Amazing Spider-Man Review

Whenever I watch a movie I will always try to leave any preconceptions I may have of the movie behind and try to watch it with fresh eyes. With the Amazing Spider-Man however this felt pretty difficult, mainly because it feels like the movie was made purely in order to retain the movie rights rather than adding a new angle to the character or story. So was the reboot worthwhile and did it add anything new to Spider-Man whatsoever? The short answer is No.

The biggest problem with The Amazing Spider-Man has to be the script with the story basically copying the vast majority of the first Sam Raimi movie with any additions t0 the origin story simply falling flat. The main reason the additions don’t really work is the fact that add nothing of merit to the story or the characters. The biggest gripe I had was with the story of Peter Parkers parents as it ends up being completely pointless having no real impact on Peter Parker whatsoever.

The characters overall are written poorly as well with Dr Connors/The Lizard in particular making next to no sense. He just goes though a complete mood swing mid-movie without any indication or fore-shadowing leading to him being under-developed and less interesting. One of the few highlights of the movie was watching Peter Parker & Gwen Stacy playing off each other with Andrew Garfield & Emma Stone showing some good on screen chemistry.

The special effects were for the most part a mixed bag. Whilst the web-slinging looked great and led to some decent action scenes towards the end, I can’t ignore how terrible Killer Croc…I mean the Lizard looked. The problem isn’t the the Lizard as a whole but the fact they decided to try and make his head look realistic was a huge mistake as I struggled to hold back laughing as times. There’s also times were the movie will do these weird first person shots of Spider-Man swinging through New York which were distracting more than anything.

Overall the Amazing Spider-Man isn’t the worst film you’ll see this year and still has some impressive effects and good performances from our two leads despite being given very little to work with. However, the whole thing just feels like a cheap knock off of the original Spider-Man film lacking in any originality or personality. I’m not entirely against reboots or adding to source material because if it’s done right it can add to a character and show him/her in a different light adding to the experience. Unfortunately all changes here add little or nothing at all to Peter Parker and the changes just feel so unnecessary.

Whilst I’ll admit the original Spider-Man wasn’t perfect, it had sense of fun and charm which this reboot is sorely lacking so if you really need to watch the Amazing Spider-Man, just watch the original. It’s more fun I promise!

TMNT Reboot Pushed Back

To say 2012 has been a bad year for Paramount would be a huge understatement. first G.I. Joe 2 had it’s release date delayed by 9 months and then there was World War Z which has been delayed/re-written/re-shot/budget spiralling out of control, leaving the film being almost impossible to release. So the last thing they needed was another tentpole film in production being delayed…the exact thing that has happened to Micheal Bay’s TMNT reboot.

The reason why? Well apparently the script wasn’t very good, who’d have thought it eh? So instead of the December 2013 release date planned, the film will be released April 2014…if you can take Paramount’s word on it that is. If I’m honest the change of release date might help it seeing as it stops it clashing with The Hobbit which is probably going to be a big deal. But aside from that, there’s not a whole lot for Paramount to cling to. The only big film I can think of that is coming out next year is Star Trek 2 alongside the films they’ve failed to release this year. With their only main source of income coming from their share of The Avengers*, this has definitely been a bad year for Paramount. Which means the production of Transformers 4 will happen now and that is bad news for us all.

*Paramount owned the rights to most of the Marvel characters used in the Avengers so they agreed a healthy share in the huge profits for the film…yeah Movie rights are fun!

Daredevil Born Again?

So after the weekend when The Avengers SMASHED records on to the international box office scene (currently set to hit $600million on the globally), it should come as no surprise that Fox has announced that a new Daredevil movie is in the works though it is currently undergoing another re-write. There had been screenplays by David Scarpa (The Day the Earth Stood Still) and Brad Caleb Kane (Brooklyn’s Finest) but it seems that David James Kelly has come up with a new draft.

The plan it seems is to adapt Frank Miller’s Daredevil saga, Born Again. During the story Daredevils true life alter-ego of Matt Murdock is revealed. This information soon reaches the Kingpin who quickly gets to work on destroying Murdock’s life as well as sending villain Nuke to wreak havoc at Murdock’s stomping ground, Hells Kitchen.

The Avengers do get involved but you can pretty safely rule out any movie cross over due to both properties belonging to different movie studios. Now whilst the original Dardevil movie wasn’t that bad, this is a character that could really benefit from a reboot. The best way they could do this is Fox giving Marvel studios the movie rights back! The best alternative that could work would be  for Fox to try and create a darker Nolanesque setting for Daredevil, an environment that this character is best suited to.