The Amazing Spider-Man (2012)

The Amazing Spider-Man (2012)

Release Date: July 3, 2012

With Spider-Man 3 not faring as well as the first two did, Spider-Man 4 falling apart, and Marvel making waves with their own films while taking back the rights to characters like Daredevil, Punisher and Hulk they had previously been licensing out, Sony were left in a tight spot if they wanted to keep the film rights to Spider-Man, one of their key money makers. The solution was to press the big red reboot button and start over with a younger, trendier Spidey.

Peter Parker lives with his Aunt May and Uncle Ben, after his parents disappeared while doing mystery stuff that is mysterious relating to Oscorp. Peter is going through a phase of teenage acting out, but his heart is still in the right place, and he wins the affection of his classmate, Gwen Stacey. Peter finds out that his parents were doing mystery Oscorp stuff with Oscorp scientist, Dr Curt Connors, who works as Gwen Stacey’s boss. Peter helps Connors with his experiment to regenerate lost limbs, then sneaks off to a room with genetically modified spiders that give him spider powers after one of them bites him. Peter goes mad with power, and he starts acting out further now that he’s able to enact the revenge of the illogically cool and handsome nerd. Following Peter’s suspension from school after performing the Chaos Dunk (luckily, he doesn’t outlaw basketball or turn Michael Jordan towards the dark side) and leaving Aunt May to walk home alone at night, Uncle Ben calls Peter out on his recent douchiness, causing Peter to storm off in a strop and buy some milk. Bad news, he doesn’t have enough money to buy milk. Good news, the milk is given to Peter by the nicest mugger ever. Very bad news, the nicest mugger ever shoots Uncle Ben outside the shop.

Peter blames himself for Uncle Ben’s murder, and decides to get revenge by tracking down the nicest mugger ever and beating him up. Unfortunately, Peter doesn’t find him because every criminal in New York looks alike, since they’re all members of the Inexplicably Identical Individuals Gang, a clone army created by Oscorp in case HYDRA ever tries to muscle in on their territory. Police officer Captain Stacey, Gwen’s dad, is annoyed at Spider-Man for beating up thugs, and fills the J Jonah Jameson role of saying “Spider-Man’s a menace!” Meanwhile, Dr Connors turns into a lizard man after using lizard DNA in an experiment to regrow his lost arm. He also goes insane and makes a gas that will turn everyone in New York into giant lizards. (Couldn’t he at least wait a few months? They haven’t finished rebuilding New York after the Chitauri yet.) After being caught sneaking into Dr Connors’ office and finding a Lizard-Rat in there, Peter figures out that Dr Connors is the Lizard, and gets Gwen to make an antidote to stop the lizard gas. Spider-Man then weakens the lizard enough to give him the antidote and turn Connors back to normal, but not before the Lizard runs Captain Stacey through. Dammit man, he was only three days away from leaving the force!

After getting medical attention from being tossed around and such, Peter ignores Captain Stacey’s dying wish for him to stop seeing Gwen because neither of them are happy with it. Boy is that a decision he’s going to regret come the sequel… Meanwhile, Dr Connors is sent to prison because, as it turns out, the argument that you turned into a giant lizard doesn’t fly in court when charged with killing a man and attempting a terrorist plot. In his cell, he meets a mystery Oscorp man with a bowler hat.

Seriously? Never thought this guy would be in a Spider-Man movie. Couldn’t they have used Maleficent or Jafar or Captain Hook?

The big thing with this film is that it feels unnecessary. There were only ten years between the original Spider-Man and this reboot, and only five since Spider-Man 3, so the older series was still relatively fresh in the public consciousness, which makes this one seem rather cynical. Even then, Spider-Man has one of the iconic superhero origins, alongside Batman and Superman. Everyone knows Spider-Man’s origin, so did we really need to see it again? The first hour or so of the film is prone to give viewers déjà vu.. The most significant alteration to the origin is the mystery Oscorp stuff with Peter’s parents, which I wasn’t big on, to be honest. The main reason for that is that seemingly everything ties into Oscorp somehow, and it quickly goes into easy-to-mock tinfoil hat conspiracy theory territory. The bit about Oscorp’s clone army of identical criminals earlier on was a joke, but given all the other shady stuff relating to them, it almost seems worryingly plausible.

If in doubt...

Sadly, Uncle Ben’s death doesn’t work as well this time. The death happens immediately after Peter refuses to stop the nicest mugger ever, which was probably done to make him see his mistake sooner, but it backfires, as the scene is moved onto a busy street. It’s harder to blame Peter because there were plenty of other people on the street, and none of them tried to stop the mugger either. In the older films, Peter wasn’t there when the burglar shot Uncle Ben, there wasn’t anyone else around during the shooting, and there was some amount of time before then that Peter alone could have stopped the burglar without anyone else being there, so it falls a little flat in that respect.

For this film, Peter Parker gets a makeover. This time around, he’s significantly more trendy and very handsome. It’s hard to believe that he’s an unpopular nerd at school, since he skateboards in the corridors and everything. Cool kids do that, right? He’s also quite a jerk in this film, which is a surprise after the meek Tobey Maguire, who wasn’t half as much of a jerk, even with a jerkishness-enhancing black suit. Fortunately, the obnoxious behaviour is toned down later, as he grows as a character, but early on, he gives unwelcome reminders of Dante from the Devil May Cry reboot. To be fair though, he is more convincing as a teenager than Tobey Maguire was, which may be why he graduated from high school half way through his first film.

Nothing personnel, kid! #2Edgy4Me

Fortunately, there is something here that is better than in the original films. Specifically, the romance subplot. Peter and Gwen are a cute couple together, and her presence brings out the best in Peter, so he stops being a douche for a bit. It is clear that they both like each other, (then again, that could be because Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone are a couple in real life, meaning that they probably weren’t acting in those scenes,) whereas in the earlier films, the love between Peter and Mary Jane sometimes came off as one-sided on Peter’s part, even when they were together. In addition, Gwen isn’t a damsel in distress, unlike Mary Jane who was frequently targeted by the various villains, and she even has a major role in the climax by going into Oscorp to make the antidote to the Lizard Gas, which is a lot more than Mary Jane ever got. Hooray!

Though the tone of the review may come off as overly harsh, The Amazing Spider-Man is an improvement on the disappointing Spider-Man 3, but it pales in comparison to most of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Had it been released in the mid 2000s, maybe I wouldn’t be as harsh towards it, but the bar has been raised now. It’s not bad, but after The Avengers, not bad just doesn’t cut it any more.

Stan Lee Spotter: Stan Lee appears as a librarian during Spider-Man and Lizard’s fight at the school. It’s probably for the best that he doesn’t notice the chaos going on behind him.

Next Time: Phase 2 of the Marvel Cinematic Universe begins.