I would almost be willing to bet that if I
asked 100 people to give me the basic origin of Spiderman, about 90%
would be able to tell me that he was bitten by a spider and received
spider-like powers. Why, then, do we need an hour and a half of an
origin backstory for a reboot of this franchise? I know that the
essence of a reboot is to start a story over. But we all know the
origin. I'm not saying get rid of it completely. Just don't make it
most of the movie. By the time they got moving into any kind of
plot, I had pretty much lost interest and did't care about the fate
of any character anymore, good or bad. And that's a shame because,
weak story aside, this movie is quite good.
Andrew Garfield is a fantastic Peter Parker.
He looks like a more mild mannered person with potential for
greatness whereas Tobey Maguire just looked goofy most of the time.
I also liked how they developed Parker to be flawed in that he
doesn't make a quick jump into knowing how to be a superhero and
separate Parker from Spiderman (it just took too long to do).
Garfield and Emma Stone have a great chemistry and are good on screen
together. The comic relief is very well done in both writing and
delivery. It blends the spoken with the physical perfectly and makes
the movie light when it needs to release some of the tension. And
it's got probably the best Stan Lee cameo of any of the Marvel Comics
movies.
I must say though that I was very
disappointed in the villain. I do need to put a disclaimer that I do
not know the Spiderman franchise very well. I just know about how he
got his powers and that he takes pictures for a local paper. I don't
know the villains at all and had no idea about the Lizard. To me
though, this villain seems very, very weak for a super hero
franchise; especially one to start off a reboot. Add in that the CGI
and makeup effects for the Lizard were downright laughable and it
really disappoints. (I hate to say that because I am a Rhys Ifans
fan.) Otherwise, the effects are very good. They could have taken
some of the money spent on web effects, etc. and put it towards a better
Lizard. The fight scenes are well done and Spiderman swinging used
some very good camera angles and the 3D judiciously. I did roll my
eyes at the whole thing with the cranes as that was a bit too cheesy
for my taste but I've said many times that I can forgive some of that
in a comic book movie.
All in all, it disappointed simply
because they dwelt on the origin and Spiderman learning to harness
his powers for way too long. Most people go to see these films
because they want to see more of the kick ass action that is in the
trailers. And they want to see their favourite superheroes fight
their favourite villains. It took way too long to get moving and,
when it did, it was like they never really had an idea as to how they
wanted it to progress in the first place.
After I saw it, I would have given it a
Don't See recommendation as a knee jerk reaction. After reflecting
further though, you may want to give it a look for the effects. Just
know that you're going to have to sit through the tired old origin
exposition again.
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