REVIEW: The Amazing Spider-Man

The Amazing Spider-Man (2012): Dir. Marc Webb. Written by: James Vanderbilt, Alvin Sargent and Steve Kloves. Story by: James Vanderbilt. Based on the comics by: Stan Lee and Steve Ditko. Starring: Andrew Garfield, Emma Stone, Rhys Ifans, Denis Leary, Martin Sheen and Sally Field. Rated PG-13 (No worse than a Saturday morning cartoon). Running time: 136 minutes.

3 stars (out of four)

Could it be the superhero genre is entering a period similar to, say, the western in its heyday, where originality is less important than deft execution of a sturdy formula? The Amazing Spider-Man is a bright and flashy reboot of the franchise, and more or less a remake of Sam Raimi’s 2002 film that kicked off Hollywood’s obsession with spandexed heroes ten summers ago.

In that intervening decade superhero movies have become increasingly bloated and out of hand, and I started to forget what it is I expect from them. The Amazing Spider-Man has a dashing and charming hero, a pretty girl and a bad guy to save her from. The movie is also marked with a cheerful levity; it doesn’t ham it up or anything but keeps in mind just how silly these movies are if you stop to think about them.

And you don’t have to think too much to enjoy The Amazing Spider-Man. The script, written by James Vanderbilt, Alvin Sargent and Steve Kloves, is clunky at times and rushes through a few key moments in the character’s early development. The previous telling of Spider-Man’s origin will be fresh in the minds of many and there are few surprises with regard to the basic story here. The surprises and pleasures of this movie instead come from director Marc Webb’s lightness of touch and the giddily fun moments he creates with his graceful cast.

Peter Parker (Andrew Garfield) is a teenaged brainiac whose parents mysteriously left him in the care of his Uncle Ben (Martin Sheen) and Aunt May (Sally Field) and disappeared when he was a boy. He is a skateboarding loner with a love of photography and who occupies one of the lower rungs of the high school social ladder.

Mr. Garfield plays Peter as a goodhearted showboat, awkward and a little angsty but more than ready to take on the world when the time comes. Even after he dons the suit, Mr. Garfield does not lose the tics and mannerisms of an overexcited adolescent. These particularly come out in Peter’s scenes with Gwen Stacey (the always lively Emma Stone), a girl at his school who he is crushing on big time. They share some awkward flirtation and these scenes are the best in the film.

Marc Webb’s debut was the romantic comedy (500) Days of Summer, the movie that revealed to America just how adorable Zooey Deschanel is, and he has a keen sensibility for the tone of these scenes. He gives his actors room to play, trusting that their onscreen chemistry will create a sweetly romantic atmosphere. Ms. Stone, a wonderfully subtle and immensely likable actress, understands her role – she is on hand to look cute and alternately cheer, gasp and smooch – and is no less appealing than usual, though she may be a bit underused.

Gwen works as an assistant for Dr. Curt Connors (Rhys Ifans), a scientist who believes the regenerative powers of reptiles holds the key to curing countless injuries, not the least of which is his own severed right arm. And now we have our bad guy. Dr. Connors is that familiar movie scientist; he is noble and wise and working on something momumental, the power of which he does not yet fully grasp. Perhaps inevitably, he becomes (spoiler alert!) a giant lizard.

Dr. Connors is of particular interest to Peter, whose father once worked alongside Connors on some rather sensational projects. One of these involves genetically altered spiders that shoot webs with the strength of industrial cables. I don’t need to tell you one of these little guys bites Peter while he’s poking around in Dr. Connors’s lab.

Before long, Peter has designed a tight-fitting red-and-blue suit and a mechanism that shoots webs (both introduced in the requisite training montages), and becomes a masked vigilante. This draws the ire of Gwen’s father, Captain George Stacey (Denis Leary), who naturally sets the entire police force on a manhunt to catch Spider-Man.

There is something almost classical about this film’s approach, as though it were paying tribute to the 2002 film. This is, of course, ridiculous. The original Spider-Man is hardly old and, yes, a franchise reboot is totally unnecessary but the gluttonous studioheads have demanded it into existence and, like it or not, here it is. This is a gleeful, dopey, discardable bit of summer entertainment but something about it kept me hooked.

Like the best Hollywood formulas, the superhero movie is designed to entertain. In The Amazing Spider-Man, all the pieces are in place and it works. With no end in sight for the genre’s box office domination, these movies will continue to be produced for at least another decade if not longer. Some of them will be awful, others will hopefully be great. This is a good one.

- Steve Avigliano, 7/7/12

REVIEW: (500) Days of Summer

(500) Days of Summer (2009): Dir. Marc Webb. Written by: Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber. Starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Zooey Deschanel. Rated PG-13 (sexual material and language). Running time: 95 minutes.

3 stars (out of four)

There’s a line in High Fidelity that goes something like, “Do I listen to pop music because I’m depressed, or am I depressed because I listen to pop music?” Not only does Tom, the Hopeless Romantic of (500) Days of Summer agree with the latter, he gives a rousing speech late in the film, throwing Hollywood movies and greeting cards into the mix, and accuses them all of poisoning the minds of our youth with lies of romance and love. But give the guy a break, his girlfriend just broke up with him 100 days ago.

The movie recounts a romance that begins in the office when Tom (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) spots the new assistant, Summer (Zooey Deschanel) and falls for her despite her lack of interest in a serious relationship and her insistence that love does not exist. Some 200+ days later the relationship crumbles, leaving Tom devastated and at the mercy of his friends’ and younger sister’s attempts to comfort him. For the most part, the film intercuts the beginnings of their relationship with the final days, a structure that provides some fun contrasts between the initial bliss of new love and the eventual misery that follows. Once the earlier scenes catch up to the day of the breakup, the film focuses on Tom’s post-Summer days, which consist mostly of wallowing in a self-induced misery.

These scenes successfully capture the mindset of a young man blindsided by the seeming cruelties of the opposite sex, delving deep into the self-pitying world of one-word questions (“How?” “Why?”). With visual inventiveness, (500) Days of Summer turns familiar territory into something fresh and full of energy. After a very good first date, Tom joins an over-the-top musical number, complete with a choreographed dance and tweeting animated birds. Later, the film’s best and most heartbreaking moment comes in a split-screen with Tom’s expectations for a party playing alongside the unpleasant reality. From the mock-text that opens the film, assuring the audience that the story is not based on a real girl, (500) Days of Summer is a playful recreation of post-breakup suffering, accompanied by a killer soundtrack.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Zooey Deschanel are entirely at ease with one another, creating chemistry in their many moments onscreen together. Gordon-Levitt is especially charming, pulling the extra weight in his scenes without Summer. Along with recent films like Brick and The Lookout, Gordon-Levitt has recently been turning in strong performances in interesting movies, G.I. Joe notwithstanding, and is becoming one of the best young actors working today. Deschanel too, may be counted on for a likable performance; she’s given the difficult task here of continuing to be irresistible even in Summer’s coldest moments. She allows her to be a complex and inscrutable character, and if we never learn the exact reason for Summer’s change of heart, that’s only because Summer herself probably couldn’t tell us.

(500) Days of Summer succeeds where other romances falter by remaining honest in its depiction of relationship complexities, the constant balancing act of emotions, needs and the reality-check of life’s unpredictability. There’s an attention to detail here that makes the young couple so worth rooting for. But for all its authentic moments, (500) Days of Summer has its fair share of movie contrivances, both large (a convenient train ride to a mutual friend’s wedding provides an opportunity for a reunion) and small (I’ve never heard of a jukebox that has Pixies’s “Here Comes Your Man” but not “Born to Run”), but these moments are not entirely out of place in a film whose lead character is conflicted between a romantic belief in Fate and a nihilistic acceptance of life’s randomness.

After a breezy 95 minutes, the characters eventually decide on the view that everything in life happens for a reason, but the movie never explicitly endorses that belief. Life and love are what you make of them. Sure, they’re unfair, but maybe they have a way of coming around and rewarding the patient. Is such an ambiguous conclusion a satisfying one? The final shot of The Graduate, which this film shows in full, watches the two lovers’ smiles fade as they look around, unsure of their next move. Tom’s final look in (500) Days of Summer is, by contrast, much more assured and confident. Me, I remain unconvinced on the issue of destiny and randomness, but I’m happy that he’s happy.

- Steve Avigliano, 8/13/09