Only five years after Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man 3, what was originally envisioned as a continuation of Raimi’s franchise, The Amazing Spider-Man starts the mythology over with a slightly altered back-story that all still results in a man in a unitard flying around New York City doling out vigilante justice with the end result being a lackluster and disappointing finale to a well thought-out and acted origin story.
For the first half, things are clicking. Andrew Garfield (The Social Network) as Peter Parker (aka Spider-Man) delivers a darker character than we’ve seen before and an improvement over Tobey Maguire altogether. His relationship with Gwen Stacy (an always reliable Emma Stone) is equally believable, and a shroud of doubt is cast over what happened to his parents (Campbell Scott and Embeth Davidtz) before they had to run off in the middle of the night, leaving him to be raised by his aunt and uncle (Sally Field and Martin Sheen).
On a character level, Parker isn’t so much a dork as we’ve seen before; he simply seems to distance himself from the pack. His curiosity in his parents is piqued when he finds an old briefcase of his father’s, which contains a mysterious file that leads him to Oscorp Industries and Dr. Curt Connors (Rhys Ifans), a scientist who was working with Peter’s father, before he disappeared, on a cross-species experiment with a goal of giving humans regenerative abilities. Connors, you see, is an amputee, missing his right arm from the elbow down and he is at the center of everything that is wrong with this movie.
As you’ve seen in the past, Peter is bitten by a genetically-altered spider thus giving him spider senses, power and comparable strength. He can climb walls, sense movement, has incredible reflexes and his adjustment to these new powers and the way he uses them are the absolute best part of this film.
At one point he wraps his foe in a cocoon of webbing, spinning around him just as a spider would and in another scene creates a web to help him detect movement from long distances. Everything about both Peter and Spider-Man seem very well thought-out and pieced together, it’s his ultimate foe that becomes an issue.
When we meet Dr. Connors, whether you’ve seen a trailer or not, you know this guy is going to be the film’s antagonist. Primarily because there is no other option unless you expect it to be Irrfan Khan as Rajit Ratha, but his all-too-brief appearance and inexplicable disappearance squelches that possibility, though I’m sure he’ll pop back up in the next film.
However, back to Connors, a guy we know worked with Peter’s father and are lead to believe he knows something about the plane crash that killed him, but not quite entirely. He seems like a relatively decent guy, truly interested in helping mankind not only so he can get back his right arm, but to actually help people. So, when the film progresses (or in this case regresses) and we come to the point he attempts to use reptilian DNA to regrow his arm, he undergoes a change contradictory to everything we know about the man.
The entire second half of this film feels as if it was written by a rookie screenwriter. I see James Vanderbilt (Zodiac), Alvin Sargent (Spider-Man 2 and 3) and Steve Kloves (Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows) are credited as screenwriters, but which one of them is responsible for this film’s downward spiral into blockbuster stupidity should be embarrassed. The villain’s motivations are cloudy at best, nonsensical and stupid at worst. A request for an antidote is laughable, its creation even more so. A countdown, construction cranes, the news’ reaction, Gwen Stacy’s father (Denis Leary), a promise, a saving hand… none of it makes sense or is just so simple you begin to wonder why they even bothered with such a solid setup.
The film plays as if they had a great idea on how to create a superhero but no idea as to what he should face when it comes to the film’s inevitable “save the day” moment. While I know The Lizard is an actual character in the Spider-Man comics, the way the film presents him comes across as: “Who should he battle at the end?” “Why not a giant lizard?” “Huh?” “Yeah, it could be a man that turns into a giant lizard after working out of his secret, makeshift, Radio Shack-bought uber-laboratory in the sewer.” “I guess that works, people will largely accept anything nowadays.”
I’m refraining from telling you Connors’ motivation for doing the things he does, but, suffice to say, it is the film’s ultimate downfall. And while there is a short scene after the credits that adds even more mystery to Parker’s past and what will happen in the future, I can’t help but doubt this new reboot of this franchise will ever feel fresh to me now. It feels like the same character, in a slightly different suit, with the same problems and only a studio’s search for more money being the reason he exists on the big screen.
If this had been a new superhero franchise maybe I’d be willing to give it more of a chance, but the character’s origin story is so similar so much counted on the film’s second half. Sure, Garfield and Stone create characters worth investing yourself in over the film’s first 60 or so minutes, but those final 76 minutes (yes, this film is two hours and 16 minutes) just feel as if you’re watching everything that had been constructed to that point crumbling down around you as it was built with Lincoln Logs as opposed to solid brick and mortar.
I’m sure The Amazing Spider-Man will make hundreds of millions of dollars around the world. It might even cross $1 billion thanks to its 3-D and IMAX markups. A sequel is already in the works and dated for May 2014, which means this franchise isn’t going away, but after what I’ve seen here I’m not so sure you can’t just skip this one and wait for that one, it’s not as if you’d be missing anything.
