I Approve of This Movie: The Amazing Spider-Man

Look Out! Here comes the Spider-Man. Again.

The Short Version:
One of the strongest arguments for the legitimacy of reboots to date. This movie made me look at the Tobey Maguire era in a whole new light. And what I found there was lacking.

The Long Version:
Hooray! We're back to movies that have long left theatres!
Boo! We're back to only mildly relevant reviews!

Yes, after renting this movie from the Hamilton Public Library (Woo! Big shout out to my government-funded video store!) I felt that I just couldn't help writing a review. Why? Because not unlike The Hobbit, this was another movie that faced some pretty stiff pessimism before it was released. And this time it wasn't just from movie nerds like me, oh no, this was from Mr. & Mrs. John-Q-Public. Their collective refrain seemed to be: "Why do we need a completely new Spider-Man movie so soon after the other ones?" It's a fair point, and one I hope to help unpack over the course of this review. Because after having thought the same thing and then seeing this movie, I have a rather radical thesis:

We did need a completely new Spider-Man movie

Bam! Controversy and I'm only a few reviews in. But before anyone breaks out the pitchforks allow me to explain a few things. Firstly, I do still quite like the Sam Raimi/Tobey Maguire Spider-Man movies. The first one was good but my appreciation of it has diminished over time as many things haven't held up that well, especially a lot of the cheesier bits. In truth, they didn't hold up too well the first time. The second movie was everything a sequel should be: better in every way. It still wasn't perfect, but it was at the time the best superhero movie I had seen. That since has changed quite a bit, but that shouldn't take away from its status as a great film. The third one... well it had one of the best trailers I had seen. So good in fact that I was beyond hyped for that movie. The end result... well it was ok the first time and every time since has only made it appear worse. Also I have a confession to make: I never really liked Kirsten Dunst as Mary Jane Watson. In fact, I'm rather ambivalent to her performances in most movies. She's not a terrible actress by my count, but she rubs me the wrong way for some reason. With all that in mind, let's look at how The Amazing Spider-Man clears the palette while addressing the skepticism it faced.

Looks the same.

The challenge any creative team trying to put their own spin (ugh. sorry.) on Spider-Man is going to face is that: Spider-Man is Spider-Man is Spider-Man. Of all superheroes he is consistently in the top 3 of Most Recognizable, Most Well-Known Origin, Most Colourful Rogues Gallery. With the average person being so familiar with the character and his world it was always going to be tough to bring something fresh to the big screen – especially when he was only gone from cinemas for 5 years. To bring the character back not as a continuation of that series but as a reboot did seem, at best a bad decision on Sony's part and at worst, a shameless cash grab. Another seemingly stupid decision was to hand over the reigns to Marc Webb (oh, the irony). Webb was only known at this point for making a sweet, successful little indie film called (500) Days of Summer, featuring then soon-to-be-breakout stars Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Zooey Deschanel. The problem was that this film gave no indication that Webb would be at all capable of handling an effects-heavy summer blockbuster. The last time this situation had arisen it resulted in this car wreck. Fortunately, Marc Webb immediately started to show  that it looked like he knew what he was doing.

Web Shooters. Yes.

It was quickly revealed through the old interwebs that Spidey, this time around, would be back to his classic mechanical web shooters, as opposed to the organic ones Tobey Maguire used. The average viewer may say "so what?" but this was a very smart move to appease the hardcore fan boys of the comics, because organic web shooters had come out of nowhere. Allow me to digress for a moment.

Warning: Digression In Progress

You may skip down, having lost no vital information.

Ok. Mechanical vs. Organic. First, why did Sam Raimi feel the need to change the origin of Spidey's webs? Because he couldn't believe in the technology. He felt it seemed impossible and if he were to instead include web shooting as part of the set of powers granted Peter Parker by that radioactive spider it would make more sense. But the challenge is that, inevitably in every Spider-Man story, Peter always ends up running out of web at a critical moment. This happend in Spider-Man 2 and because they were organic it needed to be explained away by psychosomatic issues. Having mechanical shooters means that if he runs out of web, it's for a very legitimate reason. The other benefit of having Peter build his web shooters is it shows what a genius the boy is. It tells the viewer that "Hey, if that kid can build those, what can't he do?" That's called credibility. And in superhero movies especially, where we're asked to take a lot of things for granted, it matters.

And we're back. Marc Webb's next smart move was to cast Peter Parker very carefully. Make no mistake, Tobey Maguire did a good job of capturing a lot of the character, he just didn't capture everything. In casting Andrew Garfield (who is himself a huge Spider-Man fan) he hit on yet another actor who was just coming off a breakout role in The Social Network who would bring something that none of the Sam Raimi films captured: the snark. Spider-Man has always fired off zingers as fast as he shoots webs. It's one of his defining characteristics, partly because he's a teenager with incredible powers so obviously he'd be a bit of a wise-ass, and partly because it keeps his enemies off-balance. Wit is just as much a part of Peter Parker as any of his other strengths. And, frankly, Tobey Maguire never cut the mustard on that front. Oh sure, the writers put in lines of varying quality for him to throw out, but Tobey's soft tones never put any zing on them. 

"Don't hurt me with your butter knife, Mr. Scary Carjacker"

Another aspect that Garfield captured perfectly without having to do anything was his size. He's a skinny, lanky kid. There have been many visual interpretations of Spidey over the 50+ years he's been around, but in my mind he'll always be on the smaller, slighter side. Sure, the spider bite gave him incredible strength, but he's still a string bean in my book. This physicality dovetails into another aspect of the character that I feel Marc Webb got more right than Sam Raimi: being a nimble little minx.

Don't think I have a hate on for Raimi's work, as I've been a fan of his for ages now. Army of Darkness remains one of my all-time favourite movies. But the stunt and wire work in his Spider-Man movies didn't capture that impossible-to-catch, 10x-the-agility-of-a-gymnast feeling that Spider-Man should have. The guy is slippery. That's how he survives half the time, because nearly all of his nemeses are huge compared to him. 

Yet another aspect that was improved was the sense of movement when Spidey is swinging through New York. I admit, a lot of this is due to the fact that technology continues to improve and the CGI in this film is superior to the original trilogy. Nevertheless, if you're looking for arguments as to why this movie should exist, it needs to be considered. 

Gwen Stacy > Mary Jane Watson. Controversy!

I was talking before about smart casting. Here again we have another example of why this movie is superior to the previous ones. No, not just because I like Emma Stone better than Kirsten Dunst or because I think she's the better actress (I do. And she is). The chemistry (ugh. more puns?) between Emma and Andrew is absolutely magnetic. They are the perfect high school couple.

Side Note: 

Another complaint fans had was the announcement of Emma Stone as Gwen Stacy. Not because they didn't like her, but because she had only been seen as a redhead and Gwen has always been blonde. The joke was on them though, because Emma is a natural blonde, and had kept getting cast for her red hair, so she'd just kept dying it.

I've always felt that Mary Jane Watson, for all her appealing qualities as a character, is not the right fit for Peter Parker because, as I said, Peter's a genius and that's hard to be around. In the case of Gwen Stacy, though, we have a woman who may be as smart, if not smarter than Peter. That's something. I prefer female characters to not rely solely on their feminine charms. And all of this is not to mention that something terrible hangs over the head of this girl's future for those who know the comic history. That immediately makes her a more interesting, more compelling addition to the movie franchise.
And then there's this guy:

This is not going to end well.

Again. Smart. Curt Connors is one of the most sympathetic villains in the Spider-Man universe, and having his story be tied to what happened to Peter's parents was an interesting take. Rhys Ifans gives a very solid performance – imbuing the character with equal parts tragedy and hubris. I've always liked his work, yes, starting with Notting Hill. The inclusion of The Lizard can't be wholly attributed to The Amazing Spider-Man as an advantage because any Spider-Man movie could have used the character. In fact, Sam Raimi did include the one-armed scientist in his series, he just never became a villain in those movies. But his use here was smart and well executed because his creation could be laid, partly, at Peter's feet which raised the stakes and made for more of an emotional punch. And everyone knows that Peter Parker is Marvel's punching bag. Everything bad always happens to him. And it's always his fault.

So to put all of this together, here's a list of things The Amazing Spider-Man did better (in this man's opinion) than the previous series:
• Mechanical Web Shooters
• Snark, vastly improved
• Agility, better realized
• Swinging, looks cooler
• Love interest, better chosen
• Villain, tied more to Hero's story
• 100% less Kirsten Dunst

Haha, okay that last one may being going a bit far, but I think the list speaks for itself. While this movie does not completely render the previous series obsolete, it does improve on it in virtually every single way. Except one. James Horner wrote a nice, appropriate superhero score for this film. But Danny Elfman's was better.

That's it. I hope you'll watch it. If you watched it, I hope you enjoyed it. If you enjoyed it, I hope this helps illuminate some of the reasons why that was. And with that, I'll leave you with a scene that pretty much sums all this up. Until next time, True Believers!

CROTCH!

My Name is Rick Ames
and I Approve of This Movie