If I haven't made it clear before, I'm
not a huge fan of Marvel's plan to reboot the Spider-Man franchise
barely half a decade after Sam Raimi finished off his Spider-Man
trilogy in 2007. Now when it comes to reboots, usually they are done
if the previous film in the series didn't do well financially and/or
critically. Of course, Spider-Man 3 wasn't all that great compared to
the first two films, but it wasn't a financial failure. Really, the
only reason why this happened in the first place was because Marvel
wanted a fourth Spider-Man film to be made for a 2011 release, and
the problem was that Raimi wouldn't have had as much creative
integrity as he had with the other films if he had the film done by
then. I believe that what Marvel should have done was give Raimi more
time so that he could have made the film his way because there are
some instances where the director's final product isn't exactly what
he or she intended it to be and those cuts don't turn out as good.
Spider-Man 4 could have very much been just as good as the first two
films, or possibly better.
But enough of my ranting, because the
real question is whether or not director Marc Webb's take on
everybody's favorite web slinging superhero works as a movie. Well,
in terms of reboots, 'The Amazing Spider-Man' does succeed in being
its own story and Webb brings his unique vision to the story of
Spider-Man with great success. True, it does have a lot in common
with the first Spider-Man film but it does do enough to separate
itself from the previous films that came before it without directly
copying them. But the biggest surprise is how in some areas, this
film improves on Raimi's films from the chemistry between the main
characters to just how some of these characters are written compared
to previous films. Needless to say, this film delivers on giving us a
more realistic take on Spider-Man than ever before.
This story follows Peter Parker (Andrew
Garfield) while he is a high school student in New York. A social
outcast amongst his classmates, Peter vies for the affections of his
classmate Gwen Stacy (Emma Stone) and also seeks the answers to what
happened the night his parents left him with his Uncle Ben (Martin
Sheen) and Aunt May (Sally Field), having never heard from them
again. He learns that his father used to work at Oscorp Industries
with fellow scientist Curt Connors (Rhys Ifans) and while visiting
there, he is bitten by a genetically-enhanced spider and gains
spider-like powers from it. He uses these powers to become the crime
fighting superhero Spider-Man, but he soon has to deal with a new
problem that emerges when Connors tests a new regeneration formula on
himself, becoming the monstrous Lizard.
Comparing Raimi's films to this new
film is inevitable, but the key thing to note here is that Webb's
version is much more focused on its characters compared to the other
films. Andrew Garfield is great as Peter Parker, and if there's one
thing that he does better than Tobey Maguire, it is making Spider-Man
the wisecracking superhero that he is supposed to be. As for his love
interest Gwen Stacy and her father George (Denis Leary), the Police
Captain who hunts both the Lizard and Spider-Man as a suspected
criminal, they are given much deserved bigger roles than in
Spider-Man 3. Emma Stone is both radiant and charming as Gwen Stacy,
and in terms of the romantic chemistry between Garfield and Stone,
the only other time there has been a romantic chemistry this good was
Captain America: The First Avenger. It's very natural and realistic,
which is a big improvement over the romance between Maguire and Dunst
in Raimi's films.
As for the rest of the cast, they also
do a fantastic job. Rhys Ifans brings much depth to the role of Dr.
Connors and while I hate to bash on Raimi's films again, this film
does give The Lizard the proper role he deserves. While he was given
a fairly decent role in Raimi's films, he was really just a side
character in those films and he never even turned into the Lizard.
This version of Dr. Connors also has a good motive for doing what he
does. Having lost his arm, he is hopeful that he can find a proper
regeneration serum that will not just help him, but many others that
are in the same situation that he is in. Denis Leary brings the right
attitude to the character of George Stacy and Martin Sheen and Sally
Field provide a more authoritative but still very much caring take on
the characters of Uncle Ben and Aunt May.
Really, the best way to describe this
film compared to Raimi's films is that it is much more realistic in
tone. That does seem odd to say considering the premise, but as good
as Raimi's films are, they are rather cheesy. The dialogue of the
first film is a prime example of this, and the less said about
Spider-Man 3, the better. Even Spider-Man 2, the best of Raimi's
trilogy, had its cheesy moments though they were less frequent than
the other two films. Webb's film is more focused on the story and
fleshing out the characters, and is much more serious in tone. We go
even further into why Peter Parker became Spider-Man in the first
place, having long looking for the answers as to why his parents left
him. There was more to it than just the bite from that one spider.
This has a lot in common to how Christopher Nolan rebooted the Batman
franchise, after the last two films before 'Begins' were more similar
in tone to the old Batman TV series of the 1960's than the first two
Batman films by Tim Burton.
All in all, this take on Spider-Man
does not only successfully separate itself from Raimi's films, but it
surprisingly also manages to improve on some of the faults of the
previous films by focusing more on the story and characters. I'm
still not the biggest fan of this reboot being done so early, but I'm
glad that it actually turned out really good. Compared to Raimi's
films, 'The Amazing Spider-Man' is more realistic in tone similar to
the Christopher Nolan Batman films and if I had to compare the two
leads of both Raimi's films and this film, Garfield and Stone are
just more compelling to watch. I'm very much interested in seeing how
they will now move on with this franchise. While I don't want to give
anything away, the end credits does give us a look at who will be the
next main villain, and if you follow the movie closely, it does seem
pretty clear as to who this character is. But we won't see the next
film for two more years so we'll just have to wait and see what the
filmmakers will decide to do next for Spider-Man and I have no
problem with the way they're doing it now.
Rating: 4.5/5
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