Review: The Amazing Spider Man

Abandoned by his parents into the care of his Aunt (Sally Field) and Uncle (Martin Sheen) at an early age, Peter Parker (Andrew Garfield) has developed into an awkward and unpopular teen (Partly because the actor playing him is 28? Just putting it out there...). Peter learns of his father’s work alongside Dr. Connors (Rhys Ifans) before the former’s disappearance, and uses a field trip to Oscorp (where the good doctor is employed in cross-species genetics research) as an excuse to poke around. Unfortunately, Peter manages to get himself bitten by a lab spider, and soon after begins to notice some significant changes in himself. He’s super-agile, super-strong, and super um...Spidey. When tragedy hits close to home, Peter dons a costume to become Spider Man. Meanwhile, Peter starts to gain the attention of pretty fellow student Gwen Stacy (Emma Stone), daughter of the local police captain (Denis Leary). Campbell Scott and Embeth Davidtz have cameos as Peter’s parents.

 

Maybe I should stop watching comic book or superhero films, because by and large, I haven’t liked the more recent crop. Certainly none have been able to hold a candle to 1978’s “Superman” or even Tim Burton’s underrated “Batman”. I haven’t liked any of the “Spider Man” films all that much, and couldn’t work out why we needed a series re-boot after just ten years. After watching this wholly unnecessary, uninteresting Marc Webb (“500 Days of Summer”) film from 2012, I’m still scratching my head. It adds nothing, and is lacking a whole helluva lot. The first “Spider Man” film was largely a waste of Sam Raimi’s time. This one was a waste of my time. But at least they got the perfect person to play the Green Goblin in Emma Stone. Oh, she’s the love interest? But she has a gremlin head!

 

No, this film simply won’t do, and it reinforces its lack of necessity by pretty much following the plot of the first film, just changing a few cosmetic details here and there. That simply isn’t acceptable, especially when the film takes forever to get going, and goes for far too long. I mean, hello...we’ve already seen most of this three times before, and yet we have to wait forever for Spiderman to show up. Hell, Peter Parker even gets bitten by a spider in almost the exact same way, making me wonder why they bothered making such slight differences. Or why the film was made at all.

 

When things are greatly changed, it’s mostly for the worse. Beginning with Peter Parker himself, as played here by Eduardo...er...Andrew Garfield. Tobey Maguire might have been a slight stretch as a superhero, but he was absolutely spot-on as nerdy Peter Parker. Garfield is like a slightly more talented Robert Pattinson (but with messier hair- seriously, it distracted me throughout), a GQ model masquerading as an actor, and pretty much giving the same performance in everything. Hell, he has the same damn open-mouthed expression throughout the film, like the male equivalent of Kristen Stewart. He just doesn’t convince as nerdy Peter in the slightest, his social awkwardness rings entirely (and insultingly) false. Worse, though, is the way Peter has been written this time out, that is, the changes to his character from the previous films (Of which I assume this film isn’t really connected, but nonetheless). He’s a selfish prick who isn’t even remotely sympathetic. In fact, over the course of two hours he is responsible for at least two people dying, and one guy turning into a supervillain. Spiderman might be a hero, but Peter Parker is a douchebag villain. In fact, screw it, Spiderman in this film is the worst superhero of all-time. It’s all his damn fault, or more precisely, the fault of screenwriters Steve Kloves (most of the “Harry Potter” scripts), Alvin Sargent (“Ordinary People”, the overrated “Spiderman 2”), and James Vanderbilt (“Basic”, “Zodiac”, “The Losers”), who make an absolute botch-job of the central character. Garfield isn’t any good, but I don’t think anyone could’ve redeemed this jerky Peter Parker to the point where his superhero name shouldn’t be Spiderman, it should be Jinx (first name ‘Effing’).

 

As I’ve eluded to earlier, I don’t enjoy Emma Stone as an actress at all. Kirsten Dunst and her heroin addict eyes (well, that’s what she looks like, I’m not saying she is of course) was never my idea of an appealing leading lady, but I find Stone’s persona off-putting. Her “Juno”-esque snarky sarcasm deal grates on my nerves, and she does the exact same act in every film I’ve seen her in, including this one. She’s not playing Gwen, she’s playing herself, and she’s really obnoxious. I do feel a bit sorry for her, though, because unlike Mary Jane, Gwen is barely used throughout the film. Her relationship with Peter isn’t tentative, it’s fitfully (under) developed. And that’s being charitable. I’m sure the character and relationship will evolve throughout the series, but in this, Stone’s Gwen seems to come from an entirely different film, or more to the point, she’s never successfully integrated into this one. BTW, I wasn’t just being mean when referring to Gwen as the Green Goblin. Watch the film and I swear she’s essentially doing a riff on James Franco’s role in the earlier films. I’ll say no more than that (And yes I am aware of the irony in comparing Gwen to the Green Goblin, thank you very much comic book geeks).

 

The other characters and actors fare a bit better, but only a bit. Sally Field and Martin Sheen are by their very casting alone (despite Sheen not looking like a simple ‘working man’ to me), far greater as the parental figures in Peter’s life than were Cliff Robertson and the irritatingly whistle-voiced Rosemary Harris. Unfortunately, neither actor gets much to chew on here, and because Field still looks so fresh-faced for her age, they’ve had to make her look as unkempt and dowdy as possible, to near comic effect. Both actors are way better than this material. Rhys Ifans, meanwhile seems initially very well-cast, but proves much more unsettling pre-transformation. The more stripped-back version we see late in the film is a lot scarier than the CGI creature, too. In fact, Lizard is just a terrible, lame-arse villain, and the supposed tragedy/pathos afforded the character doesn’t quite cut it because, well, he’s played by Rhys Ifans for cryin’ out loud. The FX are simply poor, as usual, the eyes just aren’t realistic and you never believe the creature is anything other than a video game character amidst real actors and backgrounds. I’ll try to keep my patented anti-3D rant as short as possible, but once again, seeing the film in 2D, the third dimension simply leaves a stain on the 2D image that we will all be watching in the future. The use of CGI in not only Lizard (a guy in a rubber suit would at least be able to look convincing in interactions with buildings and people to a certain extent), but some seriously lame CGI flames, is seriously cheap-looking. The best use of CGI, in fact, the best thing in the entire film, are the action scenes of Spidey flying around. I always liked those scenes in the previous films, but the FX are more improved this time around. That said, it takes about an hour for Spidey to even turn up, and given this is essentially the fourth film, that’s about 40 minutes too long. Also worth mentioning is the work by Denis Leary. Although HD clearly isn’t his friend, Leary’s presence livens up a pretty dead film. He gets a particularly great line to Garfield at one point in regards to Lizard; ‘Do I look like the mayor of Tokyo to you?’.

 

Why is this film so long? No superhero film not named “Superman” and not made in 1978 should run this long. I know this is Webb’s first Spidey film, but it’s our fourth. But look, this film is full of problems, failing to provide effective heroes, villains, and damsels in distress. It’s a borderline bad film and probably the worst Spiderman film so far.

 

Rating: C