2012 in Film: The Year's "Worst" Films.

Almost to the end, folks.  But before we finally recap the best (or, err, my favorites) of 2012, let's take a pit stop to discuss what are arguably the worst films of 2012.  Now as always, I can't presume that I've seen every probable terrible movie out there (I generally avoid Adam Sandler comedies and didn't catch Parental Guidance in time), but I tried to highlight films that were both very bad and whose respective failures meant something more than just their artistic inadequacy.  As always, the films below are in alphabetical order.  So, without further ado, let's dive in!

Alex Cross:
To William Hurt in A History of Violence, "How to do you f*** that up?!"  You have a long-running detective series filled with larger-than-life villains and often insanely over-the-top violence.  You have Tyler Perry, if perhaps cast against type than at least hungry to prove that he can do something different.  You have Matthew Fox theoretically willing to chew up every bit of available scenery.  And you have audiences primed for a kind of old-school adult-skewing genre picture that the previous two Morgan Freeman-starring Alex Cross films (Kiss the Girls and Along Came A Spider) represented back in the 1990s.  How in the world do you make this film this incredibly boring?  First of all, you take an explicitly R-rated story and neuter it into a still-inappropriate PG-13.  Then you pile on generic cliche on top of generic cliche.  Then you instruct every actor other than Fox to be as lifeless as possible.  Finally, you never decide to make a down-to-Earth crime thriller or a would-be superhero/super villain story.  The end result is a painfully dull would-be thriller that can't hold a candle to the most average episode of Criminal Minds.

Marc Webb will helm Spectacular Spider-Man after all! Thoughts and speculation on his somewhat surprising return.

It's a telling sign of behind-the-scenes tumult when it's actually surprising to hear that the director of a franchise-kick off is indeed returning to helm the sequel.  But after a summer filled with innuendo and rumors, followed by a final product that was clearly cut to ribbons at the last minute, and I am not a little surprised to see Marc Webb signing up for another go at Spider-Man 2.0.  But The Hollywood Reporter uh, reports that Webb will indeed helm The Spectacular Spider-Man, set for release on May 4th, 2014.  Andrew Garfield is back too, which is obviously less of a surprise, but at this point Emma Stone is still negotiating.  Expect Stone to get a massive raise, perhaps higher than Garfield, as her massive charisma and general attractiveness caused audiences and critics worldwide to convince themselves that the paper-thin romantic subplot was some kind of classic genre romance.  Webb is angling for a raise above the $1 million he got last time.  Purely speculating, but I imagine Sony offered him enough money to stick around under what will likely be rigorous studio control so they could save face for at least one more installment.  Losing the director after two installments is par for the course (Batman Forever, Iron Man 3, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, X-Men: The Last Stand, Shrek the Third, Chronicle of Narnia: Voyage of the Dawn Treader, etc.) but losing the director after one film generally causes raised eyebrows.  In this case it would be an admission of error.

Weekend Box Office (07/28/12): The Dark Knight Rises continues to dominate as The Watch and Step Up 4 open soft.

In the next couple days you're going to hear a lot about how the Aurora, Colorado shootings had some kind of negative effect on the box office this weekend.  You're going to hear about how The Dark Knight Rises (non-spoiler review/spoiler review) is some kind of disappointment and that it surely left money on the table due to the aftermath of said mass murder (some thoughts on that, natch).  So without getting too pompous about discrediting such malarky, let's get something out of the way right now.  After ten days, The Dark Knight Rises has earned $289 million.  That's the third-best ten-day total of all-time behind only The Dark Knight ($313 million) and The Avengers ($373 million) and a good $10 million ahead of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows part II ($373 million) without the 3D advantage.  Yes, the third Chris Nolan Batman film dropped  60% from last weekend, but it still earned $64 million in weekend two, the sixth-biggest second weekend of all-time (The Dark Knight earned $75 million in weekend two, a 53% drop).  In short, the threequel is playing like a normal insanely anticipated but also heavily front-loaded genre sequel that has its fan-base firmly entrenched without picking up many new viewers this time around.  In other words, it's playing a bit like a Harry Potter/Twilight sequel.  The Dark Knight Rises merely isn't the pure phenomenon that The Dark Knight was, and anyone that told you it would be was probably delusional or lying.  The Dark Knight was an event.  The Dark Knight Rises is just a heavily-anticipated genre sequel.  

In an age of preordained marketing and spoilers, an ode to an age of not knowing and the thrill of unexpected discovery.

As another annual San Diego Comic Con ends with another week full of preordained previews, announcements, and sizzle reels, this seems as good a time as any to talk about something that has been lost in the saturation-level media coverage that surrounds each and every remotely major studio release these days.  I am talking of course about the element of surprise.  I'm not talking about plot spoilers regarding upcoming films, or even the obsessive need for news outlets to report on every plot detail of an upcoming film so that one has to literally live in a cave to avoid knowing too much.  Those are indeed issues, but I'm talking about something even more basic.  I'm talking about the idea of discovering the very existence of a film the old fashioned way.  Be it through a trailer that you didn't expect, or a poster that you didn't see coming, something very precious has been lost over the last fifteen years as the mainstream entertainment press has turned into a full-time, year-round Comic-Con.  We don't discover films we were hoping we might see via actual pre-movie trailers, or even through movie magazines like Premiere or Starlog.  Now they are preordained, with their posters and trailers given online *premieres* that are treated as actual news by film sites the world over.  Maybe it's the cranky old man in me talking, but there is something very special about discovering these films at the theater.  Which brings me to the question: When was the last time I was truly surprised by a piece of film marketing?  

Weekend Box Office: Ice Age 4 tops with $46 million, Amazing Spider-man crosses $200 million, Ted crosses $150 million.

It was the calm before the storm, with only one new wide release daring to debut the weekend before The Dark Knight Rises crushes everything in sight.  That new release is 20th Century Fox's Ice Age: Continental Drift (essay).  So it is with little surprise that the fourth entry in Fox's animation crown jewel, sadly the first terrible entry of the previously 'not bad' series thus far, was number one this weekend, nor is it little surprise that it debuted with an estimated $46 million.  That's a little low all things considered, but Fox couldn't give two craps about domestic gross anyway.  None of the prior three Ice Age films have ever topped $200 million domestic, but that didn't stop Ice Age 3: Dawn of the Dinosaurs from exploding overseas three summers ago and earning $690 million overseas for a $886 million worldwide total, good for the third-highest grossing overseas total ever at the time (it's eighth today) and still the most lopsided foreign grosses (77%) for any movie grossing over $775 million total (removing European films like The Full Monty, European-targeted titles like The Adventures of Tintin, or Miyazaki releases, it's still #7 overall).  So yeah, this new film opened with "just $45 million".  Gasp(!), that's below the $68 million debut of Ice Age: The Meltdown in 2006 ($82 million adjusted for inflation) and the $66 million Wed-Sun debut of Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs ($41 million Fri-Sun), and right in line with the $46 million debut of Ice Age ($62 million adjusted for inflation). Despite the 3D bump (which the third film enjoyed as well), this fourth Ice Age film may struggle to top $150 million, putting it well below Ice Age ($176 million), Ice Age 2 ($195 million), and Ice Age 3 ($196 million).  Oh well, it was already at $225 million overseas before it even opened in America, and it's at $385 million today with at least a $600-700 million worldwide total for the (comparatively cheap) $100 million animated feature.  This is one franchise were America just doesn't matter. 

Who needs origins? 8 comic book films that just dove right in.

Much of the criticism hurled in the direction of The Amazing Spider-Man centers around the choice to spend the first half of the film retelling the same origin story that was rather explicitly told in Sam Raimi's 2002 Spider-Man. It is part of a swelling debate of sorts about whether or not proverbial 'part ones' always need to retell a well-known origin story in order to kick-start their respective franchises.  But there exists at least a handful of comic book adaptations that either completely eschew or compartmentalize the origin material.  Be they successful as art or not, they represent the idea that it is possible to start (or restart) a comic book series without retelling the same origin over and over again.  To wit...

A look at the six-day opening weekend for The Amazing Spider-Man. Has Sony established a new franchise or merely temporarily dodged a bullet?

There are a number of ways to judge the six-day $137 million debut of The Amazing Spider-Man (review).  First of all, in all but the most unlikely of circumstances, a film grossing $140 million in its first six days ($62 million over the traditional Fri-Sun weekend) is a pretty big financial success.  For the record, the film played 44% 3D and 10% IMAX.  The film earned an A- from Cinemascore and played 75% over 12 years old and 25% families with kids under 12.  Of the over-12 audience, it played 54% were male and/or over 25 years old. Of the under-12s, 73% were under 10 years old and 65% were boys. While final figures won't drop until Monday, the six-day weekend puts in between 25 and 30 among the biggest six-day totals.  It's the fourth-biggest Fri-Sun debut of 2012 and the second-biggest of summer.  On the other hand, as far as Spider-Man films go, it's actually pretty weak sauce.  Spider-Man 2 opened on this same holiday weekend back in 2004, earning a then-record $180 million in its first six days (with $88 million over the traditional Fri-Sun weekend, among the top-five opening weekends ever at that time).  The first Spider-Man film (audio commentary) opened in May 2002 to a then-record $114 million Fri-Sun debut, earning $144 million over its first six days of play, three of those days falling in the middle of the school year no less.  As for Spider-Man 3, it also broke the Fri-Sun record back in May 2007 ($151 million) before earning $176 million in its first six days.  So factoring in inflation (Spider-Man - $196m, Spider-Man 2 - $229m - third best six-day of all time, Spider-Man 3 - $202m) and the 3D ticket-price bump, The Amazing Spider-Man sold far fewer tickets than its predecessors over its first six days of release.  Point being, the Sam Raimi trilogy set box office records, while The Amazing Spider-Man merely exists as another relatively large-scale blockbuster amid a sea of preordained blockbusters.

In mainstream films, dead moms don't count...

I had originally planned to do a spoiler-filled discussion of the various things that vexed me about The Amazing Spider-Man, but frankly my heart just isn't in it.  The film is obviously a victim of severe post-production tinkering (Devin Faruci laid it out here) and it just feels petty to further attack a film that A) I've already panned in 1,500 non-spoiler words and B) is more a disappointing mediocrity than an outright travesty.  Instead, I'd like to use the film's release to discuss something that has bothered me for at least the last several months, something I made a brief note about during the run-up to Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close.  If you've seen The Amazing Spider-Man (and this isn't a spoiler if you haven't), you'll know that Peter Parker's emotional trauma is partially centered around the fact that his parents abandoned him when he was a young child and then died soon after.  But as the film progresses, it's clear that Peter's journey and Peter's discoveries center almost exclusively around his father (Campell Scott).  His mother (Embeth Davidtz) gets barely a line of dialogue and no real character to play.  And that's the pattern, it would seem.  Be they dead at the start or be they dead by act one, dead fathers are often fleshed out characters while dead mothers are, at best, pictures on the bookshelf.

The Amazing Spider-Man earns $23.4 million on its second day, bringing two-day total to $59 million.

Well, this is the first (small) sign of trouble.  The Amazing Spider-Man 35% on its second day, earning $23.4 million over July 4th.  It's not a dreadful plunge, and when you remove the $7.5 million worth of midnight screenings on Tuesday, it's closer to a 15% drop.  The film has earned $59.2 million in two days, or exactly what Spider-Man 3 earned on its opening day back in May 2007.  Among the various July 4th openers in recent years, its two-day total puts it ahead of everything save Spider-Man 2 ($64 million), Transformers: Dark of the Moon ($64 million), Transformers ($65 million... also opening on a Tuesday), and Twilight Saga: Eclipse ($92 million, although coming off an insanely front-loaded $30 million at midnight and $68 million over its first 24 hours).  The comparison points should be Spider-Man 2, Transformers 3, and Transformers.  Spider-Man 2 debuted with $40 million on its opening day (Wednesday) but then plunged 41% to $23 million as well.  The difference is that Spidey's second day didn't actually fall on July 4th.  When Transformers debuted on a Tuesday, its Wednesday total actually went up 4% from $27 million to $29 million.  However, when factoring in those pesky Monday-night sneaks (first 1.25 days = $36 million), then Transformers technically dropped 19%.  Without even looking at the whole 3D/IMAX ticket-price bump issue, the adjusted-for-inflation two-day totals for Spider-Man 2 ($81 million) and Transformers ($75 million) are well-above The Amazing Spider-Man's figures. On the plus side, it's been playing identical to Transformers: Dark of the Moon, minus only the $5.5 million worth of 9pm showings that film had prior to the midnight screenings. Two days in, it still looks like The Amazing Spider-Man will end its six day weekend with between $140 million and $165 million.

Scott Mendelson

Amazing Spider-Man sets Tuesday record with $35 million opening day. Six day weekend: $140m-$162m.

The Amazing Spider-Man ended up almost as amazing as Spider-Man 2 on the first day of its respective six-day Independence Day holiday weekend.  With $35 million per-Sony, it broke the record for the biggest Tuesday gross ever and the biggest Tuesday opening day ever (both held by Transformers, grossed $27 million over its first day ($4 million of that, or 11.4%, was from IMAX engagements).  But, as you recall, Transformers had $8.8 million worth of 8pm-12am sneak previews on Monday that year, giving the film a 1.25 day total of $36 million.  So Transformers needed 1.25 days to do what The Amazing Spider-Man did in 24 hours.  But The Amazing Spider-Man has 3D bumps and inflation to reckon with.  Inflation alone would put Transformers's opening 1.25 days at about $42 million, which is about what Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen made ($43 million) on its first 1.25 days this time last year.  So it appears offhand that The Amazing Spider-Man will perform, in terms of weekend multipliers, somewhere between 4x and 4.6x its opening day number, or about what Transformers (4.3x - $155m/$36m), Transformers 3 (4.1x - $180m/$43m), Spider-Man 2 (4.5x - $180m/$40m), Hancock (4.6x - $112m/$24m), and Superman Returns (4.6x - $97m/$21m) did over their respective July 4th six-day "weekends". The outlier is War of the Worlds, which opened with $21 million on a Wednesday and made it to $112 million by Monday, a 5x weekend multiplier. As such, expect The Amazing Spider-Man to gross between $140 million and $162 million by Sunday night, with an off-chance of it earning as much as $175 million.

Scott Mendelson
 

Midnight box office: The Amazing Spider-Man earns $7.5m at 12:01am. Will it fall closer to $112m or $155m by Sunday?

The official numbers are in, and The Amazing Spider-Man is off to a decent if-not amazing start.  The reboot earned $7.5 million in midnight screenings.  $1.2 million of that came from IMAX alone, giving each IMAX theater a $4,000 per-screen average.  For comparison sake, Spider-Man 3 debuted with $10 million worth* of midnight showings five summers ago.  While said threequel debuted on a Friday as opposed to Tuesday, it also was in the middle of the school year and didn't have the benefit of 3D ticket prices and expanded IMAX opportunities.  To be fair, there wasn't nearly as much 'rush out and see it' factor this time around, as it wasn't a sequel to a popular series and didn't have the debut of a fan-favorite villain (Venom, natch).  As it is, $7.5 million is the same midnight number that Iron Man 2 pulled in two years ago on its way to a $128 million Fri-Sun total.  But it's difficult/unfair to compare Fri-Sun openings with extended week openings, so let's look at more relevant stats.

While you're at the office, listen to this Spider-Man (2002) commentary with myself, Aaron Neuwurth, and Jim Dietz.

Watching this two days before seeing The Amazing Spider-Man probably didn't help, because it just reminded me how much of Spider-Man worked just fine the first time.  Having said that, this is my first commentary and one of the more enjoyable things I've done in awhile.  It's myself, Aaron Neuwirth, and Jim Dietz.  Do enjoy, because I certainly did.

Scott Mendelson

Weekend Box Office: Ted, Magic Mike, and Madea's Witness Protection all open huge in 'everybody wins' weekend.

This weekend represented a shining example of the two best trends in mainstream moviegoing this year.  As I wrote (here and here), we've seen a real upswing in both mid-to-low-budget mainstream fare that aren't especially 'tentpole-ish' as well as a huge upswing in the number of R-rated films being released by the major studios.  As such, two of the four wide releases this weekend were both R-rated and all four were relatively small-scale and in 2D.  That they mostly debuted to blockbuster numbers is an encouraging sign that not every movie need be a $150 million fantasy genre franchise entry.  The top film of the weekend is also the best mainstream picture of the summer, as Seth MacFarlane's Ted (review) debuted to a massive $54 million.  That's the third-best debut for an R-rated comedy behind the $57 million opening of Sex and the City and the $87 million Fri-Sun debut of The Hangover part II.  Among non-sequel/spin-off R-rated comedies, it topped the $44 million record debut of The Hangover and is the is among the top-ten best R-rated debuts of all-time. This is a massive win for all involved, bringing Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane serious film-making clout, further confirming that Mark Wahlberg is an actual 'put butts in the seats' movie star and giving Universal something to laugh about. Speaking of Wahlberg, this is his second biggest opening behind the $68 million debut of Planet of the Apes back in 2001, and it needs only cross $133 million to supplant The Departed as his third-highest grossing film (Planet of the Apes and The Perfect Storm earned $180 million and $182 million respectively)

Review: The Amazing Spider-Man (2012) is the same, only much much worse.

The Amazing Spider-Man

2012
136 minutes
rated PG-13

by Scott Mendelson

It's no secret that I have had major issues with the very idea of quickly rebooting the Spider-Man franchise.  If the film was a smash, I have argued, then studios would basically spend the next few decades merely rebooting the same dozen franchises over and over again.  Well, the Marc Webb-helmed reboot is here, and it fails in fundamental ways despite not being an outright terrible film.  It fails by both not being different enough from Sam Raimi's Spider-Man and not being better than Sam Raimi's Spider-Man.  While it is preferred to view (and review) films in a vacuum, the circumstances in this case not only prevent that but discourage it.  At its core, it is an unofficial loose remake of a prior film being sold as an 'untold story' while the studio attempts to sell used goods as a new product.  It is astonishingly cynical gambit and the idea behind its construction turn what is by-itself a moderately entertaining superhero origin story into something downright insidious.  

Newsflash: Twilight didn't invent the female-driven blockbuster and Sam Raimi's Spider-Man was primarily about romance too...

As expected, the initial wave of mostly positive reviews for The Amazing Spider-Man have partially involved a form of collective amnesia. Robbie Collin of The Daily Telegraph called the film 'a superhero film for the Twilight generation' and states that Twilight was the first blockbuster to target women and The Amazing Spider-Man is the first superhero targeted at females, a theme that a number of critics have implicitly or explicitly stated in their critiques.  Both of these things are false of course.  Sam Raimi's Spider-Man trilogy was primarily a romantic drama stretched over three films.  The web-slinging action beats and occasional super-villain squabbles were less important than the ongoing love story between Peter Parker and Mary Jane Watson.  Kristen Dunst was as much of a main character as Toby Maguire, especially in the somewhat underrated Spider-Man 3, and the romantic arc was the main narrative throughout the blockbuster trilogy.  And as for the second claim, it's like Titanic, Spider-Man, Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl, and Avatar never happened.  But in an era where no one remembers a damn thing and everyone is too damn lazy to look it up, Marc Webb is now getting the credit for basically inventing a female-skewing superhero film and Twilight is now presumed to be the only reference point for blockbusters that were popular with women.

Summer movie musical chairs: Ted moves to June 29th.

Universal has announced that Seth McFarlane's Ted (which my wife wants to see) will now open on June 29th, 2012 in the 'vacated' slot (by vacated, that means its also opening against Tatum's Magic Mike, Tyler Perry's Madea's Witness Protection, and People Like Us).  Oddly enough, Universal is opening Oliver Stone's Savages just a week later on July 6th.  So if Universal ends up moving Savages to July 13th, don't be too surprised.  I'm genuinely surprised that Universal didn't take the opportunity to move The Bourne Legacy from its August 3rd slot where it would be opening head-to-head with Total Recall.  Of course, considering July 13th will now have only Ice Age: Continental Drift, expect some studio to move one of their bigger movies to the now nearly-empty slot.  That leaves just six titles opening in wide release this July (The Amazing Spider-Man, Savages, Ice Age 4, The Dark Knight Rises, Step Up 4, and The Watch).  If I were Sony, I'd move the Meryl Streep/Tommy Lee Jones/Steve Carell drama Hope Springs into the July 13th slot, as it will provide solid counter-programming against both Ice Age 4 and The Dark Knight Rises and allow Sony to move Total Recall to August 10th.  August has 14 movies opening over five weeks.  I expect that number to drop by at least one while July's total increases to seven before too long. What do you think will go down with this latest round of musical chairs?  Share below.

Scott Mendelson

Sony apparently plans to reveal all 120-minutes of The Amazing Spider-Man via clips and previews before July 3rd.

The press release is after the jump, but the short version is that Sony is taking a page from Warner Bros. and showing off six more minutes of The Amazing Spider-Man in select theaters before Men In Black 3, which opens this Friday (had life not gotten in the way, I would be currently writing a review of just that film).  I don't know if this is a six minute scene (ala the Dark Knight/Dark Knight Rises IMAX prologues) or yet another extended preview.  With The Avengers basically taking the wind out of the sails of every other major blockbuster and The Dark Knight Rises looking to dominate the second half of summer 2012 while Prometheus takes up the adult-skewing geek-nirvana slot, Sony is in a jam with their Spider-Man reboot. Fair or not (I'd argue fair), The Amazing Spider-Man is contributing exactly zero to the hype and/or cultural conversation.  Toss in rumblings of dissatisfaction which seems to coincide with two new writers (Transformers/Star Trek scribes Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci) being hired to pen the theoretical sequel and you can literally see the sweat on Sony's brow.  I will say that the action sequences look quite impressive, and that may be enough to justify an IMAX 3D viewing when the time comes.  But for now, those seeing Men In Black 3 in 'IMAX 3D and select theaters' will be treated to six more minutes of "The Completely New and Totally Different Peter Parker Becomes Spider-Man Origin Story".  As always, share your thoughts below.

Scott Mendelson      

Unconventional Wisdom: So Chris Nolan's Batman films inspired a trend of dark/gritty blockbusters? Such as?

I've discussed this a few times over the years, so while debunking the concept in question I must accept guilt for believing it uncritically on prior occasions. If you've been reading reviews and general commentary for The Avengers, you've probably read at least a few pundits talk about how Joss Whedon's The Avengers is a welcome respite from the grim/gritty blockbusters that were born from the massive success of Chris Nolan's Batman movies (the second of which is still falsely held up as a NeoCon propaganda fantasy).  It's an easy sell, as the bright, colorful, and larger-than-life super-heroics found in The Avengers are worlds away from the street-level fights and chases in the Nolan-verse.  But in the seven years since Batman Begins debuted, where exactly are all of these grim/gritty blockbusters that Nolan is constantly credited with inspiring?  In short, they basically don't exist.  Whether it be comic book films or unrelated fantasy blockbusters, the films that soared highest are still the biggest, most colorful, most larger-than-life, and arguably the most 'fun'.  Four years after The Dark Knight, Chris Nolan's second Batman epic remains not a template for blockbuster success but somewhat of an anomaly.

God I love these things...

I really should do a better job keeping up with these videos, and it's hard to believe it's been four years since I first posted the 'Iron Man vs. The Dark Knight' which pretty accurately summed up the DC/Marvel war of summer 2008.  Anyway, this clip, aside from being funny (because it actually pays attention to movie news), points out pretty succinctly why The Amazing Spider-Man is in a little bit of trouble.

Scott Mendelson  

The Amazing Spider-Man gets one last trailer. In summer 2012, it clearly suffers from the 'middle-child syndrome'.

This frankly isn't nearly as impressive as the first teaser, mainly because it doesn't add much other than to reveal some pretty big third-act spoilers (including two massive hints about the film's finale).  The interplay between Garfield and Stone is still pretty solid, and it's nice that the film A) has them get together pretty early on and B) apparently has her learn his secret at least by act three (again, why spoil that?).  Dennis Leary barely gets any dialogue this time around, which is good since he seems to be giving the film's worst performance.  The focus this time around is on the official super-villain, The Lizard (Rhys Ifans), with plenty of meaty shots of the green-skinned menace.  The web-slinging action still looks pretty terrific and the film looks visually dynamic (it has a richer and crisper picture than the relatively flat The Avengers).  At its core, the problem with The Amazing Spider-Man at this point in the game is two-fold.  First of all, it still doesn't look different enough from the Sam Raimi trilogy to justify a corporate-mandated reboot.  Second of all, it is sandwiched between what is arguably the 'ultimate comic book movie' (The Avengers) and the 'ultimate comic book film' (The Dark Knight Rises).  In comparison, the Marc Webb picture just seems like a kids' flick in comparison, a young do-gooder not fit to play with the grown-ups in tights.  Anyway, The Amazing Spider-Man opens on July 3rd.  As always, we'll see.

Scott Mendelson