Peter Parker (Andrew Garfield) tries to balance his private life -- with his out-of-his-league girlfriend Gwen (Emma Stone) -- with his activities as the high-flying, web-shooting Spider-Man, who has to take on such antagonists as Electro (Jamie Foxx), the Green Goblin (Dane DeHaan), and a metal-suited Rhino. Garfield and DeHaan give good performances, and there's a charming, well-acted scene between Garfield and Stone, but the action scenes are not very well done, and the movie is overlong and kind of dull. Worse, sometimes it's even campy like Batman and Robin. Leisurely-paced and with an abrupt conclusion, although a sequence at a grave with the seasons changing is well-done. Overall this is very disappointing, and not nearly as entertaining as the classic comic book stories. Apparently yet another movie reboot of the character is in the works. This is the sequel to The Amazing Spider-Man, which was better.
In the meantime, the Spider-Man comic books have become almost unreadable, with cartoonish and unattractive artwork to boot. Like DC Comics did with Batman in the sixties (and is doing again), there are now all sorts of "Spider" characters in Marvel Comics, including a young woman named Silk who was also bitten by a radioactive spider, and the clone of dead Gwen Stacy, now known as "Spider-Gwen," believe it or not, and with her own comic. Compared to the great Spider-Man comics of the silver age and throughout the seventies, eighties and later, these books are rather awful.
Verdict: Watch Spider-Man 2 of the first movie series instead. **.
2 comments:
Hi Bill, I fail to understand why they now revive these franchises so quickly, do people not remember back ten years? (I guess the young ones don't!)...even though this one has an impressive cast, I have little interest. Maybe if I am desperate I will end up watching it, fortified with Haagen Daas and potato chips!
-C
Ice cream and chips -- at the same time! Why not? It couldn't hurt this movie. And I hear they're rebooting the series yet again.
Of course in the comic book world, they seem to start over with a new number "1" every six months or so. In the old days they may have changed the slant or the creative team but they stuck with the original numbering. Now every time there's a new creative team they start over again. It must be very confusing for collectors!
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