Marc Webb knows how to sling a movie together, he really does, and he seems to have honed his skills with each project he’s worked on; obviously that’s what any good director should do but the sheer amount of improvement to his stylistic vision is spectacular.
Among the many faults with the original Spider-Man trilogy, the one that most stood out was its lack of any recognisable Peter Parker. Fortunately this is very much not the case in The Amazing Spider-Man; Andrew Garfield’s interpretation of the awkward, dorky teenager with an inferiority complex and immense fear of women is perfect. Not just good, genuinely flawless. Not only in personality either; the stances and movements when in costume are so accurate they may very well have used the comic panels as storyboards.
Emma Stone plays a spectacular Gwen Stacy by highlighting the character’s sweetness and innocence by balancing it with a fiery spark of straight-up coolness; and Martin Sheen’s Uncle Ben was lovable and whimsical enough to compensate for the overly familiar part he plays in Spider-Man’s origin tale.
The costume department was particularly attentive by including a number of Gwen Stacy’s outfits from the comics, and the fantasy/sci-fi element introduced in this series with Rhys Ifans’ Doctor Curt Connors’ transformation into The Lizard means that we might well be lucky enough to see some of the more phantastic villains from Spider-Man’s rogues’ gallery in the future.
But you aren’t reading to hear me fanboy over the smaller details, which unfortunately are some of the best parts of the movie. As a film, however, The Amazing Spider-Man is flawed. The breath-taking neon cityscape environment Web-Head swings through is only just enough to make the audience forgive the jerky script. Which I can only assume was at some point, during pre-production, made to face a wall while it was riddled with a machine gun spray of clichés.
The exploration of Peter’s parents is intriguing enough to feel like just another Spider-Man story but relying on this continuing mystery could be dangerous if there isn’t enough weight behind the reveal of what actually happened to them or the build-up. It could run the risk of being a little too “Obi-Wan never told you what happened to your father.”
The problematic script may have something to do with Steve Kloves who worked as a writer on the Harry Potter films. When a script needs to be accessible to children, his work comes off as too safe, sugary and corny, and when films have a distinctive The Crow-esque (1994) dark flavour like this one it might pay in the long run to be a little braver and edgier; they shouldn’t be afraid to show blood, they just need to be tasteful with how they show it.
The last real issue people may have with the film is that The Lizard is horrible. Every single thing they could have made cool or creepy about the character, the filmmakers went the other direction with. The Lizard could have had the freaky twitchy way of moving like regular lizards have; but instead he plodded along on two feet. If the studio wanted the villain to be bi-pedal then why not make him a little T-Rex-ish? And instead of a sinister guttural hissing voice throwing out the odd word relating to his objective, we had a big scaly man talking with Rhys Ifans’ voice only slightly gruffer.
The Amazing Spider-Man has only a couple of flaws but some viewers may find that they run a little too deep for their taste. Marc Webb made some very interesting decisions in terms of camera work, and his visual style is, along with the performances, one of the most sensational things about the film. And now that the awkwardness of trying to fit two origin stories for the same character into one decade is over and done with, we can look forward to the future sequels happily.
Author Biography
Matt Cazwell has studied film for a number of years now, He grew up watching The Lion King endlessly on repeat and branched out from there. He wants to prove that silly comedies and tacky horrors are just as emotionally valid as tragic dramas and Oscar winning thrillers.
Film Details
The Amazing Spider-Man (2012)
USA
Director Marc Webb
Runtime 136 minutes
With Andrew Garfield, Emma Stone, Rhys Ifans
