Amazing Spiderman

[oxcoug]

Better than the scene wherein metal reptiles flying through the sky are felled by ScarJo's pistol that fires regular bullets and eye patch dude's bow that shoots regular arrows?

Commando is correct.

ScarJo's inexplicable super hero outfitting and the regular arrows dude just make the whole thing seem sillier than even a CGI superhero show shld.

[Green Lantern]

For me, this movie succeeded because I actually liked and cared about Garfield's Peter Parker, something that I found hard to do with Toby Maguire. Aunt May and Uncle Ben seemed more like real people to me, too. And Emma Stone is just great.

For me if I connect emotionally with the characters, the story worked.

Yeah, can't really argue with that reasoning. I generally feel the same way and the two leads were definitely the glue that held the movie together. It's too bad the script, the direction and the antagonist weren't up to the same caliber.

[LA Ute]

Yeah, can't really argue with that reasoning. I generally feel the same way and the two leads were definitely the glue that held the movie together. It's too bad the script, the direction and the antagonist weren't up to the same caliber.

I think you, Dan and I are all right. (Isn't it nice when that can happen?) It's all a matter of how you approach the movie.

I agree that the antagonist (Lizard) wasn't as compelling as some other Marvel villains, but I saw this more as a movie about Peter Parker than about the villain (as opposed to the first movie's excessive focus, IMO, on the Green Goblin).

Spoiler for Spoiler alert:

BTW, I never did figure out what happened to the Arab-seeming guy who was crossing the bridge with the serum, on the way to delivering it to his mysterious employer, and who was the target of the Lizard's first rampage. Did he end up in the river? That whole plot line just kind of died, and I am betting, with you, that it ended up on the cutting room floor.

As for the script, I also see your point, but I brushed aside the plot device about Peter's parents as just another interesting take on that part of the story. (I don't recall the early comics ever talking about his parents much at all, and Uncle Ben was always kind of a cipher. So the writer was pretty much drawing on blank canvas, which is OK, I think.) Again, just an "eye of the viewer" thing.

BTW, back in the day, Aunt May was kind of a stock little old lady character whom Steve Ditko drew as kind of odd-looking and very elderly. The Sally Field portrayal was much more human and appealing. I liked that.

I thought the direction was fine but I usually don't have a great eye for that. I'm interested in what you saw as sub-par.

All in all, I really enjoyed this one and consumed an entire bag of popcorn by myself -- always a sign that I am having a good time at the movies.

[Green Lantern]

I thought the direction was fine but I usually don't have a great eye for that. I'm interested in what you saw as sub-par.

I have to be somewhat cautious here so it doesn't sound like I didn't like the movie (because I did!) but my main problems could probably be boiled down to story structure and the action scenes. On the story side, I thought they kind of botched Peter Parker's transition from geek to hero (although I loved some of the little touches, like the discovery of his powers on the subway.) To me, the Spider-Man story is all about Uncle Ben's death and Peter's responsibility for it, making Peter "aware at last that in this world, with great power there must also come--great responsibility!" That's the moment that the hero known as Spider-Man is born and it's an emotionally resonant one.

But that's not what we get in the new movie. Instead, Spider-Man goes on a vengeance bender chasing after people who may have killed his uncle, eventually turning into his heroic self somewhere after getting lectured by Captain Stacy and saving the kid on the bridge (great scene BTW.) Maybe the transition happened in some of the scenes that didn't make the final cut. Regardless, it serves to blunt the emotional impact of his transformation. Compare the scene of Garfield overhearing that the perp has a tattoo on his hand to the look on Tobey Maguire's face when he realizes the identity of Uncle Ben's killer. Night and Day.

As for the action scenes in the new movie--I enjoyed them and thought they were serviceable but they lacked the stylishness that a distinctive visual director like Sam Raimi brought to the original two movies. Watch the extended fight scene with Doctor Octopus in the second movie, starting on the clock tower and ending on the train. Shifting perspectives, off-kilter angles, whip pans, the camera always moving, zooming in and out, roaming around yet always clearly showing what's happening. Now, it's a bit of an unfair comparison because I consider that scene one of the greatest in cinema, but it set a bar for Spidey action scenes that I don't think this new movie reaches.

[LA Ute]

I have to be somewhat cautious here so it doesn't sound like I didn't like the movie (because I did!) but my main problems could probably be boiled down to story structure and the action scenes. On the story side, I thought they kind of botched Peter Parker's transition from geek to hero (although I loved some of the little touches, like the discovery of his powers on the subway.) To me, the Spider-Man story is all about Uncle Ben's death and Peter's responsibility for it, making Peter "aware at last that in this world, with great power there must also come--great responsibility!" That's the moment that the hero known as Spider-Man is born and it's an emotionally resonant one.

But that's not what we get in the new movie. Instead, Spider-Man goes on a vengeance bender chasing after people who may have killed his uncle, eventually turning into his heroic self somewhere after getting lectured by Captain Stacy and saving the kid on the bridge (great scene BTW.) Maybe the transition happened in some of the scenes that didn't make the final cut. Regardless, it serves to blunt the emotional impact of his transformation. Compare the scene of Garfield overhearing that the perp has a tattoo on his hand to the look on Tobey Maguire's face when he realizes the identity of Uncle Ben's killer. Night and Day.

As for the action scenes in the new movie--I enjoyed them and thought they were serviceable but they lacked the stylishness that a distinctive visual director like Sam Raimi brought to the original two movies. Watch the extended fight scene with Doctor Octopus in the second movie, starting on the clock tower and ending on the train. Shifting perspectives, off-kilter angles, whip pans, the camera always moving, zooming in and out, roaming around yet always clearly showing what's happening. Now, it's a bit of an unfair comparison because I consider that scene one of the greatest in cinema, but it set a bar for Spidey action scenes that I don't think this new movie reaches.

Those are fair criticisms. I also thought the obsessive hunt for Ben's killer was a needless detour. As for the power-responsibility theme, I guess I was just tired of that (to me the Toby Maguire versions overdid it), so I didn't miss it. Not a perfect superhero movie, but pretty darn good and much better than The Avengers.

[UtahDan]

Here is a question/criticism I had. When Peter first gets bit and is asking about symptoms, Lizard guy tells him that the problem is the decay rate (something like that) and that none of the subjects ever survived. This made me think they were going to take the plot in the direction of Peter dying if he couldn't come up with the formula to stabilize himself. Having eleventy billion spiders on hand that have never turned anyone into a spidey before only makes sense to me if everyone is afraid that it is a death sentence. But they never went anywhere with that as related to Peter.

[Green Lantern]

Not a perfect superhero movie, but pretty darn good and much better than The Avengers.

Blasphemer! Avengers rules!