EOTM! Online

By Greg Reifsteck

Twitter: @MovieManiacEOTM – Facebook.com/eotmmoviemaniac

Dramatic director Webb cannot build suspense with the same old action hits

Every time I saw the trailer for the Marvel Studios reboot of The Amazing Spider-Man, I wondered: Why? Do we really need to go back to the beginning of this story we have seen time and time again.  Is Marvel really greedy enough to try and sell us the same car with just a new glossy paint job and tinted windows?

(c) 2012 Marvel Studios

Slapping the word “Amazing” on what was a pretty promising franchise is as bad as putting “New and Improved” on a box of detergent, or Taco Bell wrapping a taco in a Doritos shell.  But, after the studio forced the imaginative Sam Raimi into directing the lackluster Spider-Man 3, I guess they were just desperate enough to shove more of the same product down the moviegoers throats.

Enter Marc Webb, who directed one of my favorite movies of 2009, 500 Days of Summer, a sweet, quirky dramedy that was not only colorful cinematically.  It also proved this young filmmaker was able to develop rich and vibrant characters and mine their everyday emotions into a realistic story of infatuation and eventual heartbreak.

So I guess Marvel thought, hey, our last dramatic director pretending to be an action director experiment didn’t go quite horrible enough (Ang Lee directing 2003’s cerebral snoozefest  Hulk), let’s try it again with Webb and our Spidey franchise.

The Amazing Spider-Man is not a bad movie; it just feels like I am watching a concert of the new Journey.  Yes that Filipino dude sure sounds like Steve Perry. Hell yes I am going to pump my fist when I hear Wheel in the Sky, but in my heart I know that it isn’t Steve freaking Perry.

Webb throws The Social Network’s Andrew Garfield into the Peter Parker role for this version, with a shiny-looking unitard and some even slicker spider web shooting technology to boot. He puts the socially awkward character in high school and gives him the love interest of science major Gwen Stacy (played by one of my movie girlfriends, Emma Stone).

We go through the origin story motions, this time Peter’s father is experimenting on fusing animal and human DNA in an attempt to heal people, and give them better adaptability.  One day while playing hide and seek with a young Peter, Mr. Parker’s study is broken into.  Soon Peter’s father is dropping him off at Uncle Ben (Martin Sheen) and Aunt May’s (Sally Field) for good.   Nothing creates a super hero more than parental abandonment.

One day the basement floods and Peter finds some of his father’s old research, a mysterious equation, and a picture of Dr. Curt Connors (Rhys Ifans). Soon Peter is sneaking into an internship program at Oscorp, his father’s old company, and befriending Dr. Connors.  Of course, Peter gives his father’s equation to the doctor, to help him regenerate his missing arm.  But soon, like all science experiments in comic book movies, it goes awry, with Connors turning into a giant lizard and terrorizing the city.

Here is where Webb gets it right.  He knows characters, and the innocent love story between Peter and Gwen is the amazing part of this movie. He knows that silence speaks volumes, and the scene where they finally have their meet-cute Webb uses it very well.  They awkwardly stare and try to form words but cannot because they are both nervous. It’s really cute stuff.  Stone is a vision as always, with her quivering lip and tell-tale eyes.

Then the action cranks up after Uncle Ben is shot and Parker goes on a vigilante spree.  Those scenes are quite fun as well.  Even though Spidey soaring through the air over the city looks clunky compared to the Oscar-winning visual effects work Star War’s vet John Dykstra did for Raimi’s first two Spider-Man films.

Garfield really goes for it in the acting department and I actually liked him more than Tobey Maguire  Yes, he overdoes it in some scenes, but he really masters the spirit of the role.  Maguire always seemed too silent and brooding to me.  Garfield really goes balls-out with the emotion of the role.

The third act of the film is where things get moving too fast and the paint starts to chip off of this old jalopy of a comic book franchise.  We really get to see the surface paint and primer of lazy writing.  The Lizard is a horrible villain and adds no excitement with its fake CGI destruction.  The scenes in which he fights Spider-Man are very by-the-numbers and will have your mind wandering.  Nothing really dazzles in any of the effects scenes down the stretch, including a ridiculous and pointless King Kong-esque sequence involving a weak Spider-Man using cranes to make it to the top of Oscorp to save the city from the ugly fake-looking Lizard.

There is even an allegedly suspenseful bridge sequence in which Spider-Man attempts to save people from their Lizardly doom that falls flat on its face with the same-old, same-old.  Raimi showed wicked imagination in all of his Spider-Man films; even the last one that the studio got a hold of a ruined the third act.  Hey, what a coincidence.  Maybe Marvel needs to take an Artist’s Way course in how to keep people compelled until the final scene.

Webb doesn’t seem fully to blame for the flameout down the stretch.  He simply isn’t an action director.  He is a good storyteller and is magnificent with actors.  The scenes between Garfield and Stone are simple and poetic.  The interaction of Peter Parker and his Aunt and  Uncle are understated and honest.  His casting choices are spot on. But when it comes to making movie magic in the action sequences he just doesn’t have the chops. The result leaves a lot to be desired.

Marvel Studios needs to stop being a Jay Leno and let the Spider-Man franchise go.  Stop pulling the same old car out of the garage and try to make it flashy by parading it around countless times. They smartly did their Avengers assimilation earlier this year with breathtaking results.  They put some their prized characters in the hands of Joss Whedon, a man that was born with a comic book in his hand and the right mind to pull off action sequences that tell a story. The result was a $600 million dollar payday.  If that is the formula for success, Marvel, then I say stick with the veteran directors and simply introduce us to some new exciting characters from your arsenal.  Last I heard you have quite a few to choose from.