much time on the origin again seems superfluous, and the villain's a bit weak, but the cast is brilliant, the visual effects mind blowing, the action inventive and grounded, and the character moments realistic and heartfelt. It probably spent too much time setting up stuff for the sequel, but it also made me pretty excited for part 2, so I'm not complaining too much.
I even liked the 3D quite a bit!

I think I actually liked it more than Raimi's first movie, although that one probably had the better villain. Garfield and Stone are better than Maguire and Dunst, though, and I really liked that the action scenes and vfx didn't feel so fake and over-the-top.

 

Saw it this evening.

Needed more Nick Fury for my liking.

 

*Likes this*

 

I saw this evening, and it was ok. But frankly I didn't really see that it was all the different than the first one. Couldn't say which one I like better since they seem so interchangeable to me.

 

My husband had free tickets to go see it through work, otherwise I doubt we would have gone at all.

I think changing the main actor was the biggest difference, but otherwise I tend to agree. Then again I didn't like the first movie at all, so I seem to bein the minority here.

 

The Amazing Spider-Man

My Grade: B+.... maybe an A-

.....................................

The Amazing Spider-man is a new take on Spider-Man for the movies taking a somewhat "grittier" turn on the character than in the previous run of movies. It's been overly stated to be a "gritty reboot" since that's sort of the "trope" used these days but also overly stated.

New director, new cast, new take on the characters. It sort of adds a touch more depth and complexity to Spider-man's origins and spends a bit more time to develop things.

Peter Parker is an above average high-school student (apparently) going to an Advanced Placement high-school for the science curriculum. (Maybe, it was hard to tell as it was called a "science school" but also had your usual high school shenanigans going on it) and the twitchy, nerdy, outscast. He's tormented by the loss of his parents as a child leaving him in the care of his Aunt and Uncle (Mae and Ben) and he begins seeking out the answers to their disappearance leading him to being bit by a genetically engineered spider in an Oscorp lab. Hours later he's developed the usual powers we know Spider-Man to have, specifically the "spider-sense/reflexes", heightened agility and strength and so forth.

He becomes torn between some usual teenage angst stuff, gets into trouble with his Uncle causing him to storm out of his home and happens into an armed robbery at a convenience store he fails to stop to "get back at" the clerk who just hassled Parker on being two-cents short on buying his drink while also not being allowed to take advantage of those "share a penny" trays. As is to the origin, not stopping this robber ends up in Uncle Ben being killed by that same man, sending Parker into a guilt-fueled rage where he hunts down all similar-looking men in the area quickly getting onto the RADAR of the head of the local police Captain Stacey, father to his high-school crush.

Meanwhile back at Oscorp amputee Dr. Connors is working on a way to improve medical science using the regenerative properties of lizards, he tests a new serum on himself mutating him into The Lizard, a large raging CGI monster, now motivated to share the awesome regenerative powers with the whole city through a biological attack. Who can stop him?

The movie's plot is very schizophrenic as it gives Spider-Man at least three different goals to focus on over the course of the movie and only one of them, really, is completed. He starts out exploring the disappearance of his parents but then that's put-off when he decides to focus on the death of his Uncle Ben and tracking down the killer, that gets put aside with The Lizard comes onto the scene and threatens New Yorkers' safety. Not to mention various other character threads that aren't completed or resolved but likely will be in any future sequels. But much of what happens in this movie leaves Peter Parker looking like a manic-depressive with a house full of half-finished projects he began in a manic phase but never bothered to finish.

The movie's own advertisements sell this as "the untold story" of Peter's past but, yet, we're never really told it beyond "his dad was into something with Dr. Connors and then disappeared."

The always lovely Emma Stone does a good job as love interest Gwen Stacey even if the bond between the two I don't think is ever really given a foundation on why it is what it is, she also appears to have a meaningful position at Oscorp in training interns or at least giving them their introductory walk through the lab. Peter has some minor scuffles with the school bully and it's a bit more fun than it was in the McGuire movie which brings us to Andrew Garfield.

I think overall he did a better job as Peter/S-M than McGuire did (who just acted corny, cheesy and then tried to "emote" a cry) but Garfield also seems to be missing a "spark." Sometimes he almost seems a bit too nervous and twitchy, almost like he has Asperger's while also coming down off his latest hit of Meth.

No organic web-shooters, mechanical ones along with the "webbing" apparently being a substance created by his father/Dr. Connors he got a hold of (or the formula to) and a fairly satisfying "reveal" as Spider-Man to the city. No work at The Daily Bugle of J. Jonah Jameson, not just yet. No Mary Jane, either. (Really, I expected her to show up near the end and deliver the infamous, 'you've hit the jackpot!" line.)

The movie is good, saw it in 3D which was alright but nothing stood out to me as mind-blowing enough to recommend the 3D showings, but it lacks some "energy" to it as well. It also probably has the best "Forced Stan Lee Cameo" to date.

Between The Avengers and The Dark Knight Returns this is a super-hero movie that's been overlooked this year to some degree which is sort of a shame and mostly due to it being a reboot at probably to soon of a time. It really didn't need to be an origin story again. I could see them wanting to "reboot" the movie franchise to give it a more serious tone to wash off the stank of silly from the Rami movies but an origin story? Too soon. It could've started off with him early in his Spider-Man career and told us the "origin" through dialogue or flashback. We didn't need to see it again and the movie spends a good deal of time working on it.

A bit slow paced, could've been shorter but overall I think everyone does a good job and it's entertaining. Best Spider-Man movie to date? Ehhhh.... Maybe. The first two movies have their "charm" but also I don't think thematically fit with the tone of today's super-hero movies. I might say it is, because the Rami movies I don't think have held up well, but it's also a tough call.

If you're a Spider-Man fan, go see this movie you'll probably get a kick out of it. If you're not a Spider-Man fan or a comic-book fan then skip it and wait for the DVD/BD. You can also skip the 3D.

There is also a mid-credits sequence but not a post-credits sequence.

 

It's an enjoyable enough movie. The first half is average superhero origin type stuff. Peter Parker is a social misfit at school, he gains superpowers, he shows off, getting revenge on those who bullied him and giving douchebags everywhere a hard time. To be honest, this is the kind of thing you see all the time and it bored me.

Thankfully, once that's out of the way and he properly becomes Spider-Man and they get the storyline rolling it becomes an engaging and at times pretty cool movie. And really, overall my only real complaint is that none of the teenage characters look like teenagers, but then what else can you expect.

Although I did enjoy it, I wouldn't say I was blown away by it either, but that's probably because I'm not that big a Spidey fan. It is much better than the Rami movies. Of course, I only saw the first one there, being so turned off by it that I didn't bother with the other two. Though I hear they didn't exactly get glowing reviews.

 

Spider-Man 2 is better than the first but I think also carries with it many of the same flaws and problems, it's just better at all of the other stuff. Spider-Man 3 is the opposite, it took all of the bad stuff from the previous two movies, cranked it up to max and strung a chord. You can ask Marty McFly how that sort of thing works out.

 

Really?
So he's what then the King Nerd of all NERDS?
Essentially even the "dumb" jocks at Nerd high are AP student caliber material then?

Until I see it tomorrow I'll reserve full judgement but just this type description piles onto the reasons why you don't tinker with an already perfect origin OR retell it again so soon when it was done so recently and that one adhered so closely to the perfect original origin.

 

Trekker4747,

I don't quite agree with your review up above, however one interesting thing you brought up got me to thinking. I think Amazing Spider-Man might have worked better not retelling the origin. I liked your suggestion of just starting it early in the career of Spider-Man, and perhaps telling the origin in dialogue or flashback. Not retelling the origin would've helped the film stand out even more than I think it already did from the Raimi films.

Some of the issues I had with the film stemmed from what I felt was muddling the origin story. Didn't like that Peter didn't have the confrontation with the robber; didn't like Uncle Ben trying to stop the robber on the street either. Also didn't like that Peter went sneaking off and got bitten by a genetically enhanced spider instead of it being a random accident, which could have happened to anyone. But the Amazing Spider-Man is no longer an everyman. Perhaps that's what left me a bit indifferent to the film. I want to like it, and I do, just not as much as I feel I should.

 

I just got back from it. It took me awhile to get into it but I ended up enjoying it. The first half was pretty slow for me before he became Spider-Man. But the second half picked up nicely.

Thought the web-slinging effects were awesome and that fights between Spidey and Lizard were great. I was glad they kept the robber origin intact though I felt it was odd that he didn't end up finding him. As pointed out, there seemed to be a lot of plot threads that never got resolved.

Although too old for the role, I thought Andrew Garfield did a great job. I liked the fact that Spider-Man actually told jokes when he was in costume. I never understood why Sam Raimi never bothered to make Peter funny when he was in costume. Emma Stone was really good as Gwen, much better than Kirsten Dunst as Mary Jane in the original trilogy. She has good chemistry with Garfield (considering they're dating in real life, that shouldn't come as a surprise) and it was refreshing that the entire final battle didn't consist of Peter having to rescue her.

The rest of the cast did a great job. Denis Leary is always entertaining and his dinner scene with Peter was fun. I had a feeling things were going to play out with him like they did, especially since it came from the comics. Martin Sheen manages to do likeable characters really, really well. Sally Field definitely looked like she had some scenes left on the cutting room floor but made the most out of all the scenes she was in. The actor who was really wasted was Irrfan Khan. I saw that guy on In Treatment and he's an amazing actor. He might as well have not been in the film. Although he really annoyed during an interview I read with him last year where he said he originally didn't want to be in a "violent American fantasy."

Ifans was very good as Conners and I liked the design of The Lizard. I take it there have been some storylines in the comics where the Lizard maintains Connors personality? His "make everyone a lizard" plan reminded me of Doc Ock's zero energy plan. That's the one thing with Spidey's rogues gallery. He has a lot of memorable villains to be sure but most of them are either in it for crime or to kill Spider-Man. He doesn't have many "rule/destroy the world" types to fight. So they give Spidey's villains in the movies scenarios where Peter has to save the city from destruction and so on.

Parts of this film definitely felt like a remake of the first film. Telling another origin story wasn't necessary and the film was better once Peter became Spider-Man. But I did end up enjoying it and I think the FX has gotten a lot better. I can't say I'm looking forward to the return of Norman Osborn though.

 

I agree with this completely. It's this aspect of The Lizard that makes really like the character and it's disappointing that it wasn't part of the film. What's really odd is that there were early reports that both characters had been cast (Law & Order alum Annie Parisse was reported to play the wife) but there hasn't been any mention of them since then.

 

No family, huh? I think that's one of the best things about the Lizard story -- his family also having to deal with it.

 

Cross-posted from another board:

 

Maybe they want him to become Sandman in part 3.