Superhero Media: The Amazing Spider-Man (2012)

In what seems to be a trend of me not wanting to make any friends with this blog; The Amazing Spider-Man is pretty decent, actually, and I like it more than the Sam Rami Spider-Man. Whereas the Rami films drawn upon an anachronistic version of Spider-Man conjured from half-remembered Silver Age reprints, The Amazing Spider-Man pulls from the 1990s animated series and the Ultimate Spider-Man comics. Having grown up with both of those versions being my main narrative knowledge of Spider-Man, outside of the occasional comic I could afford, I naturally feel much more at home with The Amazing Spider-Man than I did with the Gen-X infused Rami version. So that I don't lose too many of you, let's start with the problems the film has and what drags it down, because hating on The Amazing Spider-Man is a popular nerd hobby in of itself. Firstly, the film is a little long at over two hours, with too much time being spent on covering facts about Peter Parker and his life which everyone and their grandparents already know. The use of CGI is too heavy, with the design of the Lizard particularly being a disappointment. 

Aside from nitpicks, that's really about it, sorry. Yes, the whole "conspiracy" around Peter's parents is as garbage as it was in Ultimate Spider-Man, but it's barely mentioned in The Amazing Spider-Man, and, honestly, some focus on Peter's parents is refreshing. If we're to accept that Peter is somewhere in the 14-17 age range, then his questioning of who his parents really were is pretty appropriate in developmental terms. In fact, one of the things I like best about this film is that the teenage characters are pretty close to being actual teenagers, both in looks and behaviour, certainly not as well as Homecoming would do in later years, but it's much better than a Flash Thompson obviously pushing thirty. I've read complaints that Andrew Garfield is "too handsome" to play Peter Parker, which honestly tells me more about the self-image of the person writing that complaint than anything. I've worked in schools and I can tell you, it doesn't matter how good looking the kid who's bad at sports and takes pictures for the school paper is, he's going to get bullied. I think I'm seeing a trend here with older fans maybe not being the target audience anymore and being a tad butthurt about it. 

What The Amazing Spider-Man does have is one of the greatest Stan Lee cameos of all time, with his librarian remaining oblivious to the huge superhero fight going on behind him; if I ever get around to doing another "Top Ten Stan Lee Cameos" list, you can bet that will be on there. The cast of the film is really great too, with Sally Fields and Martin Sheen doing a great job as Aunt May and Uncle Ben and Rhys Ifans is really good as Kurt Conners, even if the Lizard sequences aren't the best. One great moment with the Lizard though, is when he finds Gwen hiding and just takes the device he needs from her, rather than hurting her, because he doesn't need to. Great way to make the villain menacing without too much outright murder. Again, I do prefer The Amazing Spider-Man over any pre-Marvel Cinematic Universe efforts, but mostly because it resembles a Spider-Man I'm familiar with from the comics and television of my youth. The film is far from perfect, but I could never reconcile the hate it got as something other than a function of nostalgia for the Rami films.