Review of The Amazing Spider-Man (2012) by Txrangersfan72 — 07 Jul 2012

As a comic book geek for the past 3 decades, I'm a little more critical than most. However, "The Amazing Spider-Man" gets some things right, comic book-wise, but gets a lot wrong. And from a movie perspective, it's really quite weak. Overall, it's an amazing, albeit expected, disappointment.

First, let's talk about what The Amazing Spider-Man did right. Andrew Garfield's portrayal of Spider-Man and Peter Parker were very good. He was skinny, gawky, **** and funny. He WAS Ditko's Spidey. I loved him as much as I loved Tobey. And that is saying a LOT. They included his love and aptitude for science. His dialogue while dealing with common criminals was very accurate with a teenager given a little bit of power, yet not realizing the responsibility that comes with it. Painful lessons then ensued to bring said **** teenager back down to Earth. This interpretation of the teenage mind was actually better than the original trilogy. In addition, the creation of his web shooters being a product of Oscorp that he essentially weaponizes was a perfect modern take on them, and another improvement on the original trilogy. Emma Stone as Gwen Stacy was absolutely adorable. Her strength, personality and sheer cuteness (even though I prefer the red hair...I have such a thing for red hair) complemented Andrew's portrayal well, especially as they interacted more and the story progressed.

While I was hesitant about the Lizard as a primary villain, they wove him into the story so well that I was pleasantly surprised to find him so interesting. While Rhys Ifans did a great job as Dr. Connors was a much better selection for portraying the raging Lizard, I always liked Dylan Baker's Dr. Connors. The key to making the Lizard a suitable primary villain, though, was weaving him into a story with some depth, which they did. He was centralized very well with not only a reason to become the Lizard, but also a reason to tie him into Peter/Spidey. Also, fixing the problem they had with the portrayal of Venom, the Lizard was larger than life, ominous and a physically superior being to Spider-Man. Finally, while it took until end to finally see it, the last scene with Peter and Aunt May established a very good chemistry and character element to the overall story. I look forward to seeing this blossom in the future movies as it greatly exceeds the original casting by Raimi. At first I was concerned about May not being portrayed as old enough, but in the end, it worked.

All of the good things above transpired in the second half of the film, which made me actually stay because, while I've only walked out of two movies in my life (Dune and the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles), this was very close to being my third. The first hour of The Amazing Spider-Man was mind-numblingly boring. I was not aware they were seriously going to redo and/or retell his entire origin. The "untold story" required it, apparently. For those who love the ACTUAL origin story and loved the way Raimi told it, this was a kick to the crotch. It was insulting. It was unnecessary. It was so very badly done. It, frankly, ruined the movie for me. I think there was a way to weave the actual origin into this without redoing it all. Next, the script. While the second half of the movie added meat to this new origin, which made the rest of the film tolerable, the dialogue was complete crap. As much as Andrew and Emma seemed good together, the dialogue between them tried repeatedly to screw it up. It was weak, fake and hard to watch. Completely unnatural for two people who appeared to have chemistry.

Next, the directing. Direction in this film is clumsy, spotty and elementary. Some action scenes are good, some are choreographed and/or edited very poorly. The camerawork during the Emma/Andrew scenes meant to bring them together and have the viewer care about the relationship developing, misses the mark completely. Editing may be more at fault here, especially during action sequences, but the qualitative variance from scene to scene smack of a poorly directed film.

In the end, while I am always a sucker for comic book movies, especially beloved ones like Spider-Man, nothing happened in The Amazing Spider-Man to warrant dumping Raimi and the original cast. As bad as some may have thought Spider-Man 3 was, this movie did absolutely nothing to prove this was the right direction in which to go. Yet, based on audience and critical reaction, as well as the press around the mid-credit surprise ending piece, two more movies have been announced to tell yet another trilogy. Hopefully this movie will improve over time as the story unfolds, but with Christopher Nolan's Batman/Dark Knight masterpieces and Raimi's original bar set, there is no reason this movie shouldn't have been able to stand on its own, independent of supporting story lines in later films.