Disclaimer: DVD
Reviews may be misleading. Prose and
Postulations only places DVD in the title to differentiate between a movie
that’s out on DVD/Blu Ray and one that’s still in theaters. Almost all of the time, just the movie itself
will be reviewed, and not the features that come with the DVD/Blu Ray.
The
only question that comes to mind, when thinking about “The Amazing Spiderman”
is: Was this movie necessary? Answer:
Well, no…but that doesn’t mean it’s a movie that’s not worth viewing. “The Amazing Spiderman” is well written,
beautifully shot, and has moments of pure genius.
My
favorite Spiderman movie is Spiderman 2 and the villain (Doctor Octopus) was
perfectly matched for Peter Parker.
Tobey Maguire was an excellent Spiderman, but sat a little on the campy
side. In fact, all three Sam Raimi films
are on the campy side, which I’m sure was his intent from the get-go.
“The
Amazing Spiderman” is not a dark take on the character, but does have a more
serious tone than its predecessors. The
film itself is just a reboot of Spiderman all over again, but this allows for
previous roads that weren’t travelled in the last 3 movies, to be trekked here. Peter Parker is now more influenced by the
people he loves, than the power he acquires.
Tobey’s Spiderman seemed to have a need to help people for the greater
good, while the Amazing Spiderman gets pulled into a life of saving the
innocent, because of his family’s secrets.
Also,
in the last three films, I always had this feeling that Spiderman’s powers were
more of a curse that Peter Parker had to deal with, while this current
installment sees Parker having nothing but fun with his new found gifts, which
easily grounds the character, because in reality (if the reality of Spiderman
really existed) if a teenager could suddenly do all those things, of course
he’s going to take the time to have fun with it, right?
Story:
The
movie starts with Peter being left with his Aunt and Uncle, and his parents
disappearing without anyone having any knowledge why. Peter grows up as the typical loner/weird kid
in school and tries to get through life with as little notoriety as possible, but
all that changes when he finds something that belonged to his father, and starts
digging into his past. Then—and this is
the part you probably didn’t know—he gets bit by a spider…and his current life
is never again the same.
More
thoughts:
The
Peter Parker in this trilogy is super intelligent, and he loves to flaunt that
in his witty banter with bad guys and the girl he’s falling for. The addition of the mechanical web-shooters
is a nice touch, and relates more to the comic books of the past. This also makes Spiderman more
vulnerable…allowing him to run into trouble if they don’t operate correctly,
run out of webbing, or get crushed by an opponent. Again, the web-shooters also keep the
character much more grounded than the previous films…more human.
From
the opening scenes to almost the middle of the movie, everything is
perfect. The dialogue, the acting, the
action, the love-story…just perfect, and then in comes the Lizard.
Right
off the bat, I’d like to say the Lizard is one of the worst designed characters
of all comic book movies. The design
looks like what would happen if a high school student got a call from Marc Webb
to design the new Lizard villain and was paid in cracker-jack prizes. There’s nothing cool about him. Nothing.
Even the CGI at times looks dated.
Does this hurt the movie? A
little. Would I worry about it? Nah. You
ask why? Well—
In
the director’s defense (Marc Webb) the movie is called “The Amazing Spiderman”
and not “The Lacking Lizard”, so obviously you’re going to focus more on
Peter. There were reviews that said the
Lizard character is so paper thin, it couldn’t hold a sneeze. And to me, that’s okay, because if they did
go into the villain’s background more, it really would have taken away from
everything else that was perfect in the film.
Peter’s
scenes with Gwen are touching. His
scenes with his Aunt and Uncle are heart-felt, and even the scenes with Captain
Stacy help to lend a little humor to the mix.
If you had more Lizard, you would lose all those great moments. So in a way, having such a crappy villain in
the first movie allowed a lot more Peter, which is why we’re really watching
right? We want to see Parker become
Spiderman, and feel all his emotions and understand all his ups and downs. I didn’t want to see the Lizard, and frankly
if he wasn’t in the movie, I don’t think it would have made much of a
difference. If they would have focused
more on the man that killed Uncle Ben, or the relationship between Spiderman
and Gwen, or Gwen’s father chasing Spidey all over New York, I would have been just
fine with that.
At
least now you have a great backstory to spring-board off of for the next couple
of movies, and you swept aside a flimsy villain in the process. Not we can get to more exciting bad guys and
show their back-stories properly, while incorporating hints of love-story and
family relationships…should work out perfectly—should.
Think
about it; if they would have had the Goblin in the film, they would have had no
time to fully develop the character and you would be left with the slop that
the Lizard was…so be thankful it was a throw-away like the Lizard, and not the
Green Goblin or Venom or Carnage. Save
those kick-ass baddies for the sequels.
“The
Amazing Spiderman” was unnecessary, but still is a great movie on its own right. I look forward to more in the series. It’s definitely a rental, and if you really
love Spiderman, than it’s a no-brainer to add to your home-movie collection.
A
Solid 3 1/2 out of 5 stars (minus 1 ½ stars for the sloppy Lizard design/written
character)
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