Wednesday, January 9, 2013

The Amazing Spider-Man – Should I Watch it?


(Repost. Update: I did watch it but again failed to review it. I suck... I know. But in my defense, I guess it's because there is nothing to write home about) 


I can understand watching movies for a number of times... again and again ...if you really, really, really liked it.  For me, I do it because I'm going to see the same characters, particularly the actors that played them, whom I liked; because I want to hear the same lines that made me laugh or fall in love and see the same scenes that made me cry...etc...etc... But seeing a movie, of (typically) the same story but with different set of actors and different script, just made a little bit different by making it in 3D?  I'm not so sure.

I'm not really a Spider-Man fan, per se. I watched all the other Spider-Man movies because I like superhero and action movies and I like Tobey Maguire (partly because I dated someone who looked like him years ago :) )  But would I want to see it again with different actors, probably a slightly different plot and now in 3D? Hmm.... Still not so sure.

So I did a little research to know more about this film. It has to be noted that I'm not a Marvel Comics subscriber and so not an expert on any of their characters and stories. Everything I know just came from what has been shown in movies. Anyway, here are a few of the things I learned:

1.      Same as the previous movie, this one also starts back in Peter Parker’s high school days. Peter, as this teenage social outcast, trying to learn some things about his past (particularly about his dad).
2.      Mary Jane does not appear in this movie. The love interest here is Gwen Stacy. (photo source)
3.      Mary Jane is NOT Peter’s first love! It’s actually Gwen Stacy, the blonde that Parker dated and danced with in a bar to make MJ jealous in Tobey Maguire’s version. I didn't know that! And certainly that's not what the other movie told us. Makes me wonder, “Who does Peter love more?” Or “Who is Peter’s greatest love?”
4.      The nemesis here is Dr. Curtis Connor, a.ka. “The Lizard”. He was the former partner of Peter’s father, who was genetically changed into a lizard by his own experiment.
5.      The film follows the original comics story, wherein Peter invents artificial webs for his climbing, spinning and swinging stunts, instead of the organic web Maguire acquired from the spider bite.
6.      Andrew Garfield plays Peter Parker.      (photo source)     You’d probably remember him from movies like “The Other Boleyn Girl”, “Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus” or “The Social Network”. Or probably not – I don’t :)
7.      Emma Stone plays Gwen Stacy.  She was the star of “Easy A” and one of the three admirable women in “The Help”.  I especially liked her in “Ghost of Girlfriends Past” as the funny and funky metal mouth teenage girlfriend of Connor Mead.   (photo source)    But she's a lot more beautiful in Spider-Man. That's for sure!
8.      Rhys Ifans plays The Lizard. Remember Spike from Notting Hill? The impossibly irritating but funny friend of Hugh Grant’s character?   (photo source)   Well, that’s him. I think that’s his only movie that I’ve seen. So I can’t imagine him as a villain. Especially, a villain that was named the IGN’s 62nd Greatest Comic Villain of All Time!

Maybe…just maybe, I’d watch this movie. If only to find out how Rhys Ifans would play the role :)

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