Cast: I like Andrew Garfield. He was very good in The Social Network and Never Let Me Go, and frankly, he seems like a likable guy. I think he is a great casting choice for Spider-Man. Perhaps he's a little old if they are keeping him in high school, but whatever. I like Dennis Leary. I like Martin Sheen. I like Rhys Ifans. I like Sally Field. I like Marc Webb. I like (500) Days of Summer maybe a little too much and never once thought he was inherently a bad choice to direct this. Most of all, I like Emma Stone. She's basically my go-to Hollywood gold standard these days. Superbad, The House Bunny, Ghosts of Girlfriends Past, Paperman, Zombieland, Easy A, Crazy, Stupid Love, The Help. I seen almost all of her movies. Many I love. All I think she is great in.
Plot: The Spider-Man story is probably the most interesting of any of Marvel's, especially presenting to mainstream audiences. Nerdy guy becomes superhero. It's a tale of loss, redemption, and duty that is a crowd-pleaser the second it's put into a story board. Ten years ago, Sam Rami broke records and changed the summer movie formula with this franchise. The goodwill built up by that movie and almost all the Marvel movies that followed will surely make this a blockbuster.
Technology: This movie looks good. It looks slick. It has a dark spin that complements the campy brightness of the earlier movies and sets it apart as something completely different. I saw it in 2D, but I'm sure this movie is probably one of the better uses of 3D out there. Everything about it is perfect for 3D with the high flying web crawling and what not.
Elephant in the Room: I feel like there's something you are telling me. There is.
To Sum Things Up:
I haven't disliked an action movie this much since Transformers 2.
I have a known low threshold for movies. In back to back week I saw John Carter and American Reunion and didn't bash either. I saw Battleship and had favorable thoughts toward it. I can't give this movie the same treatment. It is bad. Not the bad where it's so bad that it's good. This is just missing the mark in almost every way and through the sheer force off all the things that should make it great, making its way to the end.
Cast Pt2: Andrew Garfield plays a badass loner Spider-Man who is also a sort of "child of destiny", which is about my least favorite trope of all time. Emma Stone's character is just stupid. She gets some moments out of it because she's fucking Emma Stone and she's great, but her character exists to fawn over supposed nerd, Andrew Garfield, and that's about it. Martin Sheen gets about 10 good lines before dying* it a way that is devoid of any emotion. Sally Field basically plays the mom from Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close without the part at the end where Sandra Bullock proves she's not that dim-witted after all. Dennis Leary is completely wasted. So very very wasted given his proven talents. Rhys Ifans plays a villain who never is given proper motivation for his actions, nor does he even seem to believe his reasons for doing what he does.
*Uncle Ben's death is not a spoiler.
Plot Pt2: My cousin described this as "trying to fit 4 hours of plot into 2" and that is completely correct. Except, most movies do this by shortchanging different plot points, which this did as well. What sets it apart though is how there are moments where I actually believed I'd fallen asleep and missed something. The escalation of the Spider-Man manhunt and the rise of the Lizard as a villain happen out of almost nowhere.
WTF Moments:
-There is a scene with the cranes of New York that had me dying from suppressed laughter. It is the equivalent of in the Care Bears movie, the Care Bears coming together to save the day with kindness. I cannot fathom the reasoning that led to that scene getting the go-ahead.
-Since when do high schoolers 1) have real internships and 2) have internships basically running the floor at major technology companies?
-If I'm noticing continuity errors like Peter having the skateboard, then not, then having it again, that's a bad sign. I'm pretty oblivious to things.
To Sum Things Up Again:
I'm sad I didn't like this movie more. All the pieces were in place for it to be 2nd in a string of superhero movies that would save what has been a pretty blase summer. Instead, this is the movie that will make me appreciate Whedon and Nolan's work this summer. Based on the number of times that I was alone in my chuckling in the theater, I may be alone in my opinions here, but I have no idea how. This was a really misguided and sloppy movie. Even at the "spectacle" or "event" level I find this wanting.
Verdict (?): Strongly Don't Recommend
No comments:
Post a Comment