I remember when I first heard they were planning on
rebooting the Spider-Man film franchise, I was completely against is. The only
reason to reboot a film franchise is if the previous version has taken the
series to far from its original roots or there are no more possible stories
that could take place in the already established universe and then there’s the
third option that at least ten years has passed and it would be too costly/impractical
to bring back the original cast. None of these reasons existed in my opinion in
Sam Rami’s Spider-Man universe; different actor’s could have been cast and
moved the timeline on a few years with little impact on the story in my opinion.
But I can understand why they didn’t do this, I could of even forgiven it, if
it wasn’t for the simple fact this would be another origin story, which is a
little much to take in seems as we already saw this less than ten years ago,
and was still fresh in our minds and was an amazing film and should have been left
alone again in my opinion. But despite mine and many other people’s negativity
towards the project on initial announcement the film went ahead and I have to
admit I did warm to the idea of it especially as we were promised a film more
faithful to the comic books origins and ideas fans know from it and the 90’s
animated television show (web slingers). So to say the least I wasn’t looking
forward to this film, but I wanted to see how it turned out.
My first impression of the film is it’s the closest we’ll
get to seeing Spider-Man in The Avengers at least for a while, people have said
it might happen in The Avengers 2 but I won’t hold my breath just yet. Stylistically
the film has a similar feel to the films set in the Marvel Cinematic Universe,
as in its very grounded in reality, the characters behave like real people and
the choices they make even the ones we know they have to are made for very
logical reasons and with one exception are very true to the character and
reflect the maturity level of them. So when Peter Parker (Andrew Garfield)
dicks around with his super powers and in some way’s abuses them it feels
natural, like something we all would do if we had superpowers and then when he
matures again it doesn’t feel like the script just told him to start acting
differently we see the decisions that lead him to step up and become a man. So
to talk about plot for a bit, this version of Peter Parker is still in high
school and is very much the current everybody, he’s still a good student (but
not someone who sits in the front row), he’s still a photographer and he’s
still good at science, and I like this change kind of making him an everyman
instead of a nerd instantly makes him more relatable and likable as a character
and makes his relationships with (eventual girlfriend) Gwen Stacey (Emma Stone)
and school bully Flash Thompson (Chris Zylka), very believable.
It’s nice to see a fresh take on certain aspects of the
Spider-Man character, like Sally Field portrayal of a younger Aunt May but with others it feels
quiet distracting and you’d rather they got it over with like Uncle Ben’s (Martin
Sheen) infamous “With great power, comes great responsibility” spiel and
eventual death. However for the most part I liked the retelling the one main
issue I had though was having Dr. Curt Connors/Lizard (Rhys Ifans) as the
baddie in this film I feel Rhys Ifans did a great job with the role and was very
enjoyable, the only problem was in the previous films we got to know Dr.
Connors for two films as a minor background character and got attached to him
so if Spider-Man 4 had of been made we would have been more attached to the
Lizard and felt some of Peter’s resentment and hurt at having to attack and
potentially kill him again I like what they did with the character but would of
preferred if they had merely teased at it this film and have him as the baddie
in the sequel but that’s personal opinion. And seems as though I’ve mentioned
the rest of the main characters how could I leave out Captain George Stacey
played brilliantly by Dennis Leary, I felt in many ways the film sets him up as
the Commissioner Gordon, to Spider-Man’s Batman, but leaving that aside I feel
the character is brilliantly developed as not only a police captain but also as
a father, my main problem with him though is the promise he makes Peter take to
stay away from Gwen when he’s dying and the fact that Peter does so immediately
going so far as to not even attend the funeral of his then girlfriends father
(this it the above mentioned character development gone amiss moment as no
matter what he should have been there for her in my opinion).
Ok final thoughts time, would I recommend this film? Yes I would
highly. While I might not agree with the decisions behind its development I love
the outcome and will defiantly be going to see the sequel when it comes out.
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