Five years ago, director Sam Raimi brought us Spider-Man 3, the last film in a trilogy which, unlike its predecessors, garnered mixed to negative audience and critical notices. Despite the towering critical and commercial success of Spider-Man and Spider-Man 2, the negative reactions for the third film were enough to destroy the franchise. Now, only five years after the last Spider-Man film and just a decade after the first film, director Marc Webb brings us The Amazing Spider-Man; a new film based on the comic book series created by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko.
If the story is familiar, it is because Peter Parker's transformation from geeky high school student to superhero has never changed; unlike Batman's, whose origin story can be told in a number of different styles. Peter Parker (Andrew Garfield) spends his life in near-anonymity, being ignored by his dream girl, Gwen Stacy (Emma Stone) and beat up by the school bully, Flash (Chris Zylka). When he was a child, his parents (played by Campbell Scott and Embeth Davidtz) left him with Uncle Ben (Martin Sheen) and Aunt May (Sally Field). One day, Peter finds out that his father was partners with a man called Dr. Curt Conners (Rhys Ifans), so he heads to Conner's lab in OsCorp, gaining access by pretending to be an intern. It is here that he sneaks into a lab where a "biocable" is being performed by genetically engineered spiders, one of which bites him and it is then when he begins to change into the titular superhero.
This review may come across as slightly biased, if only because of the importance that the character of Spider-Man holds on my, and I am guessing many other's lives. First of all, for those who do not already know, one should realise that the mythos of Spider-Man deals with a teenager who is dealing with puberty. He straddles childhood and manhood and he learns that the special powers he has been given force him to become wise beyond his years, and speed up the process to becoming a man. I saw Sam Raimi's Spider-Man a mere week before my twelfth birthday, and as far as I was concerned, I was Peter Parker. His challenges were mine, and everything he went through seemed to symbolise what I was going through; making the road to becoming a man less rocky. I remember, as I left the cinema in 2002, I began bouncing back to my house in an attempt to jump and swing through the streets like Spider-Man. These films (well, the first two at least), and later, the comics, were my guidebook to adult hood, especially as I was going through secondary school and university. Since then, I have become a self confessed, unashamed geek, and the more I think about it, the more I realise how the first two Spider-Man films and the comic books should be a requirement for young boys going through puberty.
However, this is where the drawback for The Amazing Spider-Man comes. It could never have the same importance to me, which makes looking at this subjectively a little tricky. In terms of overall quality, it is on par with the first Spider-Man film, and Webb wisely avoids repeating things that Raimi had already achieved with his trilogy. For example, a back story is given for Parker's parents, which Raimi never even attempted to tell, and a longer setup is given before Parker is bitten. Also, and perhaps the biggest change in the film, is that Uncle Ben never utters the phrase: "With great power, comes great responsibility". Although, Ben still gives Peter a lecture on responsibility and adulthood. While these are all very wise decisions, when retelling the same story, there is only so much one can change.
So, at its worst, the film manages to give one a sense of deja-vu whenever something is even remotely similar between this film and Raimi's. Everything here which is done well has been done before and, forgive the referencing of the film's title, The Amazing Spider-Man, comes across not so much "amazing" but as "unessential". Still, there is plenty to like here. Andrew Garfield is the best onscreen Spider-Man yet, juggling the heroic and the mundane sides to Parker's life admirably. Emma Stone as Gwen Stacy is also very charming, but a little underwritten. Martin Sheen as Uncle Ben manages to do so much with so little screen time, which is no surprise, considering just how talented he is as a performer. It is a shame he never utters Uncle Ben's most famous line from the comic books ("with great power, comes great responsibility"), but he still manages to play a decent father figure.
Perhaps the only piece of characterisation which is not better in this film, is the villain, Curt Conners, who later turns into The Lizard. Firstly, the computer generated effects in this film are appalling, which, when considering your villain is a man who turns into a giant lizard creature, is fairly inexcusable. Also, Rhys Ifans plays both Conners and The Lizard as a moustache twirler, spouting pointless exposition and whose climactic, villainous plot is weak and unthreatening. (He plans to turn the city of New York into 8-foot lizard creatures like himself. Please, stop giggling).
As I previously mentioned, the visual effects here are bad, and look closer to something you would see in a video game than a multi-million dollar comic book franchise starter. As these scenes played out in the cinema, I did think that there was no excuse for visual effects to be this dreadful. This is especially bad when one considers that filmmakers such as Neill Blomkamp (District 9) and Danny Boyle (Sunshine) can make visual effect heavy films with budgets as low as $30-40 million.
Fortunately, the first film in a franchise often has an easily defeated, unmemorable villain, because the bad guy is of little interest to an audience the first time out. The first film is all about setting up how Peter Parker becomes Spider-Man, and rather wisely devotes a good portion of the first third of the film to Parker's school and home life. Here is where the film triumphs, and I imagine that many young girls and boys (mostly boys) entering adolescence, who were only children when Raimi's Spider-Man was released in 2002, will get a lot out of these scenes. This is partly due to Andrew Garfield's performance, which is equally geeky and sincere, and a script which has few cliches. For example, Flash, the school bully, may make Parker's life hell, but he also manages to show a little kindness after tragedy strikes the Parker household.
However, it is a pity that when Parker finally does don the red and blue tights, most of the scenes set at school are pushed to one side in favour of heroic acrobatics. It is also a pity that the subplot involving Uncle Ben, which motivates Peter to fight crime in the first place (I am trying hard not to spoil things here), is mostly forgotten once it is done.
Regardless of these flaws, my hope would be that a new group of preteens will seek this out, and I hope that Parker's struggles through adolescence will mirror those of young men who are just entering secondary school. In 2002, young girls had Buffy the Vampire Slayer and boys had Spider-Man. Let us hope that this starts a new trend for well written teenagers in science-fiction and fantasy.
7/10
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