Hollywood. Tsk-tsk-tsk. This is the Transformers 3 of Spiderman films so far. Let me explain.

Sony’s latest “The Amazing Spider-man” really lacks any soul. I want to compare it to any of Michael Bay’s cookie-cutter standard action films. This new Spider-man film isn’t incoherent like Transformers 2, but it also isn’t a standalone masterpiece. It is almost exactly the same as the Sam Raimi films, except, when you rehash imagery, you just do the opposite. For example:

Instead of Peter Parker being a nerdy, loser, now he’s a dark brooding emo skateboarder type.
Instead of the female lead being an airhead, you make her the top intern at Oscorp.
Instead of Uncle Ben being a nice pushover, he’s strict and stern.
Instead of organic webshooters, its now exploiting the source material as manmade webshooters.
Instead of getting bit on the hand, Peter gets bit by a spider on the back of his neck.

Subtle gimmicky changes like that.

That’s not to say the production value wasn’t any good. The acting was top. The visual effects were top. The action was okay. But the story wasn’t all there. There wasn’t any real sense of urgency. It was like “who cares” sitting through the whole thing.

When Uncle Ben gets shot dead, it was really flat. As though it wasn’t even an important part of the whole Spider-man mythos.

I did however like one particular scene where Spider-man infiltrates the Lizard’s sewer lair and builds a huge spider web and lounges on it like a giant spider while playing somekind of Tetris game on his mobile phone. That’s probably the only original or unique thing in this “reboot”.

The Lizard’s motive is straight from Batman Begins and Ninja Turtles.

And the C. Thomas Howell cameo as the “guy that helps/repays the protagonist at the end for saving his son’s life” felt really hollow. Why wasn’t this character introduced in the beginning of the movie and carried throughout? He would have been the grounding for the audience.

Thank goodness I didn’t spend my own money to watch it.

81 out of 100 (because it meets all the requirements to make it a standard movie), C+ or B-, but ultimately is the same old shit, no soul. Would have made an excellent TV movie or pilot to a Spider-man tv show, but not for the big screen. There wasn’t anything “epic” about it for it to be called a “reboot”.

Unfortunately, Hollywood filmmakers know that young people have never seen the films that came before it, so they won’t know any better. It’s all new to them, so the film will probably still make a killing at the box office. What a sad web of lies this culture we live in.