The Amazing Spiderman: Summer's Underdog

   
        Well gang, I guess you could call this my debut.  What better movie for me to write about in my first article as an official member of the B*Team than the iconic Marvel character I have been nicknamed after 3 times.  This Summer will feature some heavy-hitting superhero movies.  Marvel comes out with their juggernaut The Avengers, and DC wraps up the Nolan-Batman trilogy with The Dark Knight Rises.  Oh and also Marvel/Sony is releasing The Amazing Spiderman in the shadows of those two movies.  Probably won't be as good, eh?  Think again....


Before you read this, make sure to buy your tickets for TheAmazing Spiderman through the link below!

When Sony and Marvel first brought Spiderman to the big screen, I was impressed.  I liked the story, the modern take on Goblin, new organic web-shooters, the casting for most of the actors, and I especially liked the effects.  It was, by-and-large, what got people into superhero movies.  It also made a ton of money.  Since then all we could really watch were a couple of good Batman movies and a whole lot of terrible films or shows that looked like they were shot by a 7 year old (looking at you, Marvel).

 This movie has no pictures on IMDB.  I wonder why..... 

Spiderman 2 came out, and managed to break the "sequels-suck" rule.  It raked in tons of money in the box office as well.  the future of Spiderman looked bright.  Then came the disaster that is Spiderman 3.  I was so excited to see the symbiote suit finally appear in movie-form, and even more excited to see another great Spiderman movie!  So when I left the theater, I was surprised to find myself crying.  Was someone I loved just sucked into a crack in the universe, left out of my memory forever?  No.  I had just watched a butchery of all that is webhead.  I could rip on this movie forever, but I want to get to The Amazing Spiderman. Spiderman 3 did well in the box office, but needless-to-say if you were a fan of the character, you wanted more Venom, less douche-Peter, and for the franchise to end there and then.

Andrew Garfield was cast as Peter Parker, and it made my life.  He has the lankier, lean build of the Ultimate Spiderman version of Peter Parker.  He can play a socially awkward Peter Parker (see Never Let Me Go).  He can play a genius nerd (see The Social Network).  Plus he's a huge fan of Spiderman.  Check out any interview where he talks about playing this character, and you'll feel like a better person just from what he's said about his love for Spiderman.  The trailer shows us that Spiderman will not be losing his sense of humor at all, and some set pictures show us that Spiderman will be doing plenty of screwing around.

Oh Spidey you goof!

Emma Stone being cast in this movie made basically my whole life.  You think Peter (the writer for YAMB, not Peter Parker) has crush on Jennifer Lawrence?  Multiply it by forever, then add in an elephant and the kitchen sink.  That's how much I love Emma Stone.  Was the normally red-haired funny girl going to play MJ?  No sir she was not.  Instead she was going back to her normal blonde hair color and playing Gwen Stacy.  When heard she was the main love interest, I was sold.

In the original Spiderman comics (which are going to be mentioned a few more times in this article, so if you're not already, get used to hearing about them) the first woman Peter fell in love with was Gwen Stacy.  In a showdown between the Green Goblin and Peter, Goblin throws Gwen from a rooftop.  Peter tries to save her by shooting a line of web at her, but when he gets her the web makes her neck snap from whiplash and she dies.  The story arc of Gwen Stacy is tragic but also beautiful.  They were truly in love, and despite the loss, good does come from it.  Peter meets Gwen's friend Mary Jane Watson, and eventually they fall in love.  Emma is signed on to do a few movies, so don't expect to see her leave any time soon.  Also unless it's a surprise cameo role, don't expect to see any of the Osborns, or Mary Jane in this film.

Set photos started hitting the web (no pun intended) and I think I see what director Marc Webb means when he says he wants a Spiderman grounded in as much reality as possible (for a superhero movie).  The stunts involve very little in the way of CGI, even to the point where Andrew or his stuntmen were swinging around on wires.  These brought in the physics and mechanics of what real web-swinging would be like.  This means in a lot of scenes where Spidey is swinging around on webs, you're seeing a real person.

This is Andrew, living all of your childhood dreams.

When things are CGI, expect some pretty cool effects.  The Amazing Spiderman was shot using 3d technology, and offers some cool point-of-view CGI sequences of Spiderman crawling and swinging on buildings.  This shows more of the realism Marc Webb hopes to bring to the movie, where you actually get to be in Spidey's head for some periods of time.  For an example watch the trailer here.

The villain in this movie is going to be the Lizard.  Haters and fanboys have complained a lot about the look of the Lizard, because apparently he's not supposed to have a flat face.  The Lizard in Spiderman comics has a very pronounced snout, and that's missing from this incarnation.  Guess what fanboys?  Spiderman says suck it.

He's not in the picture....but he's still saying it 

That's the Lizard's first appearance in The Amazing Spiderman #6.  He has a flat face.  All I have left to say about this is Rhys Ifans is a great actor who can definitely show us the good and bad sides of Dr. Connors.  The Lizard scenes were shot with mostly motion-capture technology, so expect to see an incredible Lizard.

Marc Webb hopes to make a darker Spiderman film, which focuses on the disappearance of Peter's parents.  This is something that's not every brought up in Sam Raimi's Spiderman trilogy.  The Amazing Spiderman also features a different love interest, will transform the Daily Bugle from a newspaper into a TV station, and brings in Gwen's father, police captain George Stacy.  Peter Parker's character will seem to be more focused on his intelligence, which is exemplified in his invention of the artificial web-shooters.  Peter will also be a high school student for the whole movie, and will deal with much more of the pressures of being a teenager than Raimi's Parker.  We'll get a lot more teenage "angst."

Pictured: Teenage Angst

All of these things should allow The Amazing Spiderman to distance itself from the original trilogy.  It looks to bring a lot more of the original comic book Spiderman we know and love than it's predecessor, and may even hold up a (sticky) finger or two to the other superhero movies this summer.  The Amazing Spiderman swings into theaters on July 3, 2012.  Expect something.... Amazing.

Your friendly neighborhood Spiderman,

Zack