Wednesday, July 04, 2012

Movie Review: Spidey On Spidey

Hi ho, Readers! It's your friendly, neighborhood Spider-Man here! Denis has kindly allowed me to do a guest post on his blog, as we're reviewing the newly released "The Amazing Spider-Man".

I'll try not to be as cliched as to use such adjectives as "amazing" or "spectacular" while writing this review, but one or two might slip in, as the movie was, in my humble opinion, incredible! Director Marc Webb proved himself worthy of the task at hand, living up to the comic action and proving he wasn't just chosen for the comedy value of seeing his name in the opening credits! He did a great job on not just the action scenes, but everything from the softer, quieter moments, to my loud-mouth, mid-fight quips.

I was especially impressed with the choice of cast. There wasn't a weak link among the lot of them, from the always wonderful Martin Sheen to Dennis Leary, an actor who I feel deserves more roles than he seems to get. Andrew Garfield was a great choice to play my civilian identity, and Emma Stone played a powerful and strong-willed Gwen Stacy, pretty much as I remember her...

Sorry. Had to take a moment there. Anyway, where was I? Oh yes. The entire cast was superb. My only complaint about the cast, in fact, was that some didn't get as much character time as I would have hoped. Everyone was so strong in their role, I would have been happy to see more time given to any or all of them. My friend Stan Lee gets his best cameo yet in this outing, inciting laughs throughout the theater during his short scene on-camera.

But what of the star himself, me! The new costume is wonderful. I might have to try to get myself a custom version, as the kids will only recognize me in that now. Assuming they didn't hire one of my many clones as the stunt double, the CG me is a great facsimile. It really looked like it had mass behind it, and moved better than previous attempts to fake me on-screen. I was especially impressed with my training scene in the warehouse, which looked like a lot of fun. Special shout-out to whoever reproduced my webs. They had lots of tiny details, and looked great on the big screen. They were especially effective in 3D.

Which brings me to the hot topic of modern cinema. Let's talk 3D.

First and foremost, if you're wondering how I managed to watch the movie in 3D, thankfully, the lenses in my mask are polarized, so I don't have to wear those silly glasses. That's doubly good, as they'd be enormous on me, and I don't have ears to hang them on. Normally, I prefer to see movies in 2D. However, in this case, the 3D was really good!

No, no, no! Bare with me. I know. I usually hate 3D too (As do I- Denis). But it really was used extraordinarily well here (As much as I hate too, I have to agree- Denis). There is a great use of 3D with web-lines in a sewer, and the web-swinging through Manhattan worked much better in the final movie than it ever did in the early trailers. It still wasn't much compared to doing the real thing, but a good try. To be fair, if one hero was going to benefit from 3D, it was always going to be me! I even flinched during one scene, something I haven't done in any other extra-D movie.

Finally, I have to say something about the soundtrack. This is especially worth mention, as I noticed and enjoyed it so much. The score was fantastic, with some noticeably beautiful pieces throughout. It was truly orchestral at times, really adding to the emotion or action on-screen. While my friends in the Avengers still reign supreme as the best super-hero movie overall, I think I deserve the "Best Score" award.

Unlike some, I was a big fan of the earlier Spider-Man movie series. Well, the first two at least. Even then, this one blows those previous efforts out of the water, for story, character and effects. There is so little to complain about for me, despite the fact that it doesn't strictly follow my personal mythology. It really is an exceptionally fun piece of cinema, even if it'll never win an Oscar and I give it two Spidey thumbs-up all the way! Highly recommended.

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