SPOILERS THROUGHOUT THIS REVIEW
Back in 2010, it was announced that Sam Raimi's Spider-Man 4 was being scrapped and that the entire franchise was going to be rebooted with a new director, cast & story. And, like most people, I was of the opinion that this was a bad idea - it was too soon, the Spider-Man movies were really excellent (with the exception of 3) and should be left alone, etcetera etcetera.
However, when it was revealed that Andrew Garfield would be playing Peter Parker and that Marc Webb -- who directed one of my all time favourite films, (500) Days of Summer -- had signed on to direct, I was swayed and thought this film would be awesome. Plus, they scrapped Mary Jane in favour of Gwen Stacy, and Emma Stone had been cast in the role (and anybody who knows me well knows that I love Emma Stone.)So, I was pretty excited for The Amazing Spider-Man, and even though none of the trailers had me bugging out like Prometheus and The Dark Knight Rises, it was still one of my most anticipated films of 2012. Having now seen it (in IMAX 3D), I have to say that the film itself isn't the problem and is very, very good; it is Sony's interference where the problems lie.
First off, all the action sequences in the film are in the trailers. Like, all of them. There was no element of surprise during any of the scenes when the Lizard is trying to take over New York. The antidote that Spider-Man disperses into the sky, which ultimately saves the day, is in the trailer! Don't get me wrong, I understand that action sequences have to be shown in the trailer to draw in an audience, but to show pretty much everything is just a poor effort on Sony's part. Likewise, there are action sequences in the trailers that aren't in the movie! So, not only are the audience expecting sequences that haven't made it into the final cut, but all the scenes that have made the cut are in the trailers anyway. This is a classic example of when studios have more power than the director - Marc Webb isn't a big-shot director; he doesn't have a high status within the industry anyway, let alone in comparison to Sam Raimi, or even out of the Spider-Man franchise, directors like Ridley Scott and Christopher Nolan. Because of this, he essentially has no control how his film is marketed.
Take Prometheus or The Dark Knight Rises for example - the marketing for both these films have been so clever in terms of giving things away. Prometheus went down the viral route, releasing short films/promos leading up to the film itself, which was perfect, because people were intrigued by what was actually going to happen based on these viral videos. Similarly, The Dark Knight Rises has given absolutely nothing away in its trailer - it's not even clear who Marion Cotillard's character is (unless you've done your research). The prologue was cool, but it hasn't given away any of the plot for the film, so people are going in not really knowing the context in which things are happening, which is again, perfect. The reason this has been allowed to happen is because Ridley Scott & Christopher Nolan are very highly regarded in the film world, especially within the genres they are working in - Scott's previous two science fiction films are regarded as the best in history, and Nolan's Batman series and Inception have been commercial and critical successes - why would you mess with them? Because Marc Webb has only directed one film before The Amazing Spider-Man which was an indie sleeper hit, Sony hold all the power, and because of this, too much footage was released. This eventually did happened to Raimi too with Spider-Man 3, and look how that turned out...
Following on from this, another major problem was that Sony released way too many clips. Sleepy Skunk made an excellent supercut of all the footage released from The Amazing Spider-Man prior to its release, which equalled out at 25 minutes. That's a lot of material to release, considering the film is only 2 hours 15 minutes. This sounds long, but for a movie of such a grand scale, the less footage released, the better. I only watched five minutes of this supercut, simply because I didn't want things spoilt for me and had avoided watching all the released clips anyway for the exact same reason. But the fact that Sleepy Skunk made this supercut to show how much Sony had released from The Amazing Spider-Man before it was even released just proves that audiences would rather just see a couple of trailers of basically the same thing, rather than have too much being available to watch. And just on a side note, I think it's hilarious that Sony keep trying to take it down, considering they were the ones that released the clips in the first place.
Now, onto the film itself. The casting is absolutely perfect - Andrew Garfield is a much better Peter Parker than Tobey Maguire; he's sarcastic, charming, angsty (in a good way) and hot -- which is good for me because I have a weird crush on Peter Parker -- resembling the Peter Parker from the comics who everybody loved in the first place. Emma Stone is also excellent as Gwen Stacy, and the chemistry between the two characters is electric -- as you'd expect it to be, considering Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone are dating in real life -- and definitely a lot better than in Raimi's series, because Kirsten Dunst and Tobey Maguire hated each other. Martin Sheen and Sally Fields are also great as Uncle Ben and Aunt May, who were so annoying in Sam Raimi's series. Aunt May's hectoring made me want to gouge her eyes out as well as my own. And let's face it, any film with Martin Sheen in is worthy of a watch - what a legend. Rhys Ifans as the Lizard was fine - I have no complaints really, I'm just not a huge fan of the Lizard as a character & the special effects were a bit goofy.
In terms of directing, Marc Webb did a great job, particularly with the human moments. The quiet looks, the awkward exchanges and all that fun stuff were so well done, it almost got to the point where I just wanted to watch the human stuff rather than the Spidey stuff. That's arguably quite problematic for a Spider-Man film, as the appeal should predominantly be Spidey swinging around New York fighting bad guys. The action sequences aren't necessarily bad in this film, they just didn't have much impact because they've already been shown in the trailers. However, Webb did make this Spider-Man a lot more suspenseful than the previous instalments. For instance, the scene when Gwen is hiding in the cupboard at OsCorp waiting for the Lizard to arrive, is awesome - really horror movie-esque and because she was a sympathetic character, it was easy for people to fear for her safety. However, I did not feel that way when Spider-Man saves the little boy from the burning car, simply because the CGI was pants.
The sad thing about this as a comic book movie is that it doesn't really have an identity; there's nothing really iconic about it. Unlike in the first Spider-Man where you have the upside down kiss in the rain, the Green Goblin flying about, and the epic montage of Peter Parker creating his Spider-Man suit - scenes that I personally identify with Raimi's series - don't really exist in this film. It's not like the Batman movies where you can differentiate a Tim Burton interpretation to a Nolan interpretation. Apart from maybe all the shattered glass, there's nothing that really stands out as Marc Webb's Amazing Spider-Man series. Maybe that'll be more apparent in the sequels, but it is a shame that this film didn't have its own identity.
My biggest problem with the film is the editing, which I'd like to stress isn't Marc Webb's fault - it's Sony's, yet again. The tagline for this movie is 'The Untold Story', promising that this film would give us answers about Peter's parents and that perhaps it was his destiny to become Spider-Man through some sort of genetic mutation or something. After The Amazing Spider-Man was over, 'The Untold Story' is still to be told - we are only smidgens closer to finding out why Peter's parents disappeared, and still don't know if Peter is in fact special and destined to adopt these Spidey senses, or if it was just an accident. You could argue that the answers will be revealed in the sequels, but this was the film that promised to tell the untold story, not 'we'll start it, but you'll have to wait until the second and possibly the third film to get your answers'. However, I think this is because of last minute editing changes from Sony, which I will now illustrate.
PHOTO ABOVE COURTESY OF BADASSDIGEST.COM
In May, these photos were released by Sony, clearly showing a confrontation between Dr Connors/The Lizard, Spider-Man & Dr Ratha. Yes, Dr Ratha, do you remember him? He's the guy who works for Norman Osborn and knows that Connors is working with cross-species DNA merging. He's also the guy who the Lizard attacks in the cab and then just disappears for the rest of the film. But this obviously wasn't meant to be the last time we saw Dr Ratha, as these photos show. Clearly a confrontation between Connors and Ratha takes place in the sewers, probably about Peter Parker, which Spider-Man arrives in half-way through, eliciting to all hell breaking loose and Ratha's demise. It was explicitly mentioned by Ratha in the trailer 'Do you think what happened to you, Peter, was an accident?', but was completely cut from the movie! And because we never actually found out why, his death was axed and he was just left in his cab. SONY, WHAT ARE YOU DOING? Why would you cut the untold story, the story you've been promising us, from the final cut of the movie?
Likewise, the whole storyline of looking for Uncle Ben's killer, which is the main reason why Peter becomes Spider-Man, is just forgotten. It's like you could just tap Peter on the shoulder and be like 'Err, dude. You still need to catch Uncle Ben's killer...' and he'd be like 'Oh shit, yeah. I still need to do that!' I know that Captain Stacy said that Spider-Man wasn't helping people and was just hunting these guys for vengeance, and that's probably why he stopped, but it just didn't have any closure whatsoever. Whether or not that was an editing goof, I don't know, but I felt there was no tying up of that story, and it just fell off Peter's radar like it was nothing. When Martin Sheen is your uncle, it DOES NOT slip off your radar. Ever. Have you not seen the man put on a jacket?
Another thing that also annoyed me was the post-credits scene. Usually Marvel delivers on the post-credit scene and you're pumped for the next film. This post-credit scene however, WAS IN THE TRAILER. I'm sorry, but that is just lazy and cheap. How can you get excited for something that you've seen in the trailer and were expecting to see in the movie? I don't care if they are setting up the sequel - these questions were meant to be answered in this film, not hinted at for future films. And it's pretty obvious that Connors is talking to Norman Osborn. Who else could it be? He was mentioned at least 2 or 3 times in the movie, and Connors works at OsCorp - who else could it be? Also, it would make sense if they're going with the whole Gwen Stacy storyline... So yeah, my bet is that it is Norman Osborn. Some people are claiming it's Mysterio - just go home.
So overall, I did really enjoy The Amazing Spider-Man, but felt it suffered due to Sony's interference and their primary goal of making sure they didn't lose the rights to Spider-Man. If Marc Webb had been given full reign, I think this film would have been tighter narratively, and the marketing wouldn't have ruined the impact of the movie, especially the action sequences. The cast is better this time around, and it's not as cheesy as Raimi's series, which is always good. Bring on the sequels, that's what I say, 'cause I want to still hear this untold story. Or maybe a Director's Cut...
The Amazing Spider-Man IMAX screen before the film started.
Martin Sheen's Jacket Flip in Badlands
Badass Digest Article
The Sleepy Skunk Ultimate Super Preview
