In 1989, Tim Burton brought forth the
phenomenally popular Batman to the screen. It was dark and exciting,
but it was also heavy on the cartoon like nature of the piece, with
the retro-40's look and colorful set pieces. When Christopher Nolan
rebooted the franchise with Batman Begins, it was grounded in a more
realistic world that jettisoned as much of the zany nature of the
first in order to cement the drama in something closer to our world.
Why am I bringing this up? Because
this is the exact same thing that has happened with Spider-Man. When
Sam Raimi made his 2002 version of the wall crawler, it was
spectacular albeit a bit on the cartoonish side. If you want proof,
you need look no further than that the Green Goblin wearing, as Weird
Al called it, a “dumb Power Rangers mask.” The directing too was
filled with unusual angles and energy. And the score for both Burton
and Raimi's movie was done by the Simpsons composer Danny Elfman.
None of this is necessarily a criticism of Raimi's Spider-Man, which
I quite enjoy. But it is important to juxtapose that to Marc Webb's
The Amazing Spider-Man. Webb, whose only other feature was the
fantastic (500) Days of Summer, chose to take the Christopher Nolan
route, toning down the broad and the load for the subtle and the
serious.
That is not to say that The Amazing
Spider-Man is boring. Far from it. Webb knows that he needs to
infuse the film with lots of spectacle, but he does not do anything
that breaks the character's believability The story retells the
origin of Marvel's most famous hero. This time he is played by up
and comer Andrew Garfield, who was the best thing in The Social
Network. (I also find it interesting that both Nolan and Webb hired
Brits to play such quintessentially American characters. Peter gets
his powers, gets his motivation, comes up with his costume, and
fights the big green bad guy.
Comparisons to Raimi's Spider-Man are
inevitable and are more necessary than comparisons to Burton and
Nolan's films. With the Batman movies, many of the origin elements
are told non-linearly, so the audience is not sure what comes next.
But The Amazing Spider-Man follows the same story trajectory as the
original. You almost have to forcibly push Raimi's Spider-Man out of
your mind in order to enjoy this film. This is the movie's biggest
deficit, because the echoes of the first story are so strong, that
they constantly push in and remove some of the tension.
But Webb does offer us a few bits that
make the film seem a bit fresher. First of all he introduces us to
Peter's parents and shows us the night they leave his life. This
theme of parental abandonment gives us new dimension to the
character. Also gone are the organic webs, and instead Peter must
invent and create the mechanical ones as he did in the comics. This
also adds a distinguishing layer. While Maguire's Spider-Man was
also a genius, he mostly expressed this in a few lines of dialogue.
Garfield's Spider-Man shows us his intellect, which makes for a more
powerful character statement. It also solidifies his relationship
with Dr. Conners (Rhys Ivans), the amputee who works with Peter to
come up with a serum to regrow his limbs. The relationship is
paternal and affectionate and grounds the story in a bit of sadness
when Conners choices turn him into a monster.
And special note must be made of Emma
Stone as Gwen Stacy.
In the original, Mary Jane was supposed to be
the inapproachable, popular girl in school, even though she lived
next door. Gwen is much more real and approachable. She was girl
you went to school with who was in the honors classes and would go
out of her way to be nice to you, just because that's how she was.
Stone captures that perfectly. Webb flexes his romantic comedy
muscles and finds the truth in how Peter and Gwen communicate (or in
one very funny scene, don't communicate). Stone is in every way the idealistic school girl, down to her knee-high socks, but never plays it as immature or helpless. She is convincingly tender and resolute. Her love story with Peter is one of the best parts of the film. Dennis Leary as Gwen
Stacy's father, Cap. Ned Stacy, swaggers into the scene with the grit
and scowl of not only an overworked NYPD officer, but the dad of a
teenage daughter who is dating a seeming loser. Martin Sheen also
does admirable work as Uncle Ben.
Another notable departure from the
traditional super-hero fare is the preference of practical effects
over digital. Don't misunderstand, there are tones of CGI set
pieces. But a large portion of Peter's action scenes are done with
what looks like a combination of wire-work and parkour. This
actually makes the film much more thrilling as we see real people
leaping and swinging from large heights and witness the grace and
agility of the actors. And when the CGI is used it is spectacular,
especially set against the heroic score by James Horner.
Garfield also delivers Spider-Man's
trademark humor in a way that keeps you laughing at the joke but not
at the movie. The movie is serious, but not humorless. This
Spider-Man feels like a real teenager with all of the angst, passion,
and miss-steps that they are wont to make. He begins his crusade
first out of blind vengeance for his Uncle. But then he evolves to
doing it out of a sense of duty. But Webb so smartly lays out a
conflict between Peter's brain and his heart. And we can see how
this conflict will continue to come up in the next film. Those
familiar with the comic know what is to come and it is all the more
heartbreaking because of the affections we have for the character's
in Webb's movie.
Raimi's Spider-Man, like Burton's
Batman is a modern-day classic and a necessary step in the evolution
of the super-hero genre. But with all due respect, Webb has given us
a Spider-Man more tangible and more real, but also one more amazing.
4.5 out of 5 stars
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