“The Amazing Spiderman” is astonishing! [MOVIE REVIEW]

Andrew Garfield stars as Spider-Man in Columbia Pictures' "The Amazing Spider-man," also starring Emma Stone. Photo by Jaime Trueblood/Columbia Pictures Industries
Andrew Garfield stars as Spider-Man in Columbia Pictures' "The Amazing Spider-man," also starring Emma Stone. Photo by Jaime Trueblood/Columbia Pictures Industries
Amazing Spider-man MOVIE REVIEW

Andrew Garfield stars as Spider-Man in Columbia Pictures’ “The Amazing Spider-man,” also starring Emma Stone. Photo by Jaime Trueblood/Columbia Pictures Industries

“The Amazing Spiderman,” the rebooted franchise action film is so much more than the sum of its very adept and tantalizing parts. Miss Ritter, Peter Parker’s English teacher, states at the end of the film that although scholars have claimed that there are only a limited number of original stories in literature, she maintains that there is really only one. She may be right but oh, what a story director Marc Webb and writers Steve Kloves and James Vanderbilt have told!

The base of the story, known to fans of the comic book and the previous franchise, is simple. High school student, Peter Parker, entrusted to the care of his aunt and uncle, is bitten by a spider and transformed into some kind of transgenic or perhaps bionic human with the flexibility of a Cirque du Soleil performer spinning webs of a graphene-like thread, an essentially imperceptible material of other worldly strength. Peter has a crush on the unobtainable, ultra cool Gwen, and a formidable nemesis in Dr. Curt Connors, his father’s former scientific partner.

What makes this “one” story so much more is its development beyond what is expected. This Peter Parker, played brilliantly (a word too often overused but totally applicable in this case) by Andrew Garfield, is a petulant teenager, one whose actions and reactions are recognizable by parents of adolescents everywhere. He is an outsider wanting in who will occasionally do the right thing but only when pushed to the limit; but like every other teenage boy, thinks only of himself and “the girl.” He can’t be counted on to remember his errands; stares daggers at adult authority figures demanding a modicum of respect; allows his curiosity to override his common sense; and rarely thinks of the consequences of his actions. In short, this Peter, like every other teen before him, is a narcissist who has a hard time seeing the bigger picture and is motivated primarily by revenge and impressing the girl. And the girl in this case is certainly worth the effort because she is the very pretty and extremely smart Gwen Stacy, number one or two in her class (depending on whether it’s Peter or Gwen doing the counting) at Midtown Science High School. How refreshing – kids who are unapologetically smart.

Meeting Dr. Curt Connors at his highly funded, state-of-the-art laboratory where cutting edge research is being conducted on cross species genetics and regeneration, brings more questions than answers to Peter. Dr. Connors was his father’s partner in research and, lost in a sea of emotion and hormones, Peter puts his trust in him; a trust that will have dire consequences. Dr. Connors, who lost part of his right arm in an accident, is hell bent on finding a way to regenerate it, much like the lizards in his lab are capable of doing. When, thanks to Peter, he discovers a missing formula and is able to successfully complete some initial experiments on lab animals, his patron’s minion, Rajit Ratha, arrives demanding that he begin human experiments immediately, something that Connors is unwilling to do. Scooping up the experimental elixir, Ratha informs Connors that he will begin the human trials himself at the local VA hospital and that his funding is henceforth cut off. Panic, desperation, greed, hubris – all of these emotions scurry across the face of Connors allowing us mortals to see exactly to what lengths a scientist might go when his funding is cut off (and prior to this I thought that it was merely a question of artificially inflating results or erasing notations in a journal). Connors becomes his own human trial and Gotham will soon suffer greatly for it.

Following that most important rule in writing, develop the character and the audience will follow, Webb, Vanderbilt and Kloves have done just that. They draw us into the characters, to the effect that when the action begins we follow blindly from one incredible premise to another until we are inextricably tangled in the web they’ve woven.

The filmmakers were incredibly astute in their choices because Garfield was not the only standout. Emma Stone as Gwen is as delectable as she is brainy and Rhys Ifans as Dr. Connors is a thinking man’s villain, inadvertently drawn to the fire by his desperation and ego. Ifans the actor allows us to be both repelled and sympathetic to his character with eyes that are at once soulful and fearsome. Great thought went into the casting of the smaller supporting roles. One of those was Martin Sheen as Peter’s uncle and guardian who becomes Peter’s moral center; and another was Denis Leary as Gwen’s police captain father and sworn nemesis of Spiderman exhibiting his trademark frustration alongside a warmth he rarely gets to show. And in an Oscar-worthy co-starring role, the city of New York shines in all its pointy glory as highlighted in the excellent use of 3D photography.

I wish I were a better writer because then I would be able to more fully express how far beyond the boundaries of a tentpole franchise this film is. Expect to be entertained, expect to be thrilled, expect to laugh, maybe cry, definitely gasp, and certainly to hold onto the armrest for dear life. But for sure you will experience what it feels like to be gripped by a many-layered, highly complex story that is disguised as a super hero action movie. Filmed in a seamless 3D, it makes you wish that studios weren’t charging such a high premium so that everyone could experience what it was meant to be.

It’s all here, the fabulous score by James Horner, the costumes, the special effects, the production design, the cinematography, the acting, the directing, and the writing (also credited with Kloves and Vanderbilt was Alvin Sargent, the writer of the previous franchise and Stan Lee, creator of the source material); but as I said at the beginning, the resulting film was much more than the sum of its outstanding parts.

In theaters now. Rated PG-13. Go early and go often; go with the kids or go alone. Go!

Neely is a television production executive who also writes a blog about writers in television and film at nomeanerplace.com

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