The Amazing Spider-Man

The Amazing Spider-Man is a perfectly fine superhero film.  It's professional, it has no obvious flaws, and it rocks along along at a fast clip for a good two hours.  Would I have preferred a fourth installment Sam Raimi's version?  Sure: I loved all three (here, here, and here) and was ready for more.  Nevertheless, I credit Amazing for making me forget its predecessors and capably executing its own vision.

The Amazing Spider-Man offers an origin tale that parallels its antagonist's origin, exciting set-pieces, and seamless effects work.  While its web-swinging sequences lacked the smooth, "you are there" joy of Raimi's, this film offers a unique take on spider powers that surprised and delighted me (look for a spot where Peters binds up an opponent in a particularly creepy, spider-like way).  As far as origin stories go, this is a solid take.

The film's biggest surprise comes from its lead, Andrew Garfield, as Peter Parker / Spider-Man.  Andrew Garfield (of the brutal Red Riding: In The Year of Our Lord 1974 and the atrocious 'Daleks Take Manhattan') actually made me believe that he was an American high school student, albeit one who hit puberty perhaps a bit early.  This is an extraordinarily talented actor with significant range, and I look forward to following his career in the years to come.  Emma Stone (magnificent in Easy A), punches below her weight as love interest Gwen Stacy, but a woman's gotta pay the bills.  The rest of the supporting cast, including Sally Field, Martin Sheen, Denis Leary and Rhys Ifans are as good as you'd expect (which is pretty darn good).

So I was all ready to hate this movie, but I can't.  The Amazing Spider-Man does exactly what it's trying to do, and it does it well.  Will it find a place on my shelf beside my Raimi Blu-Rays?  Probably not, but we can't fall in love with everything.

Spider-Man 3

Warning!  Spoiler Ahead!

Here’s the problem with Spider-Man 3: at the end of the film, Peter Parker and Harry Osborn, in their Spider-Man and (new nemesis) Green Goblin costumes respectively, team up to fight the big, scary villains.  They’re old friends in great danger, yet they’re having a ball.  They fall into sync.  They help each other out.  They’re a couple of guys we’d love to spend an hour and a half with.  In other words, Spider-Man 3’s climax shows us what we’ve been missing, thus making us feel like we’ve been missing out.  Spider-Man was fun.  Spider-Man 2 was fun.  Spider-Man 3 doesn’t get fun until the last twenty minutes.  By then, it’s too late.

Spider-Man mastermind Sam Raimi set out to make a relationship movie in this, his third installment in the franchise.  Unfortunately, it’s the kind of relationship movie that makes you want to throw your remote at the screen and yell at these people to just go grab a beer and talk to each other.  If they’d done that, they’d have been much happier much sooner, and so would we.

Spider-Man 2

Many critics call Spider-Man 2 the best superhero movie.  I think that distinction belongs to The Incredibles, but I can see their point.

When the film opens, Spider-Man has been web slinging for a while.  He's also been trying to hold down a job, go to school, and be there for his friends, but he’s a juggler with too many balls and not enough hands.  Fighting crime is a full-time job, and he’s no millionaire playboy.  Something’s gotta give.

And so goes the maturation of Peter Parker.  He’s found his calling, but he hasn't found his balance.  What results is a work of surprising maturity, balancing the requirements of the ‘spectacular blockbuster’ with those of a carefully told story about growing up and out, about learning how to be a man.

So, how does Spider-Man 2 do in the ‘spectacular blockbuster’ department?  Very well, thank you.  The film has a very cool, very cinematic villain in Doctor Octopus, played by Alfred Molina.  Doctor Octopus is attached to enormous cybernetic arms, and the film brings them to life with a masterful combination of practical and computer-generated effects.  We believe in this contraption, and in the menace it represents, and this helps bring the film to life.  Of course, it doesn't hurt that the film continues the tradition of hiring world-class actors to play its villains.  Molina can do charm with the best of them, but he can also do a version of sneering contempt that’ll make you recoil.

So yeah, I can see why so many critics are in love with this film.  It’s thrilling and cool and rewarding, and it succeeds in every way.  I love it, too.  it isn't The Incredibles, a legitimate classic, but it belongs in the same sentence.

Spider-Man

Spider-Man ranks among the best superhero movies ever made.

You know how it goes: nerdy high schooler Peter Parker gets bitten by a radioactive spider, develops super powers, and fights bad guys.   It’s an origin story, like so many others, but Spider-Man’s theme, that with great power comes great responsibility, resonates because it’s a lesson that we all must learn, over and over again.  Spider-Man, as a character, has abilities that make him strong and fast and agile, as well as give him the ability to do neat stuff in involving lots of very tall buildings (Pity the poor, nerdy high schooler who gets bitten by a radioactive spider in Barstow.).  But it doesn’t necessarily follow that he’ll use these abilities responsibly.  In fact, he behaves like a child, with disastrous consequences.  And how many times has each of us done that?  How many times have we taken our unique gifts and used them irresponsibly or in service of our own narrow self-interest?  How has that usually worked out?  That’s part of Spider-Man’s appeal: we don’t need to be nerdy, or a high-schooler, or a New Yorker to relate to this character.  We look at Peter Parker, at Spider-Man, and we see a fanciful version of ourselves as we are and as we aspire to be.  That’s pretty good stuff for a superhero movie.

Thematics aside, Spider-Man also succeeds as pure entertainment.  Star Tobey Maguire nails the role, bringing just the right combination of gee-whiz excitement over his transformation and insecurity as he develops into a man.  Perhaps more importantly, he conveys how much Peter Parker enjoys being Spider-Man.  Sure, he must have looped much of his in-mask dialogue, but his wahoos and shouts of joy as he swings from building to building feel like the authentic whoops of a young man having a ball.  Willem Dafoe, as the villain, proves yet again that he ranks among his generation’s finest actors.  His reading of an easy cliché, “We’ll meet again, Spider Man,” belongs at the top of Villainy’s Greatest Hits.  He goes big and broad, and just the right amount of over the top, without devolving into silliness. 

This isn’t a two-man show, however.  J.K. Simmons, playing Parker’s boss and newspaper editor, made my family laugh out loud as scenery-chewing comic relief.  Kirsten Dunst and James Franco, as our hero’s would-be girlfriend and only slightly baked best friend, respectively, ground Peter and help us get an “in” to the story.  The Chin, well, he does his thing.  It really is a magnificent chin.

But hey, these are professional actors.  They’re supposed to be good.  What makes Spider-Man good is that sense of joy, that fun we get as we swing with Peter Parker through the canyons of Manhattan, thrilled at our abilities and finding our place in the world.  There aren’t enough movies about joy and responsibility out there.  Even if there were, Spider-Man would be the best of them.  I just plain loved it.