The Amazing Spider-Man (2012) - Review Thread

THE AMAZING TURD!

Saveus1011 is 90% correct. This movie is f---ing terrible, but with one or two redeeming elements. Re-doing Spider-Man's origin is pointless, a complete waste of time, and gets in the way of what could have been a decent film. Worst of all, you can tell the filmmakers were obligated to re-do the origin since there is no heart whatsoever. Think back to Sam Raimi's 2002 adaptation. Remember "Go Web Go," Bruce Campbell, the montages, etc? The man had FUN with the origin. Marc Webb, on the other hand, just throws it in. Also, Uncle Ben's death was a disgrace. I'd rather have Sandman's "accidental" shooting from Spider-Man 3 over the piece of s--t we got here. The whole point of Uncle Ben dying is to make Peter Parker realize and understand that with great power must also come great responsiblity. But here, it was the most random s--t you'll ever see. Andrew Garfield's Spider-Man will never be haunted by Uncle Ben's death - no matter how hard the film tries to say otherwise. So, if you screw up the most important element of Spider-Man's origin then you had no business whatsoever to tell it in the first place. Saturday morning cartoons have done a better origin.

The rest of the movie isn't as cringeworthy as the origin, but it isn't a major improvement either. For starters, the pace is not organic. We get an assembly line of footage instead of a story unfolding before our eyes. I won't blame Marc Webb for this because it's quite obvious that was Sony's meddling. Anyone who has seen promotional clips will immediately realize that a lot of scenes were trimmed. For example, there is a scene where Peter Parker throws a football from the bleachers to the end zone. Then, the scene abruptly ends. They deleted the part where the coach asks Peter to join the team and he replies with, "sorry, too dangerous." It's a small detail but at least it allows the film to smoothly transition from one scene to another. Secondly, the movie never gave us a "WOW" scene. In a franchise that includes the iconic Spidey vs. Doc Ock train fight, there's nothing here to impress the audience or even give the audience something to laugh about. You can complain all you want about "Emo Peter Parker" from Spider-Man 3, but 5 years later we're still talking about it. 5 years from now, we won't be saying anything about Amazing Spider-Man because nothing is memorable - at all. Hardcore Fanboys will argue that we get some great Spidey one-liners, but as great as that was, it could never complete with the more iconic moments from the series. The ONLY scene I could see us still talking about years from now is the Stan Lee cameo. That was f---ing brilliant and arguably the best Stan Lee cameo ever.

Now that leads me to the few good features of Amazing Spider-Man. Andrew Garfield is spectacular. Although he's given a lot of crappy material to work with. That's why, right now, he's the Val Kilmer of the Spidey series. That may change with the sequels, but for now, he's still in the shadows of Tobey Maguire simply because he's in a lesser film. Which is unfortunate because he truly is great. Emma Stone is also fantastic. She's already my favorite female actress in the Spidey franchise. Plus, this is arguably the hottest she's ever looked. Blonde Emma Stone is okay in my book. Martin Sheen is a really good Uncle Ben, but like Garfield, bad material ruined his outcome in the series. The dude who played Curt Connors/The Lizard is good too. Although the Lizard design is all wrong. So - yeah - I like the cast and Stan Lee's cameo. Those are the only good things I can say about this movie.

2 out of 4 stars