Hey, you know what movie NOT needed a remake? Spiderman. De original had fun, humor, a great origin story, and a colorful, nuanced villain in Norman Osbore/Green Goblin. Dis new, improved (?) version have half de fun, hardly any of de humor, a not as interesting origin story, and a one-note villain in Curt Connors/Lizard. What next for de Hollywood remake machine? Batman? Les Miserables? Schindler’s List?
Peter Parker be a loser. He have no friends. He picked on at skool. FORTUNATELY for him, as ALWAYS happen in real life, de hottest girl in skool fall for him. One day, he comes across dead father’s old briefcase and, inside it, many strange scientific documents. Dis lead him to start researching his father on google – someting he never had any inklination to do before. He diskover father and his research partner, one-armed Dr. Curt Conners, worked at company called Oscorp.
Oscorp be a big company involved in all sorts of high-tech research. FORTUNATELY for Peter, none of dis high tech research went into office security which simply consist of woman at desk handing out name badges like candy. No, I.D.? No problem. Just help yourself and have a nice day!
Peter wander around sekret corridors and waltz into top sekret lab where he get bitten by a radioactive spider. And before you can say “Here we go again”, he demonstrating superhuman abilities like super strength, super agility, and super douchiness. After giving some poor convenience store owner a hard time, he not bother to help him stop a robber – a robber who end up shooting his Uncle Ben dead!
Peter very upset and decide to keep the city safe from crime track down robber who shot Uncle Ben to assuage his own guilty conscience. “He’s tracking down a bunch of criminals that look the same like he’s got some sort of personal vendetta,”remarks Police Captain George Stacy in one craptacularly unsubtle piece of dialogue.
As if getting Uncle Ben killed wasn’t enough, Peter also help his father’s old research partner, Dr. Curt Conner, create lizard serum dat turn de good doctor into…
…a giant lizard. Seriously. What you expect? A green goblin?
Spiderman battle Lizard on top of bridge in front of hundreds of witnesses – none of whom seem to remember Lizard guy later so de police just put out an arrest warrant for Spiderman. BUT in addition to battling Lizard, Spiderman also take time to save kid from falling car. We treated to drawn out suspenseful sekwence of Peter trying to convince boy to climb out of car toward him as automobile threatens to plummet. Eventually, our “brilliant” hero remember “Oh, yeah! I have webbing!” and use it to save de kid.
After visiting Dr. Connors in his lab and seeing a giant rat eat a mouse, Peter conklude Dr. Conners = de Lizard and report dis to Captain Stacy. But Captain Stacy who not believe him – Why de hell would he? – and den change his mind and mebbe believe him – What? Why?
Spiderman track Dr. Connors down to his new lab hidden in de sewers. Seriously. He moved all his lab equipment underground. Wit his one arm.
Connors turn into Lizard and fight Spiderman. Spidey get away – but leave behind his camera…wit a Property of Peter Parker sticker on it. Yep, just like Bart Simpson in dat Little Timmy Down de Well episode of De Simpsons except, in dis case, de item in qwestion belong to a supposed “genius”.
Lizard attack high school looking for Peter. Cue film’s high point: Terrifik Stan Lee camee. Den, back to middling movie. Spiderman beat him up and chase him into sewers. He phone up Gwen and tell her to go to Oscorp and start working on antidote for Lizarditis…becuz she be a genius too!
But on way to help her, Spiderman caught by police. He handcuffed and Captain Stacy pull off his mask. Now EVERYONE know Peter Parker be Spiderman! Well, everyone who happen to be around when city’s most wanted vigilante be captured…exaktly one person: Captain Stacy. FORTUNATELY. Peter tell him his daughter, Gwen, be in trouble so Captain let him go. But Spiderman shot anyway by policeman giving him good luck send-off.
Wounded, it not look like Spiderman going to make it. But construktion workers band together and help him by giving him a lift on various cranes (FORTUNATELY) CONVENIENTLY positioned around town.
Gwen gives father antidote and father give it to Spidey who try to stop Lizard from dispersing Lizard gas. Spidey get antidote into dispersal unit and, when it blow up, Lizard turn back into Curt Connors who save Spiderman from falling off building…even tho, presumably, he would have remembered he could have used his webbing to save himself.
Dying Captain Stacy tell Peter not to involve Gwen in his Spiderman stuff so, after supporting Her and seeing her thru her father’s funeral, Peter be a man and tell her can’t see her anymore…Oh, no wait. Dat OT what happen. Instead, he simply not bother to show up at her father’s funeral and act like a total douchebag, pulling de old “mebbe she’ll break up wit me first!” ruse. But FORTUNATELY for Peter she see magikally see thru it and guess he just doing it because her father made him promise. Great guess!
Movie end wit suggestion dey may hook up after all.
And her father roll over in his grave.
P.S. Mid-credits scene involving mysterious guy in hat do little to whet audience appetite for inevitable sekwel – dat at least a year away. FORTUNATELY.
Verdikt: Monster could almost hear de weary producers and writers sighing: “Here we go again…”.
Rating: 6 imitashun chocolate chippee cookies
Ouch! I liked this version but Cookie has a right to his opinion. Tobey Maguire is not my favorite actor, so that may be one reason I liked this movie better than the others. How did Cookie like the Maguire version?
Oh, re-read Cookie’s review. Apparently, he is a Maguire fan. I still didn’t like the previous version. Just something about this new one clicked for me. I did like the Green Globin character in the old one. It had good villains but I couldn’t stand Mary Jane.
Happy Canada Day, Joe!
Yay! Another origin story! Another chance to see the same story told all over again with little difference to the previous versions! Why doesn’t WordPress have a <SARCASM> tag?
I am a fan of the Tobey Maguire movies so it was always going to be hard for me to accept this one. I think superhero sequels should be like James Bond movies where each movie mostly stands alone. New gadgets, new love interests, new villains, sometimes new leading actors. Otherwise the movies get bogged down with too much baggage and filmmakers feel the need to reboot every 10 years or so.
I think the recent Batman reboot worked because they were so different from the earlier incarnations. Even though we got pretty much the same origin story it was told in a different way. It felt fresh and new. The Amazing Spiderman just felt stale and old.
It was co-written by Steve Kloves who wrote and directed my all-time worst movie ever: The Fabulous Baker Boys. That says it all, really. Although I have to cut Steve some slack because he did a really good job with most of the Harry Potter movies.
Some WTF moments for me:
Gwen Stacy is a high school student and also chief intern at a large multi-national research organisation?
Peter and Gwen go to a so-called “Science High School” which seems to mostly be populated by jocks?
Peter figures out in a couple of days the solution to the problem that has been thwarting Curt Connors, someone with a doctorate and a leader in his field with almost limitless resources, for 15 years?
One positive from the movie:
I really liked the web spinner device that Peter develops. I never understood why Spiderman could spin webs from his wrists. At best the web should come from newly formed spinnerets near his ass. Speaking of which, Cookie, the reason Peter couldn’t save himself on the rooftop at the end of the movie is because the Lizard destroys his web spinners.
Anyway, this movie bites (ha ha!) and I don’t hold much hope for the sequel.
The problem with remakes, is while people continue to support them. More will be made, till they literally grow tired of seeing them and the franchise eventually stagnates.
Studios aren’t afraid to remake successful franchises if the lead actor/actress gets tired of doing them, they’ll just get someone else and remake lol
Hmph. I figured this movie would be available on Netflix and to my dismay is not there at all. I checked iTunes to see if it could be rented – nope, purchase for at least $20 only. (Not happening.)
I feel bad that I wasn’t able to get a copy of this for review in time, especially with it being the last modern movie (for now) in the superhero movie list. I didn’t even go to see this when it was in theatres, so I don’t even have memory to go on.
However, the upside is that it sounds like I can just try remembering the Tobey Maguire version, but dumb it down. Doesn’t sound like I missed much. I couldn’t understand at the time why they were releasing a remake of a movie that had only been out a few years anyway. I guess the makers couldn’t either.
Oh well, on to “Abar”! That is, if I don’t die in the Tough Mudder competition I’m supposing to be going to in Quebec next weekend. *nervouses*
Yeah, I loved the original. Fun. New one, too serious and then also rediculous at times.
Being in construction, the crane scene made me mad too. We don’t have every other construction worker on speed dial. Different work sites = different companies. Rediculous.
Imitashun chocolate chippee cookies. Ouch! Happy Canada Joe, Akemi, Jelly, Bubba and Lulu.
The photography & lighting for the movie was amazing ..of course, that should never be the first high point when mentioning a movie (unless I guess you’re a DP or something).
SPOILER ALERT: Part of the storyline for Amazing Spider-Man 2 is going to be taken from the “Death of Gwen Stacy” comic book story so don’t expect to see too much of Emma Stone in the 3rd movie (and yes, the studio has already decided that there is going to be a 3rd & 4th movie)
I admit, this one had less plot consistency or even actual forward-moving plot generally, but I liked the characters so much better. I could never get into Tobey McGuire and Mary Jane was annoying as heck. This Peter was more adorable and more youthful (despite the actual actor’s age) and Gwen Stacey walked the border between being pretty/popular and being a geek both in interests and personality (chocolate house, lol) – both of which I thought fit the comics better.
I give up, I simply just give up. I am soooo irritated with computers right now (namely, both of mine) that I am seriously thinking of unplugging from it all and living the nice, normal, non-page crashing/freezing life I had before this technorevolution. I really wanted to make some meaningful comments about this movie, but trying to find a comment I posted on another site became such an aggravation that all I have the energy for now is this:
I loved this movie! Though it was a bit more serious it wasn’t overly dark. From where I sat it just seemed to have more heart, more emotional depth. I was really sucked in, and found myself having more compassion for this Peter than for Toby’s.
That said, the one drawback for me was that this Peter looked like some kind of weird amalgam of Robby Benson and Rick Moranis. For some reason I just expected him at any moment to say, “Okay, who brought the dog?” 😕
das
Wow…I really didn’t quite end that very well. Just kinda left a thought hanging there.
Anyways…
I’m having a terrible time tonight with my right hand; getting a shooting pain (throbbing AND shooting!) down the side of my arm and right into (or between) my ring finger and pinky. Not sure if it’s Crappy Tunnel or something in my elbow, but it’s really making typing hard because it hurts like the dickens! No idea what I did to cause this to happen, but I’ve been having weird ‘inflammatory’ stuff going on like this since yesterday – my hip/leg/hamstring (still can’t pinpoint which) was seized up Sunday morning and didn’t work itself loose until this morning, but then the knees and elbows stiffened up, and my neck is like a brick (though it did loosen a bit after a glass of wine 🙂 )…I guess it’s stress and worry.
Gonna go to bedsies and hope I feel better in the morning. Nites, sir.
das
And just think if Sony pictures gives up the rights back to Disney/marvel we will have another reboot on our hands and by the way marvel really wants spidey back for there phase 3 plans for more movies and money always wins because by then Sony will have milked spider man for all he’s worth and then sell him back to Sony.
WOO!!! I feel better! Ice packs and sleep seemed to do the trick. Sorry for being such a whiner last night…aaaaand most every night. 😛 It’s just that at night you get the ‘piss and moan’ me because I’m tired and cranky and soooo very done with the day, so I might come across as a bit…ya know…whiney. NOT to be confused with winey…which may or may not also be a factor. 😉 Then in the morning you get THIS! The Woo-hoo Happy happy joy joy me!! 😀
*runs around and gives everyone smoochies on their foreheads…then gives Joey a wet willy* 😈
😀
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🙂
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😐
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😕
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Okay…I just realized that probably sounds a lot worse to the British than it actually is… 😛
das
Great pics, gforce. Thanks for sharing!
I could think of absolutely NO reason to see this movie when it was coming out in theaters, and now I’m glad I didn’t. Thanks Cookie! I can’t believe this movie made enough money to trigger the “automatic sequel” clause in the contract. The first two Tobey-Spiderman movies were fantastic. They really should’ve stopped there. There’s no need to keep rebooting stuff, really. But sadly, the American public is largely dumb and has the collective ADD and memory of a gnat. The movie companies will just keep cashing those checks in….
@LineNoise – Holy cow. I never realized it until you said it, Spiderman should only be able to shoot webs from his butt! It makes sense, too. All the other spider-y traits he took on are analagous, why not that one? Maybe Peter Parker craps out of his hands? It’d be a neat magic trick, in the least.
-Mike A.
After having watched the Spider-Man remake. It makes me think that there was truth to the rumor that this film got green-lit and shoved out like it was to prevent the rights from becoming available for Disney.
If that is true, I wish Sony had just let the rights come back available so that Disney could shove Spider-Man into the Avengers phase 2 level films.
@ gforce – I love the pictures! And that video is just beautiful…so relaxing! Thanks so much for sharing (I’ll skip on the whale blubber, thankyouverymuch 😛 ).
das
Thanks, Tam/Jim/Das! It was great fun taking them, that’s for sure. The whale blubber wasn’t THAT bad. I mean, I’m sure it was better than cod sperm. 😉
@ gforce – I can imagine that he blubber didn’t taste bad, it’s just a texure thing with me – I cannot eat fat! If I get a bit in my mouth it just seems to get bigger and bigger and my body just won’t let me swallow it. The only fat I like is bacon fat, but it must be extra crispy!
Oh, and I don’t care what Joey says, ANYthing has to be better than cod sperm. 😛
das
Actually there were three textures, the white skin (mooshy), a cartilaginous layer (kind cruncy), and the chewy blubber. It was… different.
And no one’s posted these yet:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LiV7Xs2cvqg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SEFW_SWGFSI
Enjoy! 🙂
Mike A. He doesn’t shoot webs out his butt because almost no one wants to see that. The ones who do want to see it, well, no one wants to be in a dark theater with them.