People love a crazy true story. So when Ben Affleck decides to make a movie about a real CIA operation involving tricking Iran into thinking that American fugitives are a Canadian film crew, people tend to pay attention. And when he attaches an all-star cast to it, and you might get a good movie out of the deal. You'll get something like Argo.
Argo is about "The Canadian Caper", a CIA operation in which escaped members of the US Embassy in Iran were smuggled out of the country in an elaborate ruse involving a fake sci-fi movie. Ben Affleck, besides already pulling double duty as producer and director, also plays the film's protagonist, Tony Mendez. In the aftermath of a riot in Tehran that culminates in the raid of the US embassy and the kidnapping of its workers, Mendez devises a plot to rescue six escaped embassy employees that have fled to the Canadian embassy. While the film isn't going to win any awards for historical accuracy, Affleck finds a good balance between the realms of Hollywood thriller and historical drama. Including some shot-for-shot reenactments of actual footage from the crisis, Argo does a great job at capturing the cultural tensions and urgency of the situation.
The biggest draw of Argo by far is its cast of characters. While Affleck's turn as Mendez is a bit boring, John Goodman and Alan Arkin shine as make-up artist John Chambers and producer Lester Siegel. While the character of Siegel is fictitious, that isn't stopping Arkin from being nominated for Best Supporting Actor at the Oscars. The actors playing the embassy employees were also all fantastic.
My only problem with Argo is that it's just not mind-blowing. There's nothing really wrong with it, but I guarantee that people will be forgetting about this film in five years. There's nothing to it that really makes it remarkable, and for being so laden with accolades, I was expecting something more.
I don't expect Argo to make any real waves at the Oscars tonight, but in a few hours I may eat my words. Regardless, it is a good way to spend two hours of your time. Just don't expect it to be your new favorite movie. I give Argo 8 incredibly tense scenes of downtown Tehran out of 10.
Sunday, February 24, 2013
Thursday, February 21, 2013
Zero Dark Thirty
Kathryn Bigelow has an affinity for keeping her finger on the pulse of the War on Terror. After winning Best Director and Best Picture in 2009 for The Hurt Locker, Bigelow has apparently decided she isn't done with the subject. Keeping with the style used in The Hurt Locker, Zero Dark Thirty is a personal, semi-fictitious chronicle of Osama bin Laden, and if the Academy feels the same way Sunday as they did in 2009, it's lined up to do very well. It deserves it.
The first thing that struck me about Zero Dark Thirty was its brutal frankness. The first scene of the movie, involving rookie CIA agent Maya (Jessica Chastain) and her more experienced partner (Jason Clarke) interrogating a terrorist is simultaneously gut-wrenching and captivating. It also set the tone of the film: nothing is going to be held back. Starting with that 2003 interrogation, the film follows Maya as she works the hunt for bin Laden, transforming from a naive rookie agent into a relentless manhunter with an incredible intensity that upholds my thought that Chastain might be one of the greatest actresses of our generation. Her supporting cast in no slouch, either. Clarke is a chillingly captivating standout as Dan, a ruthless CIA interrogator that nonchalantly calls terrorists "bro" while waterboarding them for information. His lack of nomination as Best Supporting Actor is an abysmal mistake.
What makes Zero Dark Thirty stand out from every other movie about the war on terror, for better or for worse, is its sense of pacing. The movie spans a total of eight years, and that leaves a lot of ground to cover. The scenes in the movie are all very intense, which makes watching every individual one an emotional experience that is so often lacking in war movies. Unfortunately, a running time of over two and a half hours means that all of those intense scenes that follow every minute aspect of the hunt start to get taxing after a while.
Zero Dark Thirty is not for everyone. Those looking for an action movie need to look elsewhere, as the only action takes place in the last 20 minutes. However, if you're idea of a good war movie involves the dramatic minutiae of undercover operations and intelligence gathering, then this might be the best war movie you've ever seen. I give Zero Dark Thirty 9 shady intelligence deals out of 10.
The first thing that struck me about Zero Dark Thirty was its brutal frankness. The first scene of the movie, involving rookie CIA agent Maya (Jessica Chastain) and her more experienced partner (Jason Clarke) interrogating a terrorist is simultaneously gut-wrenching and captivating. It also set the tone of the film: nothing is going to be held back. Starting with that 2003 interrogation, the film follows Maya as she works the hunt for bin Laden, transforming from a naive rookie agent into a relentless manhunter with an incredible intensity that upholds my thought that Chastain might be one of the greatest actresses of our generation. Her supporting cast in no slouch, either. Clarke is a chillingly captivating standout as Dan, a ruthless CIA interrogator that nonchalantly calls terrorists "bro" while waterboarding them for information. His lack of nomination as Best Supporting Actor is an abysmal mistake.
What makes Zero Dark Thirty stand out from every other movie about the war on terror, for better or for worse, is its sense of pacing. The movie spans a total of eight years, and that leaves a lot of ground to cover. The scenes in the movie are all very intense, which makes watching every individual one an emotional experience that is so often lacking in war movies. Unfortunately, a running time of over two and a half hours means that all of those intense scenes that follow every minute aspect of the hunt start to get taxing after a while.
Zero Dark Thirty is not for everyone. Those looking for an action movie need to look elsewhere, as the only action takes place in the last 20 minutes. However, if you're idea of a good war movie involves the dramatic minutiae of undercover operations and intelligence gathering, then this might be the best war movie you've ever seen. I give Zero Dark Thirty 9 shady intelligence deals out of 10.
Wednesday, February 13, 2013
Les Miserables
Two-and-a-half-hour long movies are not for everyone. Two-and-a-half hour long musicals appeal to even less. Make that 150+ minute musical a period piece and you're appealing to a sort of niche market. So if those things are not what you're looking for in a movie-going experience, we can stop right here. Les Miserables is not for you, and you're not going to like it.
However, if you're still reading this, this indicates that you're probably interested in those things, and to you, I say this: you're going to really like Les Miserables.
A film adaptation of the immensely popular musical, Les Miserables is the story of Jean Valjean (Hugh Jackman), a successful businessman who is on the run, physically and metaphorically, from his dark past as a felon. Pursuing him doggedly is Inspector Javert (Russell Crowe), a French policeman who will stop at nothing to bring Valjean to justice. Along the way, matters get complicated with a destitute factory worker (Anne Hathaway), her daughter (Amanda Seyfried), meddlesome innkeepers (Sascha Baron Cohen and Helena Bonham Carter), and a young French Revolutionary (Eddie Redmayne). If it sounds like a lot to keep up with, you're right. It kind of is. But it is so worth it.
Les Miserables is being especially noted in the musical film world because it does not rely on vocal tracks. That means that there are no dubovers of flubbed notes or lip-synching involved. Although it sounds like nothing more than a novelty, it has a direct effect on the power of the film's emotions. The movie's entire script is in song, so it is incredibly important that the music tells the story of the characters' thoughts and emotions. The live taping of the actors' voices keeps their characters in the moment, making the audience feel everything the characters do.
That being said, there are things that keep Les Miserables from being a perfect movie. Like most musicals, the runtime is disproportionately long to the amount of content in the story. When everything is sung, musicals tend to spend more time than need be to convey a thought. This film is no exception. I found myself not paying attention at times because a song had spent so much time on one idea that I was just waiting for it to be over.
Despite its marathon running time, Les Miserables is a fantastic movie. Every actor pulls their weight (even poor Russell Crowe, who has a subpar singing voice, was awesome), and the filmography is just beautiful. I will be honestly surprised if Anne Hathaway does't win Best Supporting Actress at the Academy Awards next week. I give Les Miserables 8 and a half emotional ballads full of strife out of 10.
However, if you're still reading this, this indicates that you're probably interested in those things, and to you, I say this: you're going to really like Les Miserables.
A film adaptation of the immensely popular musical, Les Miserables is the story of Jean Valjean (Hugh Jackman), a successful businessman who is on the run, physically and metaphorically, from his dark past as a felon. Pursuing him doggedly is Inspector Javert (Russell Crowe), a French policeman who will stop at nothing to bring Valjean to justice. Along the way, matters get complicated with a destitute factory worker (Anne Hathaway), her daughter (Amanda Seyfried), meddlesome innkeepers (Sascha Baron Cohen and Helena Bonham Carter), and a young French Revolutionary (Eddie Redmayne). If it sounds like a lot to keep up with, you're right. It kind of is. But it is so worth it.
Les Miserables is being especially noted in the musical film world because it does not rely on vocal tracks. That means that there are no dubovers of flubbed notes or lip-synching involved. Although it sounds like nothing more than a novelty, it has a direct effect on the power of the film's emotions. The movie's entire script is in song, so it is incredibly important that the music tells the story of the characters' thoughts and emotions. The live taping of the actors' voices keeps their characters in the moment, making the audience feel everything the characters do.
That being said, there are things that keep Les Miserables from being a perfect movie. Like most musicals, the runtime is disproportionately long to the amount of content in the story. When everything is sung, musicals tend to spend more time than need be to convey a thought. This film is no exception. I found myself not paying attention at times because a song had spent so much time on one idea that I was just waiting for it to be over.
Despite its marathon running time, Les Miserables is a fantastic movie. Every actor pulls their weight (even poor Russell Crowe, who has a subpar singing voice, was awesome), and the filmography is just beautiful. I will be honestly surprised if Anne Hathaway does't win Best Supporting Actress at the Academy Awards next week. I give Les Miserables 8 and a half emotional ballads full of strife out of 10.
Thursday, January 31, 2013
Lincoln
When I watched Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter last year, I walked away from it with two thoughts running through my head. The first was that I was kind of disappointed in how it turned out, and the second was that I was ready for the real film about Lincoln's life to come out. A few months later, Steven Spielberg releases his Oscar-bait biopic Lincoln, with an all-star cast that includes Daniel Day-Lewis, Sally Field, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, and Tommy Lee Jones. After watching it, I want the vampires back.
There's a very distinct culprit making Lincoln an awful film. The blame falls entirely on the writing staff hired to write the drivel that I had to sit through. Firstly, anyone who expects to see a biopic about the life of Lincoln will be sorely disappointed. The movie should be called The 13th Amendment, seeing as how it only takes place during the period of Lincoln's life in which the House of Representatives were debating the passage of the amendment. But a misleading title is the least of this film's problems. Not only is the script a mockery of history, it seems to move like a gritty reboot of Mr. Rogers Neighborhood. I started to get a feeling that every piece of dialogue was just an excuse to have Daniel Day-Lewis or Tommy Lee Jones eventually give a monologue about how great our country is or how racism is bad. It's not that I disagree with those ideas, but I got the point thirty monologues ago. Can we move on, please?
The only thing I can say positively for this movie is that the acting and wardrobe departments were fantastic. Day-Lewis gave the most amazing portrayal of Lincoln that's ever been captured on film, and the rest of the cast delivered their roles well. That being said, there's still a lot of overhype for some of the performances. Daniel Day-Lewis rightfully won a Golden Globe and a Critic's Choice award for his role, but the performances by Sally Field and Tommy Lee Jones should never have been nominated in the first place. Field's portrayal of Mary Todd Lincoln was cartoonish at best, and Tommy Lee Jones played...well, he played Tommy Lee Jones, and I don't see him getting any accolades for Men in Black 3.
After I left the theater, I felt like someone had played a cruel joke on me. Abraham Lincoln's life is one of the more interesting pieces of American history, so why this piece of garbage was made instead of a proper biopic is beyond me. I wanted to give this film a zero, but Daniel Day-Lewis was good. Really good. If you ever find yourself faced with the task of watching this film, take solace in that. So congratulations, Lincoln. I give you 3 trite morality speeches out of 10.
The only thing I can say positively for this movie is that the acting and wardrobe departments were fantastic. Day-Lewis gave the most amazing portrayal of Lincoln that's ever been captured on film, and the rest of the cast delivered their roles well. That being said, there's still a lot of overhype for some of the performances. Daniel Day-Lewis rightfully won a Golden Globe and a Critic's Choice award for his role, but the performances by Sally Field and Tommy Lee Jones should never have been nominated in the first place. Field's portrayal of Mary Todd Lincoln was cartoonish at best, and Tommy Lee Jones played...well, he played Tommy Lee Jones, and I don't see him getting any accolades for Men in Black 3.
After I left the theater, I felt like someone had played a cruel joke on me. Abraham Lincoln's life is one of the more interesting pieces of American history, so why this piece of garbage was made instead of a proper biopic is beyond me. I wanted to give this film a zero, but Daniel Day-Lewis was good. Really good. If you ever find yourself faced with the task of watching this film, take solace in that. So congratulations, Lincoln. I give you 3 trite morality speeches out of 10.
Friday, January 18, 2013
Beasts of the Southern Wild
With the announcement of the Academy Award nominees this past Friday, I started my annual tradition of trying to cram in as many of them as I possibly can until the awards show on February 24th. So when I saw the relatively unknown Beasts of the Southern Wild was one of the candidates, I did some research.
Dozens and dozens of award nominations and accolades? Check. Topical plotline about the plight of southern Louisiana bayou communities? Check. The youngest nominee ever to be nominated for Best Actress? Check.
Naturally, I had to watch it. I'm pretty glad I did.
If you've never heard of Beasts of the Southern Wild, I don't really blame you. This is the first feature film by most of the people involved and, despite making a huge splash in several acclaimed film festivals, saw only a limited release in theaters. It wasn't until after I had seen its several nominations (Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Actress, Best Director and Best Picture) that I was even aware of its existence. But one quick trip to Redbox had me glued to my television watching an intriguing, if not overly artsy, portrayal of a unique father-daughter relationship in one of the most exotic locations in the country.
Beasts of the Southern Wild is about Hushpuppy (Quvenzhané Wallis), a 5 year-old girl who lives in the fictional Louisiana community called "The Bathtub" with her father, Trip (Dwight Henry). The Bathtub is an isolated bayou community, cut off from the rest of the country by a levee, and the film follows the trials and tribulations of Hushpuppy and the members of her community after a storm devastates their home. Although it sounds like a run-of-the-mill natural disaster flick, the film breaks the mold in a couple of neat ways. The first is that the film's focus isn't really on the storm itself. The core of the story is Hushpuppy and her unique relationship with people and nature. What the audience sees as a result of that is a mixture of child-like naivety and timeless wisdom that rightfully earned Wallis a nomination for Best Actress.
The film isn't without its flaws. Early in the story, Hushpuppy's teacher tells her class about Aurochs, ancient beasts that lived during the time of cavemen. The story apparently sticks with Hushpuppy, because it is used as a heavyhanded metaphor for the entirety of the film. Although the film isn't terribly long, I felt that my time was being wasted every time it cut away to the Aurochs. I get the metaphor of savage beasts bearing down her neck as calamity ensues, but all it did was make my eyes roll.
I honestly think this film will walk away on Oscar night empty-handed. The only shot that it has is if Wallis win Best Actress, something I'm actually rooting for. It's an interesting film and mostly well-done, but it's just entirely too forgettable. It's not the weakest contender for the Oscar race, but its indie roots might not hold. I give it 7 crazy bayou dwellers shooting shotguns at hurricanes out of 10.
Dozens and dozens of award nominations and accolades? Check. Topical plotline about the plight of southern Louisiana bayou communities? Check. The youngest nominee ever to be nominated for Best Actress? Check.
Naturally, I had to watch it. I'm pretty glad I did.
If you've never heard of Beasts of the Southern Wild, I don't really blame you. This is the first feature film by most of the people involved and, despite making a huge splash in several acclaimed film festivals, saw only a limited release in theaters. It wasn't until after I had seen its several nominations (Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Actress, Best Director and Best Picture) that I was even aware of its existence. But one quick trip to Redbox had me glued to my television watching an intriguing, if not overly artsy, portrayal of a unique father-daughter relationship in one of the most exotic locations in the country.
Beasts of the Southern Wild is about Hushpuppy (Quvenzhané Wallis), a 5 year-old girl who lives in the fictional Louisiana community called "The Bathtub" with her father, Trip (Dwight Henry). The Bathtub is an isolated bayou community, cut off from the rest of the country by a levee, and the film follows the trials and tribulations of Hushpuppy and the members of her community after a storm devastates their home. Although it sounds like a run-of-the-mill natural disaster flick, the film breaks the mold in a couple of neat ways. The first is that the film's focus isn't really on the storm itself. The core of the story is Hushpuppy and her unique relationship with people and nature. What the audience sees as a result of that is a mixture of child-like naivety and timeless wisdom that rightfully earned Wallis a nomination for Best Actress.
The film isn't without its flaws. Early in the story, Hushpuppy's teacher tells her class about Aurochs, ancient beasts that lived during the time of cavemen. The story apparently sticks with Hushpuppy, because it is used as a heavyhanded metaphor for the entirety of the film. Although the film isn't terribly long, I felt that my time was being wasted every time it cut away to the Aurochs. I get the metaphor of savage beasts bearing down her neck as calamity ensues, but all it did was make my eyes roll.
I honestly think this film will walk away on Oscar night empty-handed. The only shot that it has is if Wallis win Best Actress, something I'm actually rooting for. It's an interesting film and mostly well-done, but it's just entirely too forgettable. It's not the weakest contender for the Oscar race, but its indie roots might not hold. I give it 7 crazy bayou dwellers shooting shotguns at hurricanes out of 10.
Wednesday, January 9, 2013
Django Unchained
This being my first post in a while, I want to say a few things before I get to this review:
1) I'm sorry I've been gone so long.
2) Go see The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. Just do it.
3) I'm definitely back though. For real this time.
It kind of makes me sad that it's taken me this long to come back, but I don't think I would have wanted to come back to pick apart any other film than this one. Quentin Tarantino draws critics to his films like moths to flame, and Django Unchained is certainly no exception.
Tarantino is known for paying homage to his favorite styles of film. The Kill Bill series and Inglourious Basterds are his tributes to kung fu and World War II films, and now he's taking a stab at spaghetti westerns with Django Unchained. Set two years before the Civil War, the film follows a slave named Django (Jamie Foxx) and his dentist-turned-bounty-hunter owner/partner Dr. King Schultz (Christoph Waltz) as they hunt fugitive slave-handlers and attempt to rescue Django's wife from the clutches of wealthy plantation owner Calvin Candie (Leonardo DiCaprio). If you have any prior knowledge of Tarantino, then you should automatically assume that a premise like that is going to be gruesomely violent, highly laden with vulgar language, and overall a fantastic cinematic experience. I am pleased to announce that your assumption is correct.
Although this is not my favorite one of Tarantino's works (that title belongs to Inglourious Basterds. You can tell me how wrong I am that it's not Pulp Fiction or Reservoir Dogs in the comments. It's not going to change my mind), Django still impresses, doing everything it sets out to do with the same lopsided mixture of bloody action, unique characters, and quote-worthy dialogue that we have come to expect from Tarantino's off-kilter universe. Therefore, the burden is carried mostly by the performances of the cast, all of which were perfectly placed. Jamie Foxx's turn as the title character is an amazing mix of a man haunted by his brutal past and a gunslinger who is enjoying his job a little too much. DiCaprio is captivating as a plantation owner who is as repulsively vile as he is completely oblivious as to how evil he truly is. Even Samuel L. Jackson's relatively small role as head house slave Stephen is perfectly balanced between comedic relief and scheming cretin. But the runaway role goes once again to Christoph Waltz as bounty hunter King Schultz. Inglourious Basterds had us see Waltz as an actor who could play an incredible villain, even earning an Academy Award for his part as Nazi colonel Hans Landa. Django Unchained shows us that he is just as capable of playing the good guy. Waltz sells his character as a gunslinging man of the law who is willing to live and die by his altruistic moral code. The breakout character of the movie yet again, I will be truly surprised if he doesn't get nominated again this year.
The other facet of the film that really impressed me was its pacing. Quentin Tarantino is not known for making short movies, and Django is no exception, clocking in at right under three hours. Unlike most of his other films, however, it never feels quite like it. There is never a dull moment, from the first moments of the movie where we see Django being transported by slavers across the Texas desert to the film's explosive finale, as Tarantino never makes us feel like we spent all afternoon in a dark theater.
So if this movie is so good, why does it not make my top spot as my favorite Tarantino flick? The answers are very nitpicky. Although the characters are all played expertly by the actors, none of them (save maybe Waltz's character) are nearly as memorable as some of the characters we've seen in his prior films. Django is also a more action-packed movie than the others, which diverted some of the attention away from the tense wordplay that has become associated with Tarantino's work. And frankly, I just didn't like the ending. Sue me.
Django Unchained is a fantastic movie. It's not perfect, but it's pretty close, and anyone who isn't easily offended by gore or language needs to make seeing this movie a priority. I give it 9 and a half learning-how-to-be-a-better-shot montages out of 10.
1) I'm sorry I've been gone so long.
2) Go see The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. Just do it.
3) I'm definitely back though. For real this time.
It kind of makes me sad that it's taken me this long to come back, but I don't think I would have wanted to come back to pick apart any other film than this one. Quentin Tarantino draws critics to his films like moths to flame, and Django Unchained is certainly no exception.
Tarantino is known for paying homage to his favorite styles of film. The Kill Bill series and Inglourious Basterds are his tributes to kung fu and World War II films, and now he's taking a stab at spaghetti westerns with Django Unchained. Set two years before the Civil War, the film follows a slave named Django (Jamie Foxx) and his dentist-turned-bounty-hunter owner/partner Dr. King Schultz (Christoph Waltz) as they hunt fugitive slave-handlers and attempt to rescue Django's wife from the clutches of wealthy plantation owner Calvin Candie (Leonardo DiCaprio). If you have any prior knowledge of Tarantino, then you should automatically assume that a premise like that is going to be gruesomely violent, highly laden with vulgar language, and overall a fantastic cinematic experience. I am pleased to announce that your assumption is correct.
Although this is not my favorite one of Tarantino's works (that title belongs to Inglourious Basterds. You can tell me how wrong I am that it's not Pulp Fiction or Reservoir Dogs in the comments. It's not going to change my mind), Django still impresses, doing everything it sets out to do with the same lopsided mixture of bloody action, unique characters, and quote-worthy dialogue that we have come to expect from Tarantino's off-kilter universe. Therefore, the burden is carried mostly by the performances of the cast, all of which were perfectly placed. Jamie Foxx's turn as the title character is an amazing mix of a man haunted by his brutal past and a gunslinger who is enjoying his job a little too much. DiCaprio is captivating as a plantation owner who is as repulsively vile as he is completely oblivious as to how evil he truly is. Even Samuel L. Jackson's relatively small role as head house slave Stephen is perfectly balanced between comedic relief and scheming cretin. But the runaway role goes once again to Christoph Waltz as bounty hunter King Schultz. Inglourious Basterds had us see Waltz as an actor who could play an incredible villain, even earning an Academy Award for his part as Nazi colonel Hans Landa. Django Unchained shows us that he is just as capable of playing the good guy. Waltz sells his character as a gunslinging man of the law who is willing to live and die by his altruistic moral code. The breakout character of the movie yet again, I will be truly surprised if he doesn't get nominated again this year.
The other facet of the film that really impressed me was its pacing. Quentin Tarantino is not known for making short movies, and Django is no exception, clocking in at right under three hours. Unlike most of his other films, however, it never feels quite like it. There is never a dull moment, from the first moments of the movie where we see Django being transported by slavers across the Texas desert to the film's explosive finale, as Tarantino never makes us feel like we spent all afternoon in a dark theater.
So if this movie is so good, why does it not make my top spot as my favorite Tarantino flick? The answers are very nitpicky. Although the characters are all played expertly by the actors, none of them (save maybe Waltz's character) are nearly as memorable as some of the characters we've seen in his prior films. Django is also a more action-packed movie than the others, which diverted some of the attention away from the tense wordplay that has become associated with Tarantino's work. And frankly, I just didn't like the ending. Sue me.
Django Unchained is a fantastic movie. It's not perfect, but it's pretty close, and anyone who isn't easily offended by gore or language needs to make seeing this movie a priority. I give it 9 and a half learning-how-to-be-a-better-shot montages out of 10.
Friday, July 6, 2012
The Amazing Spider-Man
Ten years ago, my dad took my 12 year-old self and my little brother to go see Spider-Man in theaters. That movie was single-handedly responsible for my current love of superhero movies. So it was a bittersweet moment when I saw The Amazing Spider-Man. On one hand, it was definitely the end of an era. On the other, it was time for that era to end (I think I can speak for all of us when I say that Spider-Man 3 was really bad). I went into this movie with a lot of hope and a lot of fear, and I was pleasantly surprised with the outcome.
This being a reboot of the series, The Amazing Spider-Man is helmed by a new director (Mark Webb) and an entirely new cast. A few of the big characters return from the old movies, albeit with new faces. Andrew Garfield (The Social Network) plays Peter Parker, with Martin Sheen and Sally Field playing his Uncle Ben and Aunt May. That's where the similarities end, though. Instead of Mary Jane Watson being Peter Parker's love interest, the film stays truer to the comics and has Emma Stone as Peter's high school sweetheart, Gwen Stacey. There's no J. Jonah Jameson and no Osborne family (that's ever really seen), but the functions of some of those characters stays intact. Instead of Jameson being the loud-mouthed newspaper editor bent on making a villain out of Spider-Man, we have Gwen's dad, police captain John Stacey (Denis Leary), making Spider-Man out to be a dangerous masked vigilante. And although Norman Osborne is more of a shadowy figure in this film, Peter still finds a scientist role model/villainous arch-nemesis out of Rhys Ifans' portrayal as Curt Connors/The Lizard.
That's where the similarities end, however, because The Amazing Spider-Man sets a much different tone than its predecessor. Aside from its nods to its comic book origins (Gwen Stacey, using webshooters), this film is a lot darker than the ones that came before it. There's a lot of backstory to the sudden disappearance of Peter's parents, which is one of the two things that makes this version's Spider-Man much more interesting than the previous incarnation. The other thing that makes it more interesting is the fact that the casting choices in the leads were much better this time around. Andrew Garfield is a better Peter Parker in every respect, and I much prefer Emma Stone as the love interest than Kirsten Dunst. My chief complaint with the casting choices comes in with Uncle Ben and Aunt May. Some of the strongest performances in the 2002 film came from Cliff Robertson and Rosemary Harris as Peter Parker's elderly uncle and aunt. Although they opted for some higher-profile names in this reboot (Martin Sheen and Sally Field), the roles of Uncle Ben and Aunt May were largely disappointing, especially from Sheen.His portrayal of the single most influential figure in Spider-Man's life was hokey and uninspiring, a far cry from Robertson's endearing performance.
The only other big complaint I have with this film is the pacing. There was a lot of story to cover, and although the movie clocks in at a little over two hours long, it still feels like some of the relationships were rushed. It shows the most when they develop the character of Curt Connors (Rhys Ifans). The idea was to try and portray him as a misguided scientific mind who gets corrupted by his own creation (think half of all of Spider-Man's villains), but what we got instead was a hurried and rushed explanation and it makes the character less sympathetic and more unbelievable.
Sony and Marvel have already announced that The Amazing Spider-Man is the first in a new trilogy of Spider-Man movies. They're off to a good start with strong leads, an interesting new purpose for Oscorp (think shadowy corporate titan), and a cliffhanger that's better than any other Marvel movie to date. If they tighten up on the eye-rolling cheesiness of Uncle Ben and Aunt May and take a little more time developing the supporting cast, I think we may have on our hands the best movie series Marvel has ever had a part in. I give The Amazing Spider-Man 8 1/2 power-discovery montages out of 10.
This being a reboot of the series, The Amazing Spider-Man is helmed by a new director (Mark Webb) and an entirely new cast. A few of the big characters return from the old movies, albeit with new faces. Andrew Garfield (The Social Network) plays Peter Parker, with Martin Sheen and Sally Field playing his Uncle Ben and Aunt May. That's where the similarities end, though. Instead of Mary Jane Watson being Peter Parker's love interest, the film stays truer to the comics and has Emma Stone as Peter's high school sweetheart, Gwen Stacey. There's no J. Jonah Jameson and no Osborne family (that's ever really seen), but the functions of some of those characters stays intact. Instead of Jameson being the loud-mouthed newspaper editor bent on making a villain out of Spider-Man, we have Gwen's dad, police captain John Stacey (Denis Leary), making Spider-Man out to be a dangerous masked vigilante. And although Norman Osborne is more of a shadowy figure in this film, Peter still finds a scientist role model/villainous arch-nemesis out of Rhys Ifans' portrayal as Curt Connors/The Lizard.
That's where the similarities end, however, because The Amazing Spider-Man sets a much different tone than its predecessor. Aside from its nods to its comic book origins (Gwen Stacey, using webshooters), this film is a lot darker than the ones that came before it. There's a lot of backstory to the sudden disappearance of Peter's parents, which is one of the two things that makes this version's Spider-Man much more interesting than the previous incarnation. The other thing that makes it more interesting is the fact that the casting choices in the leads were much better this time around. Andrew Garfield is a better Peter Parker in every respect, and I much prefer Emma Stone as the love interest than Kirsten Dunst. My chief complaint with the casting choices comes in with Uncle Ben and Aunt May. Some of the strongest performances in the 2002 film came from Cliff Robertson and Rosemary Harris as Peter Parker's elderly uncle and aunt. Although they opted for some higher-profile names in this reboot (Martin Sheen and Sally Field), the roles of Uncle Ben and Aunt May were largely disappointing, especially from Sheen.His portrayal of the single most influential figure in Spider-Man's life was hokey and uninspiring, a far cry from Robertson's endearing performance.
The only other big complaint I have with this film is the pacing. There was a lot of story to cover, and although the movie clocks in at a little over two hours long, it still feels like some of the relationships were rushed. It shows the most when they develop the character of Curt Connors (Rhys Ifans). The idea was to try and portray him as a misguided scientific mind who gets corrupted by his own creation (think half of all of Spider-Man's villains), but what we got instead was a hurried and rushed explanation and it makes the character less sympathetic and more unbelievable.
Sony and Marvel have already announced that The Amazing Spider-Man is the first in a new trilogy of Spider-Man movies. They're off to a good start with strong leads, an interesting new purpose for Oscorp (think shadowy corporate titan), and a cliffhanger that's better than any other Marvel movie to date. If they tighten up on the eye-rolling cheesiness of Uncle Ben and Aunt May and take a little more time developing the supporting cast, I think we may have on our hands the best movie series Marvel has ever had a part in. I give The Amazing Spider-Man 8 1/2 power-discovery montages out of 10.
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