Written and Media by Tyler Lamb.
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Anyone who knows anything about me can tell you that I love comic books. Anyone who can tell you a bit more about me can tell you that Spider-Man(yes, there’s a hyphen) is one of my favorite Marvel characters. I own every single issue of the Ultimate Spider-Man series, and keep up with the current Spider-Man stories. The character of Peter Parker is such a great one, being relatable to so many different people across the world. Followed with someone like him receiving these awesome super powers? Simply drives home the “amazing” aspect the comic and the new film series state. However, I have reason to believe that the film coming out in a few months will not live up to what it’s title is claiming.
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Let me say this first, I am not one of those cynical comic nerds who thinks no movie is as good as the comic and hate on it no matter what. In fact, I want Amazing Spider-Man 2(abbreviated ASM2 from now on) to be one of the best super-hero movies ever. I’m hoping against all else that I am 100% wrong and am blown away by how fantastic the movie is. Unfortunately, from the huge amounts of trailers(I mean seriously we’ve seen like 45min of the movie already) there doesn’t seem to be much evidence to support it being good.
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First off the special effects, they just look poor. Yeah, they’ve gotten a tad better over time, allowing them to polish a few things up. There are still many shots that are so obviously CGI that it almost looks like a video game cutscene. Moments where you can clearly tell exactly what they did, film a real scene and then drop a clip of Spidey swinging through over the existing footage. That being said, there have been a few breathtaking shots. Most of the newest clip of him swinging looks like a cartoon, but the “gopro” shot looks just plain awesome.
Now on to the acting, sorry to break it to all you fans of him but, Andrew Garfield is a downright terrible Peter Parker. Of course a lot of it falls on the writing team as well, but half of his problem is just simply his look. There is borderline nothing you can do to Garfield to make me believe he is a not liked high school nerd who gets picked on by the bullies and made fun of by most of the school. Also, there is a huge duality between Spider-Man and Peter Parker. Imagine Spider-Man as the way Parker gets to do whatever he wants and act how he wants, because he can be exactly who he is. Whereas Peter is who Peter was before the spider incident, and has to stay that way or else his secret may be out. Spider-Man is very snarky and sarcastic, especially when it comes to the villains he’s fighting. He’s one of the first super heroes who outright makes fun of the villains as he’s fighting them. The problem is, Peter Parker is not like this, but in ASM2 he seems to be. The whole “we don’t have a chimney” exchange is so unlike Peter that it makes put my head down in shame while I let out a heavy sigh. Raimi was able to get Peter Parker right in the original Spider-Man movies with Tobey McGuire, but had trouble with Spider-Man himself. Why can’t we get both?
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While we’re on the subject of characters, the Green Goblin looks awful. Again, he may change in the movie and who knows, he could end up being in it for only a few clips. Still, the pictures they’ve released make him look like some sort of deranged meth head. Marvel Studios is putting a giant talking tree and a talking, gun wielding raccoon on screen and we still won’t get a true Green Goblin. Of course, this is more of one that I believe I will be wrong about, considering it could work completely within the context of the movie. I mean hey, I love the Raimi costume even though it seems I may be the only one. Also, Gwen seems to be a bit much in this one, specifically the scene at the end of most of the recent trailers where she yells out “Peter!” as Spider-Man is running off. So no cop around would hear that and connect the dots that the late Captain Stacey’s daughter is dating someone named Peter, and her and Spider-Man seem real buddy buddy?
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To wrap up my rant, as I said, I really want this movie to be great. Hopefully come May I found out just how wrong I am. The suit already looks plain beautiful, so maybe the rest of the film can follow. I want nothing more than for this movie to be fantastic and for it to open up the world of Spider-Man and his rouges gallery.
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yeah ill take this goblin over that rami one any day psssst tobey was a crappy spider-man shrugs
I agree Maguire wasn’t a very good Spider-Man, like I said in the article. He was a good Peter Parker though, especially in Spider-Man 2 when he was playing a college age Parker.