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The Amazing Spider-Man (2012 Reboot film)


Trent B

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Are the action and fights in this one cool? In the other ones, it was always too animated and fake. It never looked like it could really be the same guy, the CGI was totally obvious and jarring. There were only rare moments when Spidey look awesome and it was usually the simplest thing, like MJ watching him swing away after he saves her the first time or crawling on the train during the fight in the second one.

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I kinda prefer Raimi's approach to web-slinging. The Evil Dead craziness worked well for those movies, gave them a unique style.

Anyhoo, this is interesting: http://badassdigest....ing-spider-man/

I predict a Superman Returns situation; we're not going to see any huge deleted scenes until this movie (or one of its sequels) underperforms.

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Are the action and fights in this one cool? In the other ones, it was always too animated and fake. It never looked like it could really be the same guy, the CGI was totally obvious and jarring.

They are cool, and better animated than the first three films. (I think the final swing is so much better than Raimi's first film, even if it is overdone.) But I attribute that to technological advances in the past 10 years, since Sony Pictures Imageworks will never be on par with ILM or Weta Digital in terms of quality.

But the film... it has good things working for it, but the script brings it down a lot. Especially the contrived second half... I agree with you, this reboot should've taken the Batman '89 approach. As much as I like Andrew Garfield (he does bring some qualities to the character that Maguire lacked), you didn't get much of a personality change pre- and post-spiderbite with his Peter Parker. Nor at the end of the movie either.

And Horner's score felt grossly out-of-place. It's not that he regurgitated Titanic, Wrath of Khan, Rocketeer and House of Sand and Fog for the umpteenth time -- his score just doesn't fit the contemporary vibe of the film. As much as I applaud Marc Webb championing and convincing Horner to score the film, the score belongs in an older, different film altogether. It really does.

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  • 4 weeks later...

And Horner's score felt grossly out-of-place. It's not that he regurgitated Titanic, Wrath of Khan, Rocketeer and House of Sand and Fog for the umpteenth time -- his score just doesn't fit the contemporary vibe of the film.

'Contemporary vibe'? If anything, it had too much contemporary vibe in it...needless bubbling samples and obnoxious drumloops. Thank god Horner was able to contribute some of his customary touches of thematic warmth, something most of the scores for these movies lack...in large doses.

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Saw the film a while ago and for some reason never posted my thoughts, so here they are

Cliff Notes: Fun, but completely forgettable

You won't be bored in this film, it moves along at a steady pace and has plenty of action, comedy, drama, and some good individual scenes. But in the end, for me anyway, there wasn't much substance to it - it's juts another fun summer popcorn movie and nothing more.

I didn't care for the acting of anybody involved save for Emma Stone as Gwen Stacey - she was not only extremely pretty in the film, but the way she played her character was somehow intoxicating, for lack of a better word. If I was a 17 year old Peter Parker, I'd be in love with her too. Denis Leary was fine as her dad but was under-used, as was just about everybody else in the cast. James Garfield as Peter Parker was OK - vastly different from Tobey Maguire's portrayal, but I don't know if I can say better. They are each different.

A major problem I had with the film was just how much of it was a rehash from the prior 3 movies. I mean, there was A LOT. Peter Parker gets bitten by a genetically engineered spider while in a science lab that the the love interest is also at. The villain is a scientist who under pressure has to resort to trying his experiment on himself. Peter's uncle dies because he lets a robber get away since he was mad at the cashier. Etc, its all the same!

The special effects ranged from passable to awful looking with the occasional cool effect. Sometimes it seemed like they were doing things more practically than the other films then other times it was like every single thing on the screen was CGI for too long of a period of time.

Another big problem I had was the "arc" of Peter's character and how Garfield portrays him. The problem on the script level is that Peter starts off as a nerd who is unliked at school and pushed around and bullied, then gets bitter and literally is just IMMEDIATELY Spider-man. There's no learning curve, no trying things out, no failing at his first attempts, no almost getting discovered. He just gets bitten and then is immediately able to do kung fu and whatever else, and quickly builds a costume and then is immediately a perfect crime stopper and building-swinger and immediately understands the responsibilities of his powers and everything that comes with it. The problem with the acting is that Garfield plays the nerdy naive Peter just about the same way he plays Spider-man.

Despite all these criticisms I had fun and wasn't bored. It just could have been more.

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The only part of the movie that I enjoyed was the "small knives" bit with the car thief...the same clip they showed online before the movie aired.

Denis Leary's character would have been improved had he simply said "You know what, Peter Parker (or Spider-Man), you really are an asshole," and then resumed singing his classic song.

Part of me will always view Raimi's first two as classics, and this one just didn't do it for me. (Nodding off every five minutes in the car as it was the second movie at the drive-in after a longass day may have something to do with it.)

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Jay, the whole scene with him on the skateboard in the abandoned warehouse was the learning curve scene. Not to mention him breaking a bunch of stuff because he wasn't used to how strong he became. The change in his body was more or less immediate, but it definitely took him awhile to adjust.

Sony is fast tracking the sequel for a 2014 release. Webb has to fulfill another picture with Fox Searchlight, but I believe they'll let him do the sequel if he agrees to direct another one with them. Could be good, but then Orci and Kurtzman are writing the script. Epic fail.

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Just because they wrote Transformers doesn't mean they are bad writers. They created Fringe and wrote the Star Trek reboot after all

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Creating something and writing something are different, although I wouldn't doubt that they wrote a few episodes. Like we've discussed before I wasn't sold on Fringe from the the little bits I saw. It's on Amazon Prime now though so I may attempt it from the beginning.

As for Trek, it was fine I suppose, but these two are not great writers.

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Part of me will always view Raimi's first two as classics, and this one just didn't do it for me. (Nodding off every five minutes in the car as it was the second movie at the drive-in after a longass day may have something to do with it.)

Glad to see I'm not the only fan of Raimi's first 2 Spidey films here.

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I like all 3! The third film has a lot of good aspects that most choose not to see.

It's interesting how the superhero movie I liked least this summer (though I still enjoyed it) had the best score.

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Yeah, I also enjoy SM3. It's easily the worst of the trilogy, but it's not a bad movie. Also, it gave venom a better motivation than in the comics, so bonus.

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