I readily admit that I was not a comic book nerd when I was young. The only comics I read on the reg were Batman and Spiderman but even then I didnt dress up as these characters for Halloween or anything. So it's not like I'm some comic book purist who believes that movies should remain true to the comics; but I am that way with all adapted screenplays.
http://onlyfreshness.blogspot.com/2012/03/movies-are-easy.html
And lately I have taken to the philosophy that if the Wu Tang Clan doesnt really mention you in their lyrics, you're really not that fresh of a superhero anyway. You have Johnny Blaze(Method Man), Ironman(Ghostface), and Gza even has a fresh rhyme or two about Thor. But I could only remember ONE Wu rhyme about Spiderman and that was from Rza "you're under the influence of the 36 invasion...spiderman amazing...but im darker than parker". Pretty fresh actually. Is there a point to all of this? No not really, just want you to know how awesome Wu used to be and to better explain why I wasnt too hyped for this movie.
If you have read the comics or have even seen the first Spiderman, then you know what this movie is about, so I wont bore you with the details of the plot. Peter Parker is a nerd, he gets bitten by a genetically altered spider, and now he's a human with spider like senses and abilities. The main difference in this movie is that his first villain is The Lizard(Ifans) and not the Green Goblin. Which wouldve been a huge problem if the special effects werent so good. But luckily for us that's one thing Sony excels at. The movie looks uh amazing but dont waste money on the 3D, there arent enough scenes to warrant the extra $3.50. The acting is pretty spot on. Andrew Garfield, who was great in Never Let Me Go, adds a different element to Peter Parker. He's still the loner nerd but once he gets his spidey senses he develops this edge to him, especially once Uncle Ben bites the dust. With Tobey Macguire, he was still a geek once he became Spiderman, he just had bigger muscles. You kept waiting for Sally Fields to...well be Sally Fields but she never really did. She actually acted for the first time since Soapdish, the movie in which she parodied herself. Honestly everyone was great in it except for Denis Leary who was still dropping his tired unitard jokes. Why not just cast Andrew Dice Clay and have him drop an "ooh" after every line?
What makes this the best Spiderman, and yes I just said that, is how dark this one is. They take their time, and at times at a glacial pace, telling the story so nothing seems forced or too much of a stretch. They give Parker plenty of time to grieve and you see him slowly begin to realize that his role in society is more than just a personal vendetta he is on. But before that there are quite a few uncomfortable and intense scenes with Parker and his uncle and especially the dinner scene with his first love Gwen Stacy(Stone) and her dad the police chief.
The only issue is, to appeal to the masses they upped the cheesiness of the movie by about a thousand in the last act of the film. ***mini spoiler*** It takes the help of some average joe citizens for spidey to defeat the lizard. I mean I get it, he's a high school kid trying to defeat a giant mutant lizard while running from the cops at the same time but this is a superhero movie. I dont want reality. If I wanted to see a scrub fighting a lizard then they'd have me on screen; and my theme music would be some Tupac as I had two Asian sorority girls in each arm while I lept from building to building. Obviously this wouldnt work, so they went another route. Another thing is it seems like Spidey was revealing his identity to everyone! Doesnt that defeat the purpose of the mask? And I'm not even going to comment on Gwen's lame "he made you promise didnt he?" question at the end. But outside of these issues I thought it was great. Do yourself a favor and get some good popcorn entertainment and I rate this movie as barely FRESH!
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