The Amazing Spider-Man

Yes, I have been putting this off for a while, partly because I've been busy with work, partly because I've been having a lot of fun with my new Flash blog, but mostly because I tend to get very passionate and specific about my Spider-Man. Although I am happy they're making Spider-Man movies again, I'm not necessarily happy with this reboot. But it is better than Spider-Man 3, so I shouldn't complain so much. The Amazing Spider-Man came out on July 3, 2012, was directed by Marc Webb and stars Andrew Garfield, Emma Stone and Rhys Ifans.

This movie had to distinguish itself from the Tobey Maguire trilogy, and one of the ways they chose to do this was by going a little into the backstory of Peter Parker's parents. Here's why I don't like this. A major part of Peter Parker's appeal is that he's a normal kid with real-life problems. When you make his parents top secret scientists, he starts to lose that realistic quality that makes him so great. I'm sure there are lots of kids out there who don't know who their parents are, and putting Peter in that group makes him more relatable. But even if he does know who is parents are, why can't they just be normal people?  I've never cared about his parents before, and I certainly never wanted them to be super scientists somehow caught in some dangerous conspiracy that is directly involved in turning Peter into Spider-Man! I have to take a point off for this.

So many movies just don't know what normal high school life is like, and this is definitely one of those movies. Everyone looks and acts too old, especially Gwen, but they also resort to elementary level bullying. My high school experience was nothing like this. Why can't movie makers take a visit to a real high school and see what it's really like? The score is now a 3.

But there are a few things this movie did do better than the first movies, like Uncle Ben. The original Uncle Ben seemed to have one foot in the grave and really didn't do anything interesting until right before he was killed. But this one was much more alive and entertaining. He was also loving and nice, while being stern when he needed to be. I'll add a point for them getting this most important character right.

I'll raise the score back up to an average 5 for the great scene on the subway. It was pretty funny how Peter was continuously apologizing while beating those people up. But more importantly, this was the best demonstration of the spider sense I've ever seen. It's more instinctive than seeing the future or being warned of impending doom, which I think is a lot more realistic and enjoyable.

But now I have to take a point off for an incredibly stupid scene in the high school gym. First of all, I can't figure out what's going on in the gym. There's a whole bunch of kids just hanging around while the basketball team(?) is practicing and some girls are painting posters on the court right next to them. Flash Thompson, the token bully, blocks a kid's shot and the ball knocks over a can of paint, to which the stupid girl cries, "Flash! You did that on purpose!" Look, stupid girl, even if he did do that on purpose, you had no business painting posters on the basketball court! Anyway, Peter decides to use his new spider grip to teach Flash a lesson. He then charges toward the hoop, kinda knocks Flash down, then leaps from the foul line and shatters the backboard with a ferocious dunk. Time out. That was humanly impossible. The best basketball player on the planet, LeBron James, who is 6-8, 270 pounds, could never do that in a million years. At least one person in that crowded gym would be able to realize that skinny little Peter Parker should not be able to do what he just did. There would be an investigation, or at least a big push to put him on the basketball team. But instead, all we got was a visit to the principal's office and a lecture from Uncle Ben about beating up the bully. OK, first of all, Flash wasn't even hurt, like not at all, and secondly, why is everybody brushing off the shattered backboard like it's a perfectly normal thing for a skinny teenager to do? I can suspend my disbelief only so far — especially when basketball is involved.

It was around this point in the movie that I decided I did not like this Peter Parker. The Peter Parker I know and love is the ultimate nerd. Very skinny and wimpy, has few friends, gets the best grades in school, etc., etc. That was what made him so endearing. But the filmmakers here decided to make Peter "cool," which involved giving him a skateboard and kind of turning him into a hipster. Carrying his camera around everywhere was OK, but seriously ... skateboarding? Peter should be too clumsy and busy with school to pick that up. But this Peter doesn't seem to care about school that much. We really only see him sleep or daydream at school, and he had to sneak into Dr. Connors' internship program, when I think he should have been asked to lead it instead of Gwen Stacey. They tried to make him look smart every now and then, but it usually fell flat for me. Like when he showed Dr. Connors the missing formula. Peter didn't come up with it by being smart — he just found it in his dad's briefcase. If this movie couldn't make Peter geekier, it should have at least made him smarter. The score's down to a 3.

But I'll add back a point for a surprisingly refreshing moment in the film. Uncle Ben was able to have a good conversation with Peter without using the over-repeated phrase, "With great power comes great responsibility." Don't get me wrong, that is a great phrase, but I have gotten tired of seeing and hearing it used over and over and over again in every single Spider-Man story that's ever told. But this movie was able to get the exact same message across in a perfectly natural and effective way. Good for them.

Speaking of Uncle Ben, his death scene earns the movie another point. Instead of having Peter join some strange, underground wrestling tournament, we got a more realistic scene of a pouting teenager moping around the neighborhood and trying to buy some chocolate milk. But more importantly, Uncle Ben's death was was sudden and tragic. They really did a good job of letting us get to know and love Uncle Ben before they killed, so his death carried the appropriate amount of weight to it.

Not only did this movie go out of its way to avoid being like the first movies, but it also sought to return to the original comics in some aspects, like the web cartridges. I loved the first movie's decision to give him naturally-producing webs because I don't see how or why anyone would go to the trouble to create webs in order to swing around the city. But as Stan Lee said, the web cartridges were a great element to Spider-Man because they could provide one more obstacle for him to overcome when they ran out. Unfortunately, in all the Spider-Man stories we've had over the years, it has felt like he runs out of webs way too much. Luckily, this didn't become much of an issue with this movie. But what I didn't like, however, was how he got the webs in the first place, which they never explained. We see a movie explaining that Oscorp developed the webs, then we see a box of them in Peter's room. I don't see why anyone would give him those, and I know he would never be able to afford them ... so ... did he steal them? The score's back down to a 4!

Although I said I didn't like Andrew Garfield as Peter Parker, I really did enjoy him as Spider-Man because there is one element he did better than Tobey Maguire — the wisecracking. Spider-Man is Marvel's legendary wisecracker, always talking and making jokes in every single panel (especially in the old comics), but we didn't get much of that in the movies until now. The best line was, "My one weakness — small knives!" Now that's a Spider-Man I can live with. Plus one point.

Now the main villain of the movie is the Lizard, but we all knew he was just really a monster, while the real villain was the guy behind the scenes causing all the trouble — Norman Osborn. But for some stupid reason, we never ever saw him. Now I think that's making him a bit too mysterious. Instead, all we got was his cliche evil businessman henchman, who seemed to go out of his way to do things the wrong way. When somebody invents a drug that causes a mouse to re-grow a lost limb, you need to spend years of development and testing before you can even think about giving it to a human. That's how it works. But this stupid guy insisted on knowingly giving a dangerous untested drug to people in a hospital. He reminded me a lot of the evil businessman from Avatar, and that's not a good thing. We're back to a 4.

Going back to the Lizard, I have to take a point off for his disappointing design. Yes, his skin was scaly and leathery and he was very big and realistic looking, but we expected that. We live in a day and age where amazing special effects are the norm. But what bugs me is dumb design decisions. If the Lizard has a lizard-like tail, why can't he have a lizard-like snout like he always did in the comics and TV show? This flat face was just strange and lame. Also, why was he naked most of the time? He did have his classic ripped white lab coat on, but it was only for one brief moment. Just a big disappointment. I also didn't like how they made him smart and able to talk and carry out overly-complex plans. But I guess making him a mindless beast would be too much like the Hulk. I don't care, though. Give me the Lizard I grew up with.

The score then falls to a 2 for one of the stupidest ways I've seen for a secret identity to be discovered. The Lizard found Peter's camera, which was carefully labeled, "Property of Peter Parker." Nobody labels their cameras, especially classic fancy ones like that! And besides, why couldn't this intelligent Lizard use his brains to piece together the many clues Peter left floating around. There's his dad's research, his display of amazing agility right in front of Dr. Connors, the vast amount of Oscorp webbing lying around the city, the stories of Peter breaking the backboard from the foul line. Take your pick. Any one of these ways would have been a better way to discover Spider-Man's secret identity. Also, what was with all the lizards being drawn to the Lizard? Are there really that many lizards in New York?

So I didn't mind them choosing Gwen to be the girlfriend here instead of Mary Jane. Things needed to be different, and that's fine. It's just that I did not like what they did with her. Not only did she have a hard time deciding how old she was supposed to act, but she had some really cheesy "heroic" moments. I hate it when the girl gets involved in the fights and/or suddenly has all this top secret access and abilities to things. It was just ... dumb. I can't even type it out. I'll just take the score down to a 1. Is it wrong of me to hope her neck gets broken in the next movie like it did in the comics?

Now here we come to the absolute worst part of the whole movie, the part where I had to stop myself from laughing out loud and almost considered leaving the movie right then and there. So the Lizard is involved in his ridiculous plan to turn the entire city into lizard monsters like himself, and an injured Spider-Man needs to get across town to stop him. The vast majority of the city hates and is afraid of Spider-Man, but one man remembers how Spidey saved his son. So even though it's late at night, this one man is able to call in some favors and arrange a bunch of cranes to conveniently move into place over the street Spider-Man needed to go down. They built this scene up so much and milked it for all it was worth, making it cheesier by the second. I know they were trying to re-create those emotional moments from the first two films where the city came together to help our hero, but it just didn't work here. I mean, five minutes ago, everybody hated him. Then all of a sudden, it was, "We need to help Spider-Man!" And all those cranes just happened to be in exactly the right place? Come on! This brings the score down to an absolute zero, which is really sad, when you consider all the things I did like in this movie.

Mercifully, though, I was able to find a couple more things at the end that I did like. The first was the borderline irrational Captain Stacey finally opening his eyes and realizing Spider-Man was a good guy. I really didn't expect that to happen, so I'll add a point for that surprising bit of common sense.

And I'll add one final point for Aunt May. We didn't get to see much of her at the beginning because the movie was so focused on Uncle Ben, but Aunt May was played very well here as well. Her best moment came at the end, where she didn't say anything and just hugged Peter. It was so sweet and simple. It also added fuel to my does-she-know fire. I've long debated whether Aunt May knows Peter is Spider-Man, and after this movie ... I'm kind of thinking she might ... I hope they address that in the next movie. Yes, I am hoping that there's another Spider-Man movie, even though this one sucked and the after-the-credits teaser was overly ambiguous. The world always needs a Spider-Man movie, and this is all we've got for now, so we might as well accept it. But that doesn't mean I necessarily have to enjoy it, though.

Final score: 2