The Amazing Spider-Man

[Jim Shorts]

For those saying it was dumb he didn't use his phone to call for help when Uncle Ben died, you gotta realize most people do not think clearly when in such panic. It's just natural instinct to call out for help. What I thought was stupid about that scene was the sudden disappearance of everyone else on the street, from the cashier chasing him to the half dozen cars and people he bumped into. Where the hell did they all go?! :POverall, B- for me. As someone else said, I wish they would have made Spidey a bit stronger and that he didnt depend on his webs as much. The scenes with the cranes helping him get to Oscorp was pure cheese, almost made me throw up!

[The Dark Alfred]

It didn't get better after the second viewing. The score did, it's good, not as emotional and powerful as Elfman's take however. I had serious problem with the facing. There were only 30 minutes worth of action. Lizard fight one is boring and why the hell does he leave his camera there if he wanted him too know it's him? Why put on the mask then? The school fight was cool, especially the Stan Lee cameo, but the choreography wasn't great, as I said before the fights scenes in The Incredible Hulk were better. The final battle is just poor, lacks of real punch. We knew that the captain would die from the trailer and I can't believe that Sony still ramping down the "Secret will be revealed" ad shit when it's clearly not the case. That plot line, along with finding Uncle Ben's killer is forgotten.

[ecstasy]

It didn't get better after the second viewing. The score did, it's good, not as emotional and powerful as Elfman's take however. I had serious problem with the facing. There were only 30 minutes worth of action. Lizard fight one is boring and why the hell does he leave his camera there if he wanted him too know it's him? Why put on the mask then? The school fight was cool, especially the Stan Lee cameo, but the choreography wasn't great, as I said before the fights scenes in The Incredible Hulk were better. The final battle is just poor, lacks of real punch. We knew that the captain would die from the trailer and I can't believe that Sony still ramping down the "Secret will be revealed" ad shit when it's clearly not the case. That plot line, along with finding Uncle Ben's killer is forgotten.

lol he totally forgot about uncle ben. I knew something was missing from that second half.

[raniE]

I know a lot of people are fed up with origin stories, and I'm usually one of them. But if you are going to tell an origin story, I think that the way to do it is either show it during the opening credits, or do it this way, which is to make the entire film into the origin. The 2002 Spider-Man was basically an hour of the origins of Spider-Man and Green Goblin, followed by another hour of superhero/supervillain confrontation. This film is origin pretty much all the way through.I really liked the more modern take on nerdy Peter Parker. Sure, he's a science geek, but he isn't a complete dweeb, he has a skateboard and wears contacts. And he stands up to Flash Thompson's bullying even before he gets his powers (although he gets his ass beat for it). I think showing a different type of science geek than the stereotypical social outcast without social skills is more important than preserving complete fidelity to the source material (not that there is much, there's only a total of like two pages of Peter Parker at high school before he got his powers in Amazing Fantasy 15. Maybe this draws more on the Ultimate version). And I really liked the relationship between Pete and Flash and how it develops. Good stuff.It was also nice to see a geek who wasn't harboring a secret crush on the beautiful cheerleader, or head jock's girlfriend, or similar. Instead, it's mutual attraction pretty much immediately, and both of them are real smart people. Oh, and it was great that instead of hiding his identity from Gwen for no real reason, he came out and told her on their first real date.It's interesting that they draw out Peter's realization about what great power entails. First, after uncle Ben gets shot, Pete goes on a vengeance quest, going after any criminal who looks similar to the thief who shot uncle Ben. Then, Captain Stacy calls him out on this (or rather, calls out Spider-Man on this while talking about the vigilante with Peter), and Peter then goes and saves people in a situation unconnected to the search for his uncle's killer, and then more stuff happens throughout the film, and when the film ends on uncle Ben's voice mail to Peter, it feels like the last pieces are falling into place to make him Spider-Man, rather than it just being Peter reiterating something we already got halfway through the film. And the best part is that Pete never catches the guy who shot uncle Ben. Because that particular guy isn't really important anymore, as Pete learns throughout the film.I liked the evolution of the suit, going from just street-clothes, to adding a mask with sunglasses, to the final suit, all the while being Spider-Man. And the web-shooters were great, and Pete's use of them was great through the whole film. I liked that he depended on them and used them creatively.The whole film does an excellent job at selling Peter as a genius and an inventor, not just with the web-shooters and with his understanding of science actually being important to the plot, but his use of the webs to detect vibrations in the sewers, figuring out Connors is the Lizard etc.One point not in the films favor was one which plagues two and a half of Raimi's films as well, and it's the complete absence of the Spider-sense. Pete gets hit far more often than he should be, and after a few initial scenes where we're shown he has amazing reflexes and unconscious situational awareness, it never shows up again. Kind of lame to be honest, I really want them to get Spider-Man's danger sense right, and so far only early parts of Spider-Man has managed that.Okay, so let's talk about plot holes. What plot holes? The fact that Pete let go of finding uncle Ben's killer is, as mentioned above, part of his journey to becoming a hero, letting go of vengeance as a motivation and embracing helping and saving people instead. Him finding the killer was irrelevant at that point. As for his parents, okay, there wasn't resolution there, but it was clearly set up as a thing to be further explored in sequels. I can understand saying that was disappointing, but how was it a plot hole?Now, as to a grade, I voted B, or 7/10, but that is a solid grade. How can it not be? If B was average, mediocre, forgettable, then there'd be only one grade, A, which would have to encompass everything from "it was pretty good" to "best film ever". And do we really need only one grade for good, one grade for average, and three for varying levels of bad? "Don't go see this, but don't go see this more."

[baumer]

I know we all have different taste and opinions, but some of these reviews make me feel like I walked into the Amazing Spiderman demo reel. I didn't see half of this emotion and spark and brilliance that some of you did. I just saw a movie with a bad plot, bad lizard, glossed over plot points and completely forgotten characters. Are you sure you saw the same movie as me?

[Crusader]

Oh lord I'm seeing this next week and I'm just dreading it after reading some reviews here It thoroughly sounds like I won't like it ... I mean I'll go in with no pre determined thoughts but damn everything about this movie sounds just so redundant and mediocre at best

[raniE]

I know we all have different taste and opinions, but some of these reviews make me feel like I walked into the Amazing Spiderman demo reel. I didn't see half of this emotion and spark and brilliance that some of you did. I just saw a movie with a bad plot, bad lizard, glossed over plot points and completely forgotten characters. Are you sure you saw the same movie as me?

The disappearance of the Oscorp exec after the bridge fight did seem a little off, and I'm definitely not arguing that the story was perfect, or didn't have some big flaws. I wouldn't be surprised if the rumors that the film had a different plot structure before editing and reshoots were true. I didn't mind the Lizard though, and as I said, I think that dropping the hunt for uncle Ben's killer was a good way of showing Peter's development into a real hero, rather than a vigilante hell-bent on revenge.But the acting was very good, the direction was good, I liked the action and the takes on the characters. The sequel could definitely use a tighter script, storywise, but the characters were really good. In that way, it felt similar to Iron Man (although Iron Man was a better film), where the story falls apart a bit during the end and the villain isn't really that memorable, but the main cast and the direction are so good that you forgive it its flaws. Edited July 5, 2012 by raniE

[BK007]

The film is poorly paced, terribly scored and embarrassingly prosaic for most of the 136 minutes. I really think this was a 90 minute film but when they heard people were going to be pissed because of this, they just went into their vault and added a bunch of scenes to make it 136 minutes. That would explain the pacing problems.I thought superheroes had secret identities and that was part of the allure to them. In this film, everyone except his aunt and uncle know he's Spiderman. He takes his mask off every 5 minutes. It took 2 movies for Parker to tell MJ he was Spiderman in the originals, it takes Parker one date and a sexy pair of legs to tell Gwen. He also lets the Captain know, a little kid, his mailman, the kids playing jumprope on the street, his pen pals in Russia, his aunt's friends daughter's girlfriend who works at 31 flavors and he conveniently leaves his camera with his name on it on the wall so that Connors can know too.I didn't buy the relationship with Parker and Gwen at all. It just didn't seem genuine like the original....probably because it was rushed.There was no levity in the film, no comedy. It just drags from one scene to the next. I know Parker is smart, but seriously, Connors has been working on this his whole life and he can't figure out one equation. Parker shows up for 5 minutes and like Will Hunting writes it down for him and he turns into a lizard. I kept waiting for Willie, the good alien lizard from V to show up.And the final scene with the lizard and the Captain felt like they almost copied a speech from TDK word for word and changed it slightly.Characters and plot pieces and are abandoned and even small things like Peter having to go to the hardware store is never followed up on.Flash is his new best friend and humanitarian because his uncle dies.

Only during the standoff with the Captain does he really show most people his identity. I don't see anything wrong with that. Who cares that superheroes have to have some sort of allure due to their mysterious nature? Just because it's been done every time before doesn't mean it has to be done again. Taking off his mask in front of the little kid humanized him and made him more than who he was before. There's no sense of emotion under masks. I loved it. The camera was unintentionally left, that's obvious. You have to be kidding me. That's the best part of the movie. I love that they had Webb do it because without him the relationship wouldn't be half as good as it was here. It's the best I've seen in a superhero movie. Loved the chemistry. Please don't say you thought Maguire and Dunst were better. I find it hard to believe people actually only slightly give the edge as actors to Garfield/Stone because Maguire is just as bad as Kirsten Stewart in the Twilight movies in terms of expression. Nostalgia clouding viewers.I laughed throughout the film and this nitpick is ridiculous IMO because I can't see how one would think it had no levity. This isn't Cowboys & Aliens.Parker copied it from his dad. It's also obvious Connors relied a lot on Parker's dad. Plus I think this was a reshoot as the trailer had him writing it on a blackboard.TDK is overrated, plus, you want to talk about copying, virtually all these superhero movies follow the same path/plotpoints/speech structure etc.I agree with this but it's not as obvious as it would be. Apparently they cut out a lot which would have resolved Khan and his parents storylines. I believed the Uncle Ben storyline didn't need to be fleshed out more. It showed who Peter became and how he changed. The fleeting picture on his wall served as a reminder it's still a skeleton in his closet or a ghost from his past but needn't be any more than that. It would've been better if they had got more of Peter's parents storyline in because that's what the trailers promise though I didn't see any of the trailers by choice so I don't feel as aggrieved or cheated. Personally I'm glad Khan was cut from a lot of it because he couldn't even pull off stock villain character whilst he was on screen. I don't know why he was even cast.Maybe because people have hearts and are not one dimensional. Seriously some of these problems are basically problems that you think they are because every other film wants to adhere to it and this film diverged from it.

[AniNate]

No levity? Ok, I can understand someone not liking the film, but saying it had no humor in it at all is just plain bullshit.

Edited July 5, 2012 by tribefan695

[ecstasy]

No levity? Ok, I can understand someone not liking the film, but saying it had no humor in it at all is just plain bullshit.

Actually I didn't find it all that humorous myself. What was funny? It's quite possible that some of it went over my head. I still liked it though but my daughter didn't. She thought it was boring and she's a kid. She didn't think it was funny and that's one of the main reason she didn't like it. It was my choice for the movie though.

[AniNate]

Actually I didn't find it all that humorous myself. What was funny? It's quite possible that some of it went over my head. I still liked it though but my daughter didn't. She thought it was boring and she's a kid. She didn't think it was funny and that's one of the main reason she didn't like it. It was my choice for the movie though.

We seriously must have watched different movies, then, because my audience was roaring at some joke at least every five minutes.

[ecstasy]

We seriously must have watched different movies, then, because my audience was roaring at some joke at least every five minutes.

No we didn't watch different movies. Everbody doesn't see things the same way and that's fine. The only thing that got laughter in my audience was the small knives sequence. But my audience had a lot of older people. I did hear a smitter of applause at the end though. But I asked in particular what made you laugh? I really want to know. Edited July 5, 2012 by ECSTASY

[AniNate]

But my audience had a lot of older people.

There you go, I guess... Some of the other things I remember well were how Peter had to force his way around a couple making out to get to his locker and the librarian who was completely oblivious to the fight going on behind him. A lot of the banter between Ben and May got laughs as well.

[ecstasy]

There you go, I guess... Some of the other things I remember well were how Peter had to force his way around a couple making out to get to his locker and the librarian who was completely oblivious to the fight going on behind him. A lot of the banter between Ben and May got laughs as well.

the librarian who was completely oblivious to the fight going on behind him.

Okay the old guy with the headphones on. That got some chuckles.

[BK007]

Almost every scene when Peter's getting used to his powers. Banter between Garfield/Stone.Some other inappropriate instances for laughter.

[AniNate]

Oh, yes, Peter not asking Gwen on a date got loads of laughs

Edited July 5, 2012 by tribefan695

[ecstasy]

Oh, yes, Peter not asking Gwen on a date got loads of laughs

That's interesting. None of that type stuff made me laugh. It was the typical stuff seen in one teen movie or another.But the old guy with the headphones was a good one and different.

[AniNate]

Well, to me it's still funny no matter what movie it's in

Edited July 5, 2012 by tribefan695

[Deep Wang]

The old guy with the headphones on got a laugh because that was Stan Lee.

[ecstasy]

Well, to me it's still funny no matter what movie it's in

well okay...I don't laugh at those movies either though.I cried more than I laughed.I'm a sucker for the lonely outcast guys. Edited July 5, 2012 by ECSTASY