The Amazing Spider-Man (2012)
Directed by Marc Webb
A teenage Peter Parker grapples with both high school and amazing super-human crises as his alter-ego Spider-Man.
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30 films that influenced The Amazing Spider-Man
What critics say influenced The Amazing Spider-Man
Throughout the film there are very faint echoes of David Cronenberg’s 1970s and 1980s films, especially The Fly (1986), where the ability for humans to use science to bypass evolution is seen as a positive thing until hubris, obsession and possessiveness takes over and the monstrosities occur.
At first, bewildered Peter behaves like the Jeff Goldblum character in The Fly, then he settles down into a kind of Anthony Perkins in tights, forever ducking his head in the presence of Gwen and her police-captain father (Denis Leary).
Why does Peter Parker grow into a paragon of fortitude, clad in upmarket cycling gear, while Dr. Connors, or Jeff Goldblum’s fast-talking goof in “The Fly,” submits to dermatological outrages that no amount of cleanser mousse can soothe?
There’s a gorgeous homage to Hitchcock’s “Foreign Correspondent”: an aerial image of a blond head in the midst of a sea of black umbrellas.
Maybe Sony drew inspiration from Christopher Nolan’s reboot of “Batman,” with Nolan wading into waters made murky by Michael Keaton (“Tim Burton’s Batman”), Val Kilmer (“Batman Forever”), and George Clooney (“Batman & Robin”) and paddling off with Christian Bale in his own, darker direction.
Maybe Sony drew inspiration from Christopher Nolan’s reboot of “Batman,” with Nolan wading into waters made murky by Michael Keaton (“Tim Burton’s Batman”), Val Kilmer (“Batman Forever”), and George Clooney (“Batman & Robin”) and paddling off with Christian Bale in his own, darker direction.
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Tim Burton’s “Batman” reclaimed the hero from serials and camp TV in 1989; it would be 16 years before Christopher Nolan rethought the Dark Knight for “Batman Begins,” in 2005.
“The Amazing Spider-Man” isn’t as dramatically revisionist as Christopher Nolan’s “Batman Begins,” but it’s as good as Raimi’s first “Spider-Man” film and darker, while still being tongue-in-cheek.
Sometimes dull and mostly uninspired, it’s much less a satisfying reboot like “Batman Begins’’ than a pointless rehash in the mode of “Superman Returns.’’
Marc Webb’s attempt to bring a Batman Begins approach to the Marvel Comics character is a clunker.
As much as “The Amazing Spider-Man” tries to mirror Christopher Nolan’s “Batman Begins” by veering away from the comics and trying to base every aspect of Spider-Man and the Lizard’s origins in reality, it’s far too obvious Webb just doesn’t have the skills that come with experience that Nolan had by the time he tackled Batman, and this doesn’t work nearly as well.
Granted, “The Amazing Spider-Man” isn't exactly the radical reboot that Christopher Nolan's “Batman Begins” proved to be, but it’s not that kind of film.
Garfield, so good in The Social Network and onstage in Death of a Salesman, puts his own stamp on Peter and his drive to solve the mystery of his parents' death.
It so happens that Andrew Garfield, the new Spider-Man, played Biff to Hoffman’s Willy in Mike Nichols’ Death of a Salesman this spring and got great notices.
The first feature “Superman” series began in 1978 — and it was 28 years before Hollywood felt it had to completely start all over again in 2006, with “Superman Returns.”
Sometimes dull and mostly uninspired, it’s much less a satisfying reboot like “Batman Begins’’ than a pointless rehash in the mode of “Superman Returns.’’
In concocting this scenario, the scripters turn Parker’s story even more than was true in the comics into one of personal loss that’s not unlike the premise of the undervalued “Superman Returns,” which was suffused with a similar longing for home and family.
The first feature “Superman” series began in 1978 — and it was 28 years before Hollywood felt it had to completely start all over again in 2006, with “Superman Returns.”
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Tim Burton’s “Batman” reclaimed the hero from serials and camp TV in 1989; it would be 16 years before Christopher Nolan rethought the Dark Knight for “Batman Begins,” in 2005.
Maybe Sony drew inspiration from Christopher Nolan’s reboot of “Batman,” with Nolan wading into waters made murky by Michael Keaton (“Tim Burton’s Batman”), Val Kilmer (“Batman Forever”), and George Clooney (“Batman & Robin”) and paddling off with Christian Bale in his own, darker direction.
He’ll stand up to the bullies because he’s no doubt seen “Cool Hand Luke” or “Rebel without a Cause.”