THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN

Columbia Pictures

Rated PG-13

Running time: 136 Minutes




Click below to watch the The Amazing Spider-Man trailer.



In Columbia Pictures/Marvel Enterprises The Amazing Spider-Man, high school nerd Peter Parker - Andrew Garfield - is bitten by a genetically modified laboratory spider, and becomes The Amazing Spider-Man.

This reboot of Spider-man in 2012 is released on the Fiftieth Anniversary of the first appearance of Spider-Man from the comic book Amazing Fantasy #15 that was published in 1962, which was Amazing Fantasy's last issue. Based on the comic book character created by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko, the movie The Amazing Spider-Man goes back to the origin of Spider-Man - with Ditko's early comics work as an influence on the film. Also, the movie concentrates more on Parker's/Garfield's mysteriously missing parents - who were killed in a plane crash - than was shown in previous movies. Parker/Garfield soon learns that his mysterious scientist father had worked with his fellow scientist, Dr. Curt Connors - Rhys Ifans. This is the first of the Spiderman movies that I can recall that they concentrated so much on Parker's parents. Actually a lot of the elements in this movie harkens back to the original origin from the comics, so I felt rather comfortable with this remake of Spider-Man. While politically incorrect - sports jock Flash Thompson, Chris Zylka, beating up weakling Parker/Garfield is straight from the comic book, although Garfield should have been more of a geeky push-over during this scene. The movie, however, integrated spiders much more into the movie as a major plot point than was indicated from the original origin story, in order to create a biocable from genetically modified spiders. Thus, Parker/Garfield being inundated by spiders in the laboratory was very disturbing to me. I think part of Spider-Man being my favorite superhero is for me to overcome my phobia of insects.

Since the movie was set during Parker's high school days, I did not feel that Garfield was socially inept enough as Parker when he was in high school, but I did feel that Garfield was smart enough to be the science geek and well represented the mature Parker as he became Spider-Man. Garfield also had the playful sense of humor as Spider-Man that was needed for his jokes, especially since he is wearing a skin-tight red and blue leotard. There was a drastic difference in Garfield's abilities after he was bitten by the spider, although the depiction of Garfield's spider-sense was barely noticeable. My favorite Spider-Man scenes - aside from his continually gagging people with his webbing - was the scene where he was caught by the police, and he used his kick-ass spider powers to escape. Unfortunately, the spider-sense Parker/Garfield has just makes it seem like Parker/Garfield only has extremely fast reflexes, instead of reacting to danger.

Emma Stone as Gwen Stacy was not just a damsel in distress, but a smart and kick ass lady who falls in love with Parker/Garfield. Denis Leary was great as Stone's father, police Captain Stacy. In fact an old friend of Leary's thought, when he first met Leary, "I thought you  were George Stacy!" Stacy/Leary is determined to go after the masked vigilante Spider-Man - although Stone's and Leary's relationship with Spider-Man was reversed in the movie as compared to the comics. Leary's and Garfield's dinner scene debating their vigilante beliefs showed their passions on what they believe is right. This was one of my favorite scenes as it shows their diametric beliefs and stresses one of the major themes of the movie.

Martin Sheen was great and well cast as the loving Uncle Ben, as well as Sally Field being great as the loving Aunt May, although Field was not the frail, invalid that Aunt May is typically being known for. May/Field continually coming across Parker/Garfield who is all beat up and not wondering why he is always hurt like that after being such a loving surrogate mother to him was unrealistic to me. Such a lack of confrontation from his "parent" about Garfield always getting beat up while he is out being Spider-man had lessened the dramatic impact of Parker/Garfield's family home life to me. As it is, Field did not seem to me like she was taking care of Garfield like the parent of a high school teenager. Rhys Ifans as the one-armed Dr. Connors was nice enough as Connors but, without his family from the comics supporting him, Connors loses a lot of his characterization and sympathy - especially when Connors is forced to develop a cure for his gravely ill boss, Norman Osborn.

The effects and makeup of the villain, The Lizard, were good - although I would rather not have had The Lizard with the capability of speech just so we can accentuate his bestiality. I think The Lizard would have been scarier without the ability to speak. The Lizard was motion-captured, so his movements were believable. Having Garfield feeling responsible for stopping the Lizard goes back to Garfield's guilt of letting Uncle Ben/Sheen die. It was great Ifans insisted on doing his own stuntwork in the movie. Garfield studied how spiders move, and as a result he looked much more believable as Spider-Man in his spider movements than in previous movies. The graphics for Spider-man's webbing from Garfield's web-shooters - of which science geek Garfield had developed - were much more believable in that they looked like webs and as a result, both Garfield's movements and his webbing looked much more like what was in the comic books. Garfield's web-swinging is more visual as well, like in the comics. Garfield's web-swinging gives the city and the movie more of a 3-D feel. The film's action scenes were also shot in 3-D, while the rest of the movie was converted from 2-D. As a result, the action scenes had things flying out at you - as well as the stunts being performed on rigs flying out at you - which made the action even more interesting as a 3-D movie and worth the price for 3-D for me. There was also a Spider-Man pin given out, while supplies last.

OzCorp's holographic security system, seemed very high-tech - until Garfield was able to copy the code. At my work, we have to have card and code in order to gain access to our building - and we are not in a high-tech security industry like at OzCorp - so the ease of Garfield breaking into OzCorp's security ruined any type of credibility with me. Having Stone using a security card at OzCorp seemed anachronistic and inconsistent in the movie compared to the high-tech graphic security locks, although the card and code adds more security to the system. I personally wonder how they are going to bring Norman Osborn into the series - because, as of right now, he is mysteriously ill. My guess is that some experiment to cure him will turn Norman Osborn into the Green Goblin, or maybe even the Hobgoblin. I would love to see a Green Goblin vs. Hobgoblin battle.

I did not recognize C. Thomas Howell as the father of the kid Spider-Man rescues, but Howell had a significant part for what is basically a walk-on role. For comic book fans, the cameo of Stan Lee is in the middle of the movie during a Lizard battle in the school library. The guy behind me was laughing very hard at this scene. He was obviously, like I am, a big fan of Stan the Man.

There is a scene in the middle of the end credits that hints more of the story for Parker's/Garfield's parents for the sequel.

Rated PG-13 for violence. Running time: 136 Minutes.

Pancho
All people smile in the same language.

Pancho's Movie Reviews

The Social Network

Columbia Pictures

Rated PG-13

Running time: 121 minutes



Click below to watch The Social Network trailer.



Columbia Pictures The Social Network is about the creation of the website Facebook and the legal problems Harvard computer undergrad creator Mark Zuckerberg had as a result of the website's creation.

With flashbacks between the creation of Facebook and the legal problems Zuckerberg goes through, and a script by Aaron Sorkin, there is twice as much dialog in this film than in a normal film which can be exhausting if you are not used to that much dialog. This is evidenced by the first five minutes of the film of an intense dialog with Jesse Eisenberg as Zuckerberg, and his then girlfriend who are sitting in a bar before the opening credits roll. That was supposed to be eight pages of dialog crammed into five minutes of film - where normally it is a minute's worth of dialog per page. Although there is a lot of dialog, with David Fincher's direction, this is not a talking-heads movie. The dialog basically shows what an intense jerk Zuckerberg is in the movie and you can imagine how his personality could lead him into trouble as he goes about creating what was then known as The Facebook, a social networking site allowing people to stay connected with each other which was originally created for Harvard. When Zuckerberg gets involved with Justin Timberlake, as Napster creator Sean Parker, the business potential for Facebook grows into the billions - where most of the legal troubles begins.

Watching the movie initially brought back memories of college for me, both with the intense academic life and the sorority life. It is interesting that while the Facebook website was originally created for college students, a lot of the movie-going audience that I saw the movie with was of an older crowd. While it is said that a lot of the material was created for the movie, and is not real, the movie gave me an idea of what goes on behind the scenes of such a big business.

Another aspect of the movie deals with the twins Cameron Winklevoss and Tyler Winklevoss, with Armie Hammer playing both parts. The Winklevoss twins - Hammer - got Zuckerberg involved in creating a Harvard social networking website for themselves. One interesting thing about the Winklevoss twins, aside from their legal actions against Zukerberg for stealing their idea, is that the Winklevoss twins were part of Harvard's Crew Team. As a videographer who spent a season videotaping the Orange Coast College's Crew Team - who are known as "The Giant Killers" for defeating well-known crew teams such as Harvard, it was a delight for me to get a glimpse of this sport again as it is rare that I get to see crew in a movie. It was also a delight to see Disney Channel star Brenda Song in an adult role for once as the girlfriend of Zuckerberg's friend and co-creator of Facebook Eduardo Saverin, Andrew Garfield.

There is talk of an Oscar and I could see an Oscar for this film.

Rated PG-13 for sexual situations, language, and drug use. Running time 121 minutes.

Pancho
All people smile in the same language.

 Pancho's Movie Reviews