The Amazing Spider-Man

Film critics are told to go into every movie rooting for it to be a smashing good time.  I must confess that I had no such thinking walking into "The Amazing Spider-Man." I suppose I shared the consensus view that there was no need to re-boot the franchise so soon after Sam Raimi's trilogy.  I think, though, that after the negative reaction fans had towards the "Star Wars" prequel trilogy, there has been considerable efforts from filmmakers charged with the task of rebooting franchises to do it justly, and that's why the James Bond, "Planet of the Apes," "Batman" and other reboots have been so successful. Fortunately, Marc Webb's "The Amazing Spider-Man" is another one of these successful reboots.

Andrew Garfield (from "The Social Network") is Peter Parker, the awkward boy Tobey Macguire portrayed in the original trilogy. Here, as Spider-Man (which he finally becomes at almost an hour into the movie), Garfield suffices, but I suspect he needs one more go-around before getting it completely right. He has had a lot of good training from this one, as his co-stars include Rhys Ifans, Sally Field, and Martin Sheen; those three actors are worth the watch of any movie, so to see all three here is a real treat, and they're all in top form, particularly Ifans, who's given a lot of "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" moments to have fun with. It's just a shame that we don't only see this portrayal but also Ifans disguised in silly-looking GGI effects. When he's in his full metamorphosis as the Lizard, he looks rather silly (but again, as a sick scientist, he's wonderful). Emma Stone as Gwen Stacy is as likable and funny as she was in "Easy A" and "Zombieland," but unfortunately isn't given much to do here until near the end. Denis Leary also appears as Stacey's strict, traditional "law-and-order" father (who also happens to be the police chief who despises Spider-Man). Finally, Stan Lee, as he always does, has a cameo here, and it probably is the best Stan Lee cameo ever.

But as Peter Parker the teenage high school student, Garfield overdoes the awkwardness, overplaying his nervous stuttering in front of pretty girls. The audience is too smart to believe that Peter could be severely punched in the stomach and face several times and then waltz into class. But still, despite this taunting from a school bully whose behavior is way too unrealistic (and considering what demons high school bullies are, that is saying a lot), the audience is probably willing to suspend its disbelief and cheer when Peter has fun humiliating him in the school gym. That's after he gets his mutant powers, of course. And he gets those powers in a science lab when a spider bites him....oh, what's the point of discussing all the details of the plot? By now, everyone knows it.

And that's a problem Webb's "Spider-Man" has: it hastily checks through the "to-do" list of a "Spider-Man" reboot: Peter gets bullied, he's bitten by a spider, he gets new powers and struggles to understand how to use them. This is a lesson in the subtle differences in listing versus telling.  Webb and his team believe that they need to go through the check list with all this stuff, and these scenes usually are the ones that don't work. Case in point is the CGI scenes with Spider-Man flying around the city or his nemesis, the Lizard destroying the city. They are disguised as "show-me" moments. The parts that really work are the ones where we're being shown something genuine. Not necessarily the visuals, but the human element that makes up the "Spider-Man" mythology. As expected, a lot of this comes from the relationship between Peter and his surrogate father, Ben, played by Sheen. Sheen's character is a simple, working-class man, and yet he has a lifetime of powerful education to pass down to his nephew. But there are other show-me moments, like when Spider-Man must act quickly to save a boy from a burning car. It reminded me of those pictures of the window-washers at hospitals who sometimes dress up as Spider-Man to entertain the children.  It's evidence that the world not only needs heroes, but movies about super heroes.



This review is dedicated to Roger Ebert, who died on Thursday. He wrote the following about "Spider-Man 2," one of his favorite films of 2004: "Now this is what a superhero movie should be...it's a superhero movie for people who don't go to superhero movies, and for those who do, it's the one they've been yearning for." (In his opinion, "The Amazing Spider-Man" was the second best in the series.)












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Easy A

"If a man, sitting all alone, cannot dream strange things, and make them look like truth, he need never try to write romances." Thus wrote Nathaniel Hawthorne, whose "The Scarlet Letter" serves as an influence for Will Gluck's "Easy A," a film about a teenage girl who indeed has dreamed strange things and tried to make them look truthful with unending consequences.

Emma Stone is Olive, a sharp and witty yet fairly unknown high schooler with essentially one close friend and a bit hungry for a need of belongingness. Olive is generally well-liked, at least to those who know her. She spends one weekend listening and singing to bad music, and then uses her imagination to create a story of how she actually lost her virginity to a "gentleman." While Olive is generally well-liked, there is a group who does not like her, and that is a group of Christian students lead by Marianne (Amanda Bynes). Marianee's friend taunts Olive in class, and Olive retorts, resulting in her first trip to the principal's office.

She receives a detention and spends one afternoon cleaning the school with her fellow troublemaker Brandon (Dan Byrd), who is gay and harassed on a daily basis. Brandon painfully tells Olive that he has had enough with the bullying, and he wants her to extend the make-believe. He asks her to pretend to have sex with him. That way, everyone will know once and for all that he is indeed quite straight.

Anyway, requests like this continue. Students with desperate "needs" request her "service" and thus Olive is rewarded with gift cards, coupons, and attention. Her life begins to resemble the protagonist of "The Scarlet Letter," which is being read in class. The trajectory begins to spiral downward as things progress.

I haven't read "The Scarlet Letter" but I do know enough about it to understand the allegories. The condemnation the lead characters in these two stories is symbolic, to me at least, of the double-standard facing women. A male who engages in sexual activity and has numerous sleeping partners is considered a stud; a female in the same situation is a slut. I also can recall from my school days that the author of "The Scarlet Letter" was Nathaniel Hawthorne, the great-great-grandson of John Hathorne, a judge of the Salem Witch Trials and who is portrayed in Arthur Miller's play "The Crucible" as being of the most vicious of the group. There is definitely a hint of that sentiment in "Easy A."

This film is much like "Mean Girls" and "Juno" before it, centering on female leads struggling with what Erikson would have described as identity versus role confusion. "Easy A" does not do enough to distinguish itself from the two, but it is quite funny. Like the two mentioned films, it becomes evident that actual people, whether they be teenagers or parents or teachers or Christian fundamentalists, do not in fact talk and act as they do in this film. But the farcical nature is forgiven, because these characters and the actors portraying them are very funny. The movie has an entertaining cast, with Thomas Hayden Church as Olive's favorite teacher, Lisa Kudrow as his wife who is also the school's guidance counselor, Malcolm MacDowell as the school's principal, Fred Armisen as a local preacher, and Patricia Clarkson and Stanley Tucci as Olive's parents.

But the real gem of this production is Emma Stone. There is a perfect sense of sarcasm in her tone, a lack of intonation which is surprisingly effective and a slightly raspy voice mixed with her confidence in the risks she takes as a performer that make her really enjoyable to watch. It can be written with assurance that she will continue to entertain and her audiences will be quite fortunate.

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