Although I am not a fan of comic books themselves, I seem to enjoy the film versions. Films such as Superman and Batman have kept me entertained for many years and I recall enjoying the first Spiderman starring Tobey Maguire which was released in 2002. I don’t remember watching the second (which some critics claim is the best) and I never saw the third.
However, I was looking forward to this version, Andrew Garfield is an interesting actor and I have liked everything that Emma Stone has been in recently.
The film is a reboot of the Spiderman origins story and seeks to cast a little more light on the disappearance of the parents of Peter Parker (Andrew Garfield) and in particular the work of his father.
After the disappearance of his parents, Parker is brought up by his Uncle Ben (Martin Sheen) and his Aunt May (Sally Fields). He is a typical teenager in that he has concerns about school, girls and bullies.
The story really starts with the discovery of his father’s briefcase which contains papers which reveal his work with another scientist, the one-armed, Dr Curt Connors (Rhys Ifans). The papers reveal how to regenerate parts of the human body using DNA from other animals, specifically lizards.
In order to meet Dr Connors, Parker blags his way as an intern at the company that Dr Connors works at, OsCorp where he finds genetically modified spiders and consequently gets bitten by one of them.
The story goes on to show how Parker copes with his new superpowers in both school and at home. He then decides to meet Dr Connors, to explain who he is and to give him the papers written by his father. The papers turn out to be the final jigsaw piece for Dr Connors being able to create the formula which enable him to create a limb to replace his missing arm.
The film moves on as the formula goes wrong and instead of just creating the missing limb, it takes over the whole of Dr Connor’s body and turns him into very angry lizard hellbent on destructing the city. Obviously the only person who can save the city is Spiderman.
The main problem I have with this film is its complete lack of originality. There is nothing here that I hadn’t seen in other films and this, in my opinion, is its major flaw. The cast are good, Garfield is excellent as the teenage Parker but I did feel that both Stone and Ifans were completely wasted in their roles. Stone had very little to do part from being disapproving at times and Ifan’s villain had no real depth, reasoning or bite.
For me, some of the best films are about good vs evil. This film was very much ‘meh’ vs ‘meh’. The villain was totally lacking in any villainousness qualities, particularly when you compare him to Willem Dafoe in the first Spiderman film, who was excellent. Garfield was great playing the troubled teenager, but less great when playing the superhero and I can’t quite put my finger on why.
As per my film policy, I did not watch the film in 3D, but in 2D. However, I can see that it would have looked great in 3D, particularly the swinging through the streets scenes. But unfortunately this was not really enough.
I love Martin Sheen in anything and he was great as Uncle Ben and it’s been a while since I’ve seen Sally Fields in anything, so it was great to see her too.
Verdict: A hyped-up film that didn’t deliver in terms of original story or providing an engaging villain. A stellar cast that didn’t have too much to work with which leaves a rather disappointing film. A real shame.
Hmm disagree with you a bit on this one (as I did with the Simpsons Movie ;) I kind of agree with Mark Kermode's comments on this one and his continuing criticism of 3d - think he said this was the best one after the 2nd original one.
ReplyDeleteA lot of people think Maguire plays the geek well but Spiderman very badly and Garfield plays Spiderman better and less of the geek. The problem is that the original was on TV after I watched the remake and there is no contest, I think Garfield basically is just better at acting than Maguire.
Spiderman is meant to be a wise cracking cocky character in the comics who talks a lot- Maguire never brought that as excellently as Garfield did in the remake. Maguire played Spiderman like Michael Keaton played Batman. I also like how they updated geek to 'geek chic' and made him into an outsider but a cool outsider whose intelligence is more apparent in this film.
I totally disagree with Emma Stone's character analysis - Gwen Stacey's character was always meant to be more intellectual than Mary-Jane Watson's so they reflected that in the remake and she actually does a hell lot more than Kirsten Dunst in the previous spidey films who just plays an annoying damsel in distress (i.e. Gwen gets involved in trying to save spiderman a few times and ultimately tells spidey to politely piss off when he asks her to obey her and run away from the lab instead of producing an antidote - she's a much stronger female lead).
Also I was geekily excited about the fact that they got the webbing right i.e. peter parker is meant to have invented bands that shoot out artificial webbing and not what they did in the original which was freakishly weird i.e. have webbing come out from his body. I also did like the skate boarding scenes because it gave a bit of integrity to how the hell he suddenly manages to just swing around from side to side and upside out - he just miraculously does it in the original.
I think Ifans did an ok job, the Lizard is not meant to be as an iconic villain as Goblin so he portrayed the jekyl and hyde character quite well, we were never meant to have hated him, we were meant to see him as an unfortunate victim of tasting selfishness that posed a threat.
The third Spiderman film wasn't very good as it was the last one and they put far too much in one film. The reboot has restored simplicity which is good. Also call me old fashioned but the romance between Garfield and Stone was believable where as Dunst and Maguire - there didn't feel like there was any spark and it was too 'disney' for my liking.
But I'm not saying it is the most amazing film ever. It is nowhere in the same league as Batman Begins as a reboot, the only thing it shares with that film is that the actor who plays the superhero has played that character best to date.
My other criticism is timing... Any other time in the future and this would have been amazing but in a year when you have the Avengers and the third Batman film which are widely anticipated as the superhero films to watch this year, it just seems too crowded for a spidey reboot. It kind of just feels like the old trilogy needs a mourning period before rebooting it again. I wanted to dislike this film but couldn't as the central characters did a much better job at acting.
The original spiderman film was a very very very very very long wait for people so naturally it will have a special place for everyone i.e. finally the spiderman film has arrived! There was never going to be that same feeling for this film.
My other minor criticisms - the soundtrack is not as iconic as the original and no intelligent computer geek would use 'bing' as a search engine instead of 'google' - I noticed that straight away in the film and I'm glad another critic commented on it with the same thought: 'product placement'! Wtf Garfield - you founded Facebook in The Social Network...