Release Date: Jul 3rd 2012
Genre: Action/adventure, Cult, Science Fiction
Starring: Emma Stone, Rhys Ifans, Andrew Garfield
Director: Marc Webb
Review:
“The untold story,” gushed the hype. There’s only one story, shrugs someone in the film, accompanied by what sounds like back-pedalling: “Who am I?” So what is it? New story, or same-old repackaged? Both and neither, as it happens.
Swinging from fresh to faithful-to-source, Marc Webb’s reboot is a sparky, well-cast, often punchy Spidey spin... but it’s also Spider-Man Begins Again, struggling in places to assert its own identity.
Sure, context cuts Webb’s work out. In 2002, the only decent superheroes around were X-Men. Batman had been Schumacher’d, Superman was grounded, the Avengers were unassembled: Sam Raimi’s Spidey had an open runway. Nowadays, you can barely swing a lizard without hitting some spandex lug.
With great power has come great terror (Batman Begins, The Dark Knight), suits (Iron Man), mischief (Chronicle), gags-per-minute counts (Avengers Assemble) and sweary brats (Kick-Ass). It isn’t easy to stand out among that lot, or against Raimi’s run: his threequel over-stretched the web but the first two were pulp marvels, making a Spidey reboot harder to justify in 2012 than Batman’s 2005 franchise-fixer.
The shadow of Batman Begins looms as Amazing opens, the gold standard of origin-skewed reboots riskily invoked. Parker as a child plays games at home, stumbles on some destiny-sealing revelations, loses his parents on a stormy night... A dark roots movie steeped in tragedy? Some “untold story”, that.
Webb finds much surer footing as Parker hits high school, helped by crack casting. More confident than the last, this Parker is slick on a skateboard and not shy about standing up to Flash Thompson. The geek just got chic: who better to play him than the guy with the algorithms and rhythm from The Social Network?
A young buck made testy by grief, a rebel without a comb, Garfield nails all bases here, star DNA aglow. Stare-y eyes melting, he’s winningly earnest; lithe of physique, he delivers in the dust-ups; blithely gatecrashing Gwen Stacy’s bedroom, he gives good dreamboat. Read more ...
