Things that worked:
Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone as Peter Parker and Gwen Stacey. THIS is the romance we should have gotten in the Raimi films. Great chemistry all around. These two really pull the movie up because without this it would be a giant pile of suck. I also liked Andrew Garfield a lot as Spider-Man. He made his wisecracks and just felt more Spidey to me.
-Sorry, but I MUCH prefer this costume to the raised webbed Raimi costume... probably in the minority on that one. I also like how they showed HOW he made it and what he used instead of THE NEXT DAY HE HAS THIS SUPER AWESOME COSTUME.
Rhys Ifans was good as Connors, which is good because I didn't know what to expect (I usually can't stand the guy)
Liked the scene where Spidey saves C. Thomas Howell's kid.
I really liked that they didn't rush through the origin and the discovering of his powers. I liked that they took time to show him learning how to do stuff.
I loved Martin Sheen as Uncle Ben... maybe even more than the Raimi version. Him and Aunt May have some great back and forth at the beginning. (Unfortunately, Aunt May kind of sucks because they got Sally Field and don't do anything at all with her.)
Dennis Leary was great as Capt. Stacey and his dialogues with Gwen were great.
I LOVED the fight in the school... Spidey is making his quips and they do some very inventive and cool stuff with the webbing... and Stan Lee's cameo was awesome. Unfortunately this is the only really cool fight scene in the film.
I loved the webslinging stuff a lot more in these than the Raimi films. Spider-Man just looked and posed like his comic book self here.
Stuff that kinda works:
The Lizard has his moments, but he feels very awkward...
Even though I praised Garfield's chemistry with Stacey and his performance as Spidey, I wasn't that into his Peter Parker. He just seemed too normal. And since its Hollywood, he has to wear 12 shirts and put his thumbs through his sleeves (this is Hollywood language for "LOOK, HE'S AN OUTCAST), and then they try to make him hip by riding a skateboard everywhere (dumb). Also, what was with him being such a creep at the beginning, taking candid pictures of Gwen and having her as his computer background? That said, Garfield's Parker's performance was very good. If you made a movie with Garfield's Spider-Man and the super nerdy Parker from the first Raimi film, you'd have it PERFECT.
-I actually didn't have a problem with the basketball scene since Peter's belligerence and assholishness there is what set the ball rolling to Uncle Ben's death. The problem here is that the rest of the whole "with great power" thing gets dropped once Ben dies and it never feels like Peter really learned his lesson.
-I liked that they went back with mechanical web shooters, but again THEY DON'T DO ANYTHING WITH THIS IDEA. The only time he has trouble with them is when the Lizard breaks them, but by then, it isn't even a concern because Captain Stacey comes to help him. Where are all the cool scenes from the comics where he runs out and has to find some clever way to escape? Oh yeah, nowhere, because the writers of this movie seem to be on auto-pilot.
Stuff that sucks:
This movie clearly had tons of stuff cut and the whole thing feels unfinished. For the first half, I was really loving it, then it dissolves into a sloppy mess.
-The Lizard's motivations are unclear and stupid. Why does he want to turn the city into lizards? There's some throwaway dialogue about him wanting to excel evolution or something, but since he never talked about that previously, his scheme is about as idiotic and silly as a Shumacher Batman villain. Even his reasons for hating Spider-Man aren't really very clear.
-They obviously cut out a lot of the Indian guy's footage, and since they (literally) forget about him, it was pointless to leave him in AT ALL.
-What the f*ck was up with the Lizard turning a SWAT team into Lizards, then they don't do ANYTHING with it until they show them being cured. Again, there was probably more to this that got cut, but AGAIN, why leave ANY of it in at all if you're going to cut the meat of it?
-Peter getting bit, more or less, from being a dumbass and touching stuff that any intelligent human wouldn't go near.
-Although Aunt May and Uncle Ben were great together, as were Ben and Peter, May and Peter didn't have much chemistry at all. They had barley any screen time after Ben's death and it just didn't have the warm feeling that both of them should have together.
-How come the second Spider-Man bursts on the scene, people are whipping out their camera phones, taking video, he's all over the news, and the police are looking for him... but then when the Lizard freaks out on a crowded bridge, there is NO evidence of any kind and the police don't believe that he exists? Bad writing is bad.
-How come once Connors turns into the Lizard, there are lizards all over New York? I assume they were doing the thing from the comics where he had a psychic link with lizards, but it still makes no sense in the movie because they either didn't do anything with the idea or (again) it got cut.
-The rat-lizard was idiotic... and why didn't Peter grab it and use that as evidence?
-The scene with the New Yorkers helping Spider-Man with the cranes. HOW COME EVERY SPIDER-MAN MOVIE HAS TO HAVE A "YOU CAN'T MESS WITH NEW YAWK" scene?! This makes the awful scene from Spidey 1 on the bridge look good. C. Thomas Howell looks like sh*t by the way... I guess that's what years of starring in and directing Asylum movies will do to you.
-The stuff about Peter's dad is uninteresting and boring and DEAR GOD, please drop this lame subplot for the sequels.
-They didn't really play up Peter as much of a loser... I mean, he is immediately standing up to the bullies and he's got the attention of the hottest girl in school right there in the first 20 minutes of the movie. It doesn't leave much room for pity. And as much as I'm praising the romance in this movie, I felt like they fell in love too quick and I didn't like how he tells her he's Spider-Man when they still hardly knew eachother.
-The "with great power" speech was awkward and stupid sounding. They obviously didn't want to say the words, so they give Ben this awkward mouthful of dialogue instead. "I was taught when you do something great, you have a moral obligation to blah blah blah"- JUST SAY THE WORDS ALREADY, THEY ARE ICONIC AND NOBODY WILL MIND!
-Hate the idea that Peter became Spider-Man to look for Ben's killer... and that he doesn't even find the killer. The movie actually seems to forget that Peter is looking for Ben's killer.
-The post-credits scene was idiotic. First off, after Whedon (rightfully) made a mockery of the trend at the end of Avengers, this should no longer be allowed... he gets the final word... and the scene itself... The only logical guess is Norman, who they say it ISN'T. Like KG said, you put something like that there to show us something to look forward to... to make us say "I CAN'T WAIT TO SEE THANOS" or whatever. Not "Uhhh, who was that?" Who do you guys think it was at the end? I think it was I Don't Care Because That Scene is Stupid.
I'd like to say I'd like to see a director's cut later, but I know most of the restored footage would be more sh*t about his dad, which I honestly couldn't care less about. I'm glad they got rid of the "His dad tampered with his DNA" bullsh*t though. I really hope they let that subplot just die.
That said, I enjoyed it more than the Raimi sequels (I recognize SM2 as a superior film, but this one just did more for me... and I think this one is a better movie than SM3). The first Raimi film still has the #1 spot for me. Aside from Macy Grey and the Goblin costume, it is, very much, for me, a perfect Spider-Man movie. But Stone and Garfield are what makes this one shine when it does... I can't express how much I loved those two in this movie. If only Tobey Maguire and Kristen Dunst had that kind of chemistry (or any chemistry at all, even).
More than anything, the only high I got out of this movie is looking forward to a sequel. I left the theater feeling very excited, but not because of what I just saw... but because I loved the things that WORKED about this film and really want to see them put it to better use in another installment. They have something special here with a great cast of leads that bounce off of eachother very well. I didn't even think the darker tone was that bad, especially if they do the smart thing and take advantage of it to tell the Death of Gwen Stacey story.
This new series may have fell a bit flat with this film, but they have something VERY special here that has the potential to give us a truly knockout sequel.
I know I'm sounding very harsh on it, but I actually DID enjoy the movie, especially for the first two thirds. Its the third act that really makes the whole thing fall apart. I'd give it a 3/5. Its very average, very sloppy and mediocre, but the several things that work REALLY work, and they work enough to make it an enjoyable Spider-Man movie. I loved quite a few things about this one, but it just doesn't add up to the sum of its parts.
Basically, if you could trade out a couple of the things here (Gwen instead of MJ, the scenes of him discovering his powers, the Spidey costume, the wisecracking) and put them in the Raimi series, you'd have a perfect Spider-Man movie.
Thanks for reading all this.
PS- R Lee Ermy for Jameson in a sequel.
