The New Spider Man Has No Bite

“The Amazing Spider Man” is as fresh as a week-old donut. I admit to not knowing the difference between the different Spider Man comic book series, however, though it has been 10 years since I saw Sam Raimi’s “Spider Man,” this new film did not feel much different. The new “Amazing Spider Man” feels, most of the time, lifeless , as if it is following a scriptwriting template. My understanding is that the Spider Man stories in these two films are different which is why it is against the law to say that this new film is a remake of Raimi’s film and it’s two sequels. It did not seem that much different. I do remember that in Raimi’s film, Peter Parker is bitten or stung by a spider which is the catalyst for giving him his powers. The same thing happens in this new film. Parker is bitten, he discovers that he has become much stronger and that he can now climb walls and has cat-like, or I guess, spider-like reflexes.

All of this would be much cooler if I had not seen it done better before. The actor who plays Parker/Spider Man, Andrew Garfield, does not have a very interesting screen presence. His Peter Parker is annoyingly meek and frail. I did not believe for a second that his rendition of Peter Parker would have the stomach for or the guts to become Spider Man. He seems meek and without confidence. Remember how we knew Clark Kent, as played by Christopher Reeve, did not lack confidence? Even though Kent had to act wimpish to conceal his identity, the audience still knew that he was confident and that he knew he was a badass. There are brief hints of this in Garfield’s performance, however, the Spider Man that he becomes seems to be a completely different character, completely removed from Peter Parker. Peter Parker has an internal strife that is boiling within him as his Uncle Ben was killed by a petty thief as said thief was running away from a convenience store he had just robbed. In this film, internal strife does not appear to be realized in Garfield’s portrayal of Peter Parker. I understand that he is a young actor, and he was ok in “The Social Network” as Mark Zuckerberg’s friend and Facebook founding partner, Eduardo, however, even in that film, he did not knock me out. For sure, “The Social Network” was Jesse Eisenburg’s film.
“The Amazing Spider Man” is presumably supposed to be Andrew Garfield’s film, however, his performance is dull. As such, coupled with a tiresome narrative, this new version of the Spider Man story is only as entertaining as the Spidey story, which is still enough to save this new film from being completely uninteresting. Sally Field and Martin Sheen are good as Mae and Ben Parker, Peter’s aunt and uncle with whom he lives. Denis Leary is good as the father of Peter’s love interest, Gwen (Emma Stone). It is always nice to see Denis Leary as he usually instills some bite into any film in which he appears. This is true in this film, in fact, this film could have used more of him as he does not overdo his role as Gwen’s protective father who also happens to be the chief of police of New York City. Big shock! Emma Stone is ok and is more interesting than Andrew Garfield, but not much more interesting.
The fact is that not much about “The Amazing Spider Man” is interesting or fresh. Like the previously mentioned ten-day old donut, I may eat it even though it would be hard and chewy, however, I would not eat two of them. I am in no hurry to see this film again. Do not spend the extra money to see this in 3-D. I counted 3 times in which the 3-D effects were used to any interesting effect. I may write quite a rant about the new 3-D trend at some point and the main point of this rant will be that I want crap thrown at me in a 3-D movie! I don’t just want depth. That is cool, but I want characters to throw mice, knives, footballs, donuts, boobs, turnips, and heads of lettuce at me for the price of seeing a movie in 3-D! None of these or anything similar is thrown at the audience in “The Amazing Spider Man.” The 3-D usage philosophy in this film seems as hesitant as Garfield’s performance. Just throw stuff! It’s flippin’ 3-D!!
Bye the way, how does Dr. Curt Connors, aka The Lizard (Rhys Ifans), get all that lab equipment down into his secret lab in the sewer? What happened to the guy that killed Uncle Ben? I liked the appearance of one of those old 4-in-1 pens in the film. Remember those thick blue pens that had four different colored inks in them? You would snap down the little doohicky for the color you wanted, blue, black, red or green. The green ink was never any good for some reason, but the whole idea was way cool.
The dialogue in “The Amazing Spider Man” is not very fresh or interesting either, which, in this day and age of Joss Whedon and the discovery of his talents by the masses, is quite a detriment. Some may ask how I can expect every action/sci-fi/superhero movie now to be as witty and sharp as a Whedon film. Why not expect this? “Thor” did a fine job of infusing humor into that film, especially into the main character of that film.

I am hoping for three things to happen as a result of the release of this new “Amazing Spider Man” film. I hope that we see the return of the outstanding strawberry flavored Spider Man cereal to grocery stores and I am hoping that we finally see the release of the 1977-79 CBS Spider Man tv series on dvd, or at least, maybe some obscure cable network will broadcast the 13 or so episodes that were made. The likelihood of seeing the 1977-79 series released seems slim, so I would also take an American release of the Japanese Spider Man series from 1978, the intro of which is featured at the beginning of this review. If at least one of these things happen, then I will ultimately consider “The Amazing Spider Man” a success.