The (Less than) Amazing Spiderman

By: Emily

Art by Emily

It may seem impossible to go anywhere without hearing something about Marc Webb’s The Amazing Spiderman. Whether it be television commercials or taxicabs, it seems impossible to escape the constant and somewhat incessant promotion of the new Spiderman movie. Many were probably wondering as to why a new Spiderman movie was even being remade when less than ten years ago Tobey Maguire came swinging to theaters as the masked superhero. The writers of The Amazing Spiderman would probably claim it was because they wanted a new take on the series; A darker Spiderman for a darker time. The obvious truth about it is that Columbia Pictures knew the first Spiderman series was profitable (Sam Raimi’s three Spiderman movies raked in a whopping $2.1 billion collectively) and wanted to recreate that success. Now I don’t have a problem with wanting to make money off of a movie—after all, what is a film without profit? However, when that is your main goal and it is obvious, that’s where my problem arises.

My main qualm with The Amazing Spiderman comes from the screenplay. The writers seemed to change just enough of the story to pass it off as a new reinvented film, but not enough to claim a re-envisioned version of Spiderman. The plot was one-note and predictable, the dialogue cheesy and cliché. "We all have secrets; the ones we keep and the ones that are kept from us," broods our masked hero.

 Not to say this movie wasn’t entertaining. After moviegoers’ longtime exposure to mindless explosions and fight scenes, directors of superhero movies at this point should know how to do, if anything, excitement. Webb certainly included enough meaningless thrills to keep the audience entertained, but excessive action and mediocre use of 3D does not a good story nor a good film make.

A darker Spiderman for a darker audience needs someone who is brooding yet awkward and they seem to have found their leading man in half-British half-American all gorgeous Andrew Garfield. A relative unknown (Garfield starred as Eduardo Saverin in The Social Network among roles in other lesser-known films such as Never Let Me Go and Boy A, both of which are lovely little films, in my opinion), he lent himself nicely to the awkward and sensitive Parker. Needless to say, we’ll probably be seeing quite a bit of Garfield in the future, both in his skintight spidy-suit and out.

When it comes down to it, almost everything about The Amazing Spiderman felt contrived. I blame this partly on the shoulders of director Marc Webb. While he did not pen the atrociously predictable screenplay, some of his choices as a director felt awkward and misguided. Many encounters between Gwen and Peter (real life couple Emma Stone and Andrew Garfield) felt awkward and uncomfortable. Regardless, as long as people keep flocking to the theaters for this less than amazing film, Hollywood is sure to sign up Spiderman for a few more sequels before another reboot comes along in ten years.