Sticky Fingers

I wonder had the director's name not been Webb, would life had led him to directing a Spider-Man movie....

Anyways, funny that stealing is central to the story in "The Amazing Spider-Man," from Peter Parker assuming someone else's identity to burglarize a lab, to his complicity in a convenience store theft, or someone attempting to steal his father's work in the opening sequence only for Peter to later pass that work off as his own. It's funny because the movie is largely a lazy retread of the same notes hit upon in the last Spider-Man series, which had only wrapped up with its third installment half a decade ago when this was released. The major exception preventing me from ranking this lower is that there's improvement in the camerawork.

As in "Spider-Man" (2002), the superhero saves some people while fighting a green villain on a bridge. Again, Parker has a personal connection with that man-turned-monster, both of whom have at least one or two scenes where they seem to be insanely talking to themselves in their mind. Despite a protagonist who is a photographer and swings between skyscrapers, the camerawork for both movies is largely disappointingly rudimentary. The reboot's ending is actually an exception, as the digital camera finally starts flying through the air along with Spidey. Parker's picture taking, however, hardly figures into this version at all--at least not in any interesting way. His newfound fascination with skateboarding and, evidently, hair products receive more attention. The movie itself is photographically darker, which may help to conceal some of the CGI, such as of the talking lizard, that already seems somewhat dated, or maybe it's just another pastiche of "The Dark Knight" (2008).

Another scene here seems as though it were a direct quotation of the 2002 picture, where Spidey goes down an eerily familiar-looking alley (stylistically, that is) to save a woman from being harassed by men. In the 2002 version, this was actually a well-made scene, as far as tropes of a hero rescuing a damsel from a rape attempt go, culminating in that famous upside-down kiss. Not here. Another thing I don't like in this iteration is that Spidey's web slinging is a mechanical invention rather than a natural growth of the mutant spider. That made for a perverse puberty metaphor regarding the teenage superhero when you think about it. Andrew Garfield's character, on the other hand, besides stealing, also has sticky fingers for grabbing women--ripping the blouse off a subway passenger and, later, pulling and twirling Emma Stone in by the hip for a rooftop smooch.

The Uncle Ben stuff is so familiar, I guess, that it seems as though the editors tried to rush through it, which kind of reminds me of a similar treatment of Bruce Wayne's parents in "Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016). Neither works well. They also cast Sally Field as Aunt May and, then, give her nothing to work with. And the construction crew plotline and music for the finale are hokey. Indeed, a lot of "The Amazing Spider-Man" merely feels perfunctory. Not a movie made because anyone had a novel interpretation of the familiar comic-book series, but rather to satisfy Sony's demand to keep vomiting out Spidey movies every few years so as to keep their rights to the franchise so that they can keep vomiting. It's a vicious circle. The sequel turned out so bad they had to make a deal with Disney's Marvel Cinematic Universe to keep their Spidey from being stolen. I don't get why this first one did fairly well with critics and audiences. Dennis Leary's police captain's hint of a Spider-Man v Godzilla flick sounds, well, if not better, than at least more ridiculously amusing to me than this popcorn fodder.