The new teaser trailer for THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN is now available for viewing. The film has already been receiving mixed reviews based solely on the idea behind it. Director Mark Webb (ironic name, or product placement?) has said that he wants to distance himself from Sam Raimi's version the best he can. But I ask, what is so wrong with the other films? When SPIDER-MAN came out in 2002, it was under the same kind of fire the new one is, the only difference being that Raimi was able to intelligently defend most of his decisions (i.e. the organic web-shooters) whereas Webb seems to be using the defense of "well, since Raimi did it, I can't" thereby giving us the mechanical web-shooters that have appeared in the comics--and were subsequently replaced with organic ones around the time the first film came out, I do believe. My only real gripes about it are these:
1) Webb and Co. are retelling Spidey's origin story. I think that it's safe to say that we all know it already, so why go there? Why not just do a few simple flashbacks like Brian Synger did in SUPERMAN RETURNS?--though not the most wonderful of films to cite. Oddly enough, I started writing my own Spider-Man film before the release of the second Raimi film. In it, I spent the first ten pages or so focusing on a young Peter Parker and the sudden loss of his parents, which is exactly what Webb shows us in the teaser. This is important, I think, because most of the time, when we're talking about Peter's psyche, only the loss of his Uncle Ben is mentioned. I really think that the loss of his parents at such a young age is the first layer on his multi-tiered cake of misery served at his pity party.
2) The costume. Both Raimi and Webb have professed to being fans of the comics and their desire to stay true to the source material. Yet neither director seems to be giving up the secret of how a depressed teenager from Queens, New York is able to stitch together such a fancy-schmanzy costume that the studios have claimed cost more than $20,000 each! I thought the point was to make me believe that he made this thing himself. Perhaps Webb and Co. are taking a page from the Ultimate Spider-Man universe and having the costume be his wrestling outfit that he then buggers off with to battle his uncle's killer. In that case, it has more believability to it.
Some have already stated that they're going to boycott this movie, but I really think that's the wrong approach. If there is a movie that I think looks stupid, I wait for it to hit DVD so I can watch it at home, where I can pause it, comment endlessly on it, and just plain stop it if I want, and the most I'm out is maybe $5. And usually the people who protest the most about how much they hate where this looks like it's going, are the first ones in line to pay full price to see it and then gripe that they spent $20. Cut your losses! We all know that you're going to watch it eventually. Why are you putting up such a fuss about a reboot of a well-documented money-maker that actually has some talent behind it, when we are still getting trash like SCARY MOVIE INFINITY and SAW 900?
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