These reviews were hard to write. And then I watched the Amazing run. Happy New Year!
A reboot that is more interested in creating an interconnected mythology than a dramatic storyline, Amazing Spider-Man is so unnecessarily complicated it made me miss Spider-Man 3.
I remember liking this movie the first time I watched it but compared with the Raimi trilogy, this movie is riddled with problems.
The decision to go back to the origin is pointless, and the filmmakers seem to realize it.
The first Spider-Man keeps the origin simple and makes the story about Peter learning from it (the phrase we do not need to repeat).
This movie adds a conspiracy element involving Peter’s parents, and creates a series of connections around how Peter gets his powers that it becomes incidental.
There is a sense of predestination to the story which undermines the concept of Peter Parker being an ordinary guy.
The characterisation of Parker is all over the place. I could not track who he was at the beginning and how he changed. He comes across as a bully half the time - his interaction with the car thief is played for laughs but he is antagonizing the guy like he wants to hurt him. It comes off as sadistic.
That is the big problem with this version - at no point is he relatable.
Garfield is a great actor but the film has no handle on Peter’s arc.
It seems like an attempt to differentiate this Peter from the Maguire version, who could come off as a tad too virtuous, but this character comes across as an asshole.
You get a real sense of the filmmakers’ priorities by how they treat the familiar players:
Uncle Ben and Aunt May are sidelined to such a degree that I could not orient myself in terms of Peter’s character and his moral compass. Maybe it is the Raimi effect, but Uncle Ben’s role in defining Peter’s sense of morality - and the weight of his death - feels completely pointless in this iteration.
It feels like every scene where they are together, Peter is obsessed with his father’s work. Maguire’s Peter abuses Ben by ridiculing his role raising him, but it never felt like a long-running resentment. Garfield’s Peter is solely interested in his parents and seems to treat his Aunt and Uncle like they are secondary people he just has to deal with occasionally.
After Ben dies, I did not feel like Peter felt a great sense of guilt after his death - as with everything else, Ben’s death is subordinate to Peter’s quest to figure out the mystery behind his parent’s work and disappearance.
And once Ben is gone, Aunt May might as well not exist. Within the world of the movie, it is also clear that Peter completely ignores her. At the end of the movie, it is revealed that he hasn’t even told May that he has been going out with Gwen.
Part of the problem may be the editing - I found this movie hard to follow and it becomes a real mess in the middle of the movie. After the bridge attack it feels like we are missing connective tissue.
Out of the blue, villain Curt Connors (Rhys Ifans) and Parker are at odds and Parker has figured out that Connors is the Lizard. All of Connors’ fears of losing his job have vanished, and it becomes harder to figure out why he is doing anything. It was at this point in the movie that it became clear that Gwen has no character of her own - she is a smart girl who likes Peter, but other than that, there is not a lot going on. Gwen seems to exist solely in terms of the chemistry between Emma Stone and Andrew Garfield. She is a smart woman who likes Peter, and that is about it. It is more obvious in the sequel but here she just feels like a token love interest. Mary Jane was such a key part of the Sam Raimi movies, and you could always track her character as she grew and changed. She felt like a character who did not exist to be a romantic partner. Stone is charming in the role, but there is nothing more to Gwen Stacey as a character.
Maybe this is an effect of watching the Sam Raimi movies right before going into this one (my brain is fried) but he takes time to build up to key moments and pivotal scenes - even Spider-Man 3 takes time for Harry Osborne’s death.
Meanwhile, this movie botches what should be pivotal moments. Uncle Ben’s (Martin Sheen) death, Spider-Man figuring out his powers, the first confrontation with the Lizard…
I am not listing examples - these are seemingly important scenes that I can barely remember.
This movie constantly in a hurry, blasting through important story beats so quickly that none of them land or feel connected.
There are some nice moments - Spider-Man creating a web in the sewer so he can pick up movement; the slo-mo shot of Spidey fighting the Lizard in the background while an oblivious Stan Lee listens to music in the foreground. But these moments feel disconnected.
The storytelling in The Amazing Spider-Man lacks a sense of focus, of building toward something. It is just a vaguely connected series of scenes. It enraged me that after the chaos of the storyline, the movie had the temerity to end on an English class in which the teacher is talking about different types of storytelling and familiar story structures.
This movie feels like a stop-gap - a way to hold onto the Spider-Man rights. Watching it a decade later, The Amazing Spider-Man feels more tied to the trends of its era. The cinematography is dark and the colour palette is muted; the filmmakers trying to evoke Christopher Nolan’s Batman, while the overarching narrative evokes the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Taking inspiration from contemporary pop culture is in itself no bad thing - I would not have Casino Royale to rant about, otherwise - but nothing about The Amazing Spider-Man feels organic or beneficial to the story and the characters.
It comes down to one question: What is it about?
In the Sam Raimi-verse, the key theme is the responsibility that comes with great power. All of Peter Parker/Spider-Man’s conflicts from that central theme. With The Amazing Spider-Man, I have no idea what the movie is about.
I wonder what would have happened if Sony had taken a leaf out of their Bond regency (they were the co-financier of ⅘ of the Daniel Craig movies) and done a soft reboot rather than redoing the origin story.
The cast are solid, but they are lost in a confused story with multiple threads that are left dangling for (multiple) future sequels.
The sequel’s problems have been well-advertised but The Amazing Spider-Man has similar issues when it comes to its narrative structure and character development.
You can subscribe on iTunes, or wherever you get your podcasts.
No comments:
Post a Comment