Taken on its own merits, this is a pretty solid trailer. The visual effects look decent, there seems to be plenty and varied web-slinging action, and Marc Webb's reboot does possess a different, more real-world look compared to Raimi's cotton-candy New York City. But the idea that this film is 'darker' because it's visually darker and rains a bit more, for the moment, silly. For all the bright colors and gee-whiz action, Sam Raimi's initial Spider-Man was an awfully morose and depressing affair, with pretty much every major character (Peter, Mary Jane, Harry, Norman, etc) in a state of mental duress for 90% of the picture. How gloomy is the picture? It ends at a funeral... for the villain! And the idea that this film differs by creating a student/mentor relationship between Peter Parker and Dr. Conners completely ignores the father/son relationship between Peter and Norman Osbourne in Spider-Man and the student/mentor relationship (truncated as it was) between Peter and Dr. Octavius in Spider-Man 2.
And for all the talk about how this film would have more practical web-slinging, you certainly don't see it here. There is certainly some high-quality CGI aerial work and one great moment (just like the trailer for Raimi's original) where Peter has to be aggressively violent while fighting without his mask, but again, we've seen this stuff before. But the biggest problem in the footage, quite frankly, is the seemingly obnoxious overacting from Dennis Leary (!) as Captain Stacy. His every line in the trailer is overwrought and forced, leaving the possibility of the film suffering from a pretty bad performance in a central dramatic role. We really don't see much of the supporting cast on an acting level. Rhys Ifans looks solid as the would-be Lizard, even if he (like Dafoe and Molina, respectively) will probably be more engaging in his 'normal human persona' than as a costumed or CGI-enhanced super-villain. Emma Stone gets very little real dialogue, although I appreciate that she isn't overly sexed-up as Gwen Stacey.
Overall the trailer looks solid, and the final film seems to be a mix of Ultimate Spider-Man and the terrific 2008 cartoon Spectacular Spider-Man. The world may not need another Spider-Man film franchise, especially one that feels the need to once again spell out the origin. But, apart from the disturbing implications for the industry at-large, The Amazing Spider-Man looks like a solid bit of comic book drama. It opens July 3rd. As always, we'll see.
Scott Mendelson
Scott Mendelson
9 comments:
I am a Raimi loyalist. Sounds mean but rooting for this one to suck.
Industry implications aside, this seems like the Spider-Man film I wanted back in '02. I completely understand your points about what the success of this film could mean to the industry( which I agree with), but damn it, I want a Spider-Man film that I can enjoy.
Fringes really crossed....
I disagree about the original 'Spider-Man' being morose and depressing. Both it and Spider-Man 2 took their stories and characters seriously...but to my mind, they were anything but downers. Almost every moment in both films (I'm purposefully pretending like Spider-Man 3 never happened) exploded with energy. They were the definition of fun, well made summer romps. They had their moments of seriousness, and even despair...but on the whole, they were a blast. This is definitely darker than Raimi's work–to me, this more resembles something like the Twilight films than anything resembling Spider-Man. Crossing my fingers that Marc Webb doesn't forget to bring the fun along with the gloom.
I like Emma Stone and find her very attractive, but there's no topping Bryce Dallas Howard's Gwen Stacy (looks-wise).
If only Gary Busey was a little more stable, I would've loved to see him as Captain Stacy. But oh well.
As much as we'd like this to fail, there are too many kids out there, and Spider-Man has always seemed like the most kid-friendly superhero. Plus with the die-hards, there will surely be enough to finance two or more sequels. Probably.
Agree totally, except for this looking like Twilight.
If anything, this thing smells of Batman Begins via Marvel. And what's even more interesting is that this film seems to be setting the sequel EXACTLY like Begins set up Knight, with using the greatest foe for our protagonist in the second film, instead of the first.
With OSCORP all over this film, who else is going to be the villain in the sequel?
Again, looking forward to this, but they're using the Nolan template to a T....
The trailer does its bits to improve upon the abyssal standards/vibe set for the reboot, but I am still not too keen on this. There is too much of deja vu that still appears to work against all the new blood.
Thought it came out July 3rd.
"And for all the talk about how this film would have more practical web-slinging, you certainly don't see it here."
Watch the trailer again at 0:24 and 2:02 for practical web-slinging. THAT is practical web-slinging. What did you expect to see from a 2 and a half minute trailer? extended sequences?
Also, in case you didn't know, the scene where Spider-man takes on the swat team was shot with actual stunt men, not cgi.
I'm sure it was, just as the 'mask-less Spidey fends off attackers' scene in Raimi's Spider-Man was basically practical. Point being, all of the talk about 'more practical vs. CGI' ignores that the first Raimi Spider-Man had quite a bit of practical web-slinging, which gave it a realism that (as impressive as the they were) the sequels' big-scale fight scenes lacked. It's just another case of the filmmakers saying 'We're different!' by citing something that is not-so different from the first Spider-Man ten years ago.
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