BEFORE: It's May 21 as I write this, which means I'm deep in the middle of season finales - tonight the final episodes of "Survivor", "Law & Order: SVU" and "American Idol" all air at the same time, and I can only imagine this bunch-up was caused by the mid-season delay that was due to the Winter Olympics. I can't possibly watch all of this TV at once AND catch up on "The Amazing Race", so I've circled the wagons and disabled Twitter and all other social media so that I won't see any spoilers. Impossible, perhaps, because the identity of this season's "Idol" winner is going to be mentioned absolutely everywhere tomorrow, but I may maintain ignorance of some of the others and at least act surprised.
Linking from "X-Men: Days of Future Past", I'm guessing and hoping that Stan Lee carries over with his Hitchcock-like cameos. EDIT: Umm, no he didn't, because for some reason he wasn't in "DOFP". But he still works as the link, because he was in the first "X-Men" film, along with Halle Berry and Patrick Stewart, etc.
FOLLOW-UP TO: "The Amazing Spider-Man" (Movie #1,491)
AFTER: Speaking of spoilers, it's going to be difficult to discuss this movie without mentioning them, but I'm going to try. This is another good reason to delay the posting of my review for two months, because if you haven't seen this one by mid-July, well then you're not a true fan and I won't be ruining anything. Especially the big death scene...
I'm speaking, of course, of the death of the Tobey Maguire "Spider-Man" trilogy. There was a chance, however slim, that the actions depicted in the first "Amazing" movie could have taken place between the Maguire/Raimi origin scene and, let's say, the first flirtations with attractive neighbor Mary Jane Watson. I'm sure if I go back I can find some passage-of-time scene and say, "OK, look, suppose we assume that a week passes between THIS scene and THAT one - we can just imagine that the battle with the Lizard takes place then, and we're all good, right?" But after "Amazing 2", that just isn't possible any more. Too many contradictions between that trilogy and this one (assuming this will be a trilogy, it could be a quadrennial or a quintessence or whatever).
Let's start with the Green Goblin. Norman, not Harry. He died in the first Maguire/Raimi film by being impaled on a goblin glider, as it should have happened. After all, this is how he died in the comic books (the first time, anyway - then he got better). He wasn't ravaged by disease - being the Goblin shouldn't be a hereditary shortcoming, like anemia or something. Yes, he should be insane, but chemically insane, from ingesting a toxin that he designed. Giving the Goblin an incurable disease makes me want to feel sorry for him, and I'd rather not do that. It seems like a quick, cheap way to get the plot from point "A" to point "B".
This movie makes an attempt to explain what happened to Peter Parker's parents - something the comic-books did a terrible job of bungling, first saying they were spies, then saying they were still alive, then saying THOSE people were robots or clones or something - it was a huge mess. It's easier and better to let them rest in peace (don't even get me STARTED on clone Gwen Stacy...) but if you have to dig into their past and put it on display, this movie didn't do the worst job of it. (Again, that would be the evil robot/clones that somehow didn't set off Peter's danger-sense.) There's an attempt to close the circle here between Richard Parker's genetic research, the bio-electricity of various animals (including spiders, of course, but also eels and such), and the bite that infected Peter. Which makes a kind of forced sense, but also generates a staggering, staggering coindence.
Now we've got Electro - who, before his transformation, seems more than proto-nerdy, he's super-ultra-nerdy, like autistic or something. Again, this goes toward making me sympathetic toward Electro, which is a weird way to go. Can't a villain just be a villain? This is what dragged down "Spider-Man 2" and "Spider-Man 3" in the Maguire trilogy, trying to make me feel sorry for Doctor Octopus and Sandman. One was being controlled by his tentacles (because that's a thing?) and the other was just misunderstood. Oh, he's got a daughter? Well, by all means, go ahead and rob that bank, don't let me stop you. Give me a break.
The "Avengers" movie didn't have this problem. Loki was a VILLAIN. He wasn't just misunderstood, he was bent on destroying the world with his evil actions. Thanos? Villain. Dr. Doom? Villain. Red Skull? Villain. What is it about Spider-Man that he attracts these borderline cases, people who are being controlled by a drug, or got changed by some lab experiment, so that everything that comes after is somehow not their fault? So, it's the chemicals talking? The chemicals are mugging that woman or robbing that armored car? It's a slippery slope toward a world where no one is ever responsible for their actions.
And responsibility is what Spider-Man should be all about. Doesn't it follow that with great power comes great responsibility? If that's true, how do we explain Venom, Rhino, Kingpin, etc. who all have great power and act in destructive, selfish ways? Ah, OK, only the heroes are expected to use their power responsibly, that's what sets them apart. I feel like we're maybe on the cusp of something here, but this movie never really gets around to vocalizing it - like, what separates the good people with power from the bad people with power?
In fact, Spider-Man comes close to giving up his responsibility, not once but twice in this film. "I'll leave New York?" - New York without Spider-Man? Unthinkable - if only something would happen that will change his mind and keep Peter Parker in the Big Apple. You can't give up the power, Petey, and you can't give up the responsibility. If you do, bad things might happen.
The Spider-Man story is also about loss. Responsibility and loss are intertwined - loss of his parents, loss of Uncle Ben, loss of Mary Jane (another character who died in the comics, really, she was dead dead dead, her plane blew up, and five years later some writer just said, nope, she wasn't on that plane. Really? And in the 5 years after she narrowly escaped death, she just...never phoned?), loss of Peter + MJ's child (again, don't get me started...), loss of Capt. Stacy, loss of Jean DeWolff, do I need to go on? It's humanizing because we all have experienced loss, or we all will, and Peter Parker is just like us, only with webbing.
Recently (OK, two years ago) in the comics Spider-Man adopted a "No one else dies" mantra, meaning that he was tired of people close to him being killed by super-villains, and I think there's something human about this, too. I'm surrounded by people bringing up small children these days, and if you're a parent, starting each day with a resolve to make sure your kids make it through the day seems like a smart strategy, even if you don't vocalize it every day. We all want the people close to us to live forever, or as long as possible, but how realistic is that? We can take positive steps each day in that direction, but since the life expectancy of everything over time is zero, we can maintain this for a week, a month, a year but at some point the hourglass is going to run out of sand.
So to anyone who might question, "Why did this movie have to end THIS way?" Well, because that's the story of Spider-Man. If it weren't for the spoiler rule, I could quote you a particular issue of Amazing Spider-Man (Vol. 1) and you'd see that the part of this film you've got an issue with is actually the MOST truthful and faithful depiction of Spider-Man's life, and everything else is window-dressing. "Show me a hero, and I'll write you a tragedy." Forget the electric eels and the pumpkin bombs, this is what moves Spider-Man's story forward.
I'll be interested in seeing where the story goes from here - do I take the cameos seen in this film and just extrapolate the next plot? Spider-Man teams up with the Black Cat to take down the Spider-Slayers? And when will we SEE J. Jonah Jameson again?
NITPICK POINT: I know there are very strong reasons for wanting to update Aunt May's character. And casting Sally Field in place of the previous actress goes a long way - but making her a nurse-in-training? This is an odd career choice for a woman of her age. I know you can't just have her staying at home making wheatcakes around the clock, but the new direction is clunky also. In the comic books she volunteered at a soup kitchen, and this is more in line with her character. Plus, if she and Peter are barely getting by financially, how is she paying for nursing school? This just doesn't compute.
NITPICK POINT #2: There's a very forced teaser for "X-Men: Days of Future Past" that got shoehorned in here, midway through the closing credits. While I applaud the different distribution companies working together (even though they can't quite agree on who Quicksilver + Scarlet Witch are), this seems quite out of place here. For starters, the ASM films seem to be happening NOW, and the clip with the young Mystique would seem to be taking place 30 years in the past. So, how does that relate to Spider-Man's current situation? Not at all. If I want to REALLY do Marvel's job for them, should I suppose that Wolverine's time-traveling changes affected the timeline, erased the Tobey Maguire films and made the Andrew Garfield storyline possible? Seems like a stretch...
Starring Andrew Garfield (last seen in "The Social Network"), Emma Stone (last seen in "Gangster Squad"), Jamie Foxx (last seen in "Collateral"), Dane DeHaan (last seen in "Lawless"), Sally Field (last seen in "Where the Heart Is"), Campbell Scott (last seen in "The Amazing Spider-Man"), Embeth Davidtz (ditto), Paul Giamatti (last seen in "Cradle Will Rock"), Colm Feore, Felicity Jones (last seen in "Hysteria"), B.J. Novak (last seen in "Reign Over Me"), Marton Csokas.
RATING: 6 out of 10 police barricades
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