And I'm fine with Peter's search for Uncle Ben's murderer not being resolved in this film. It's a good thread to leave untied for future films, a ghost always haunting the character. But they could have conveyed this in a stronger, more poignant way than just a fast shot of the police sketch in the third act.

I loved it. Obviously.

It blew the first Spider Man out of the water. And it might even be better than the 2nd. The acting/writing was superior. The action wasn't great, but it was well paced and didn't drag. And Emma Stone was a bombshell.

A

BTW, what was the scene during the credits?

Dr. Connors is in a prison cell. A mysterious man (Michael Massee) emerges from the shadows and inquires how much Connors told Peter regarding his parents. Connors insists Peter be left alone.

I didn't read through any of the previous pages, but to address the comment that headlines this one, I'm glad they went with rebooting everything in a sort of similar storyline. Despite us knowing many of the plot points in the first act, I still felt much more than I ever did in Raimi and Maguire's trilogy.

Emma Stone is brilliant. Andrew Garfield crushes it. There should be no comparison. Maybe, thank God for Raimi and Sony falling out otherwise we'd never get something like this. Personally, this is done right and much better. So, from now on, they shouldn't reboot the same story but I'm glad it happened now. I realize I'm addressing a point you made in the dailies thread re: TASM and Bond.

I felt nothing during this, which is my main complaint. No sadness at Uncle Ben's death. No visceral excitement or wonder, or childhood nostalgia, upon the first reveal of Spider-Man swinging through the city in full costume. I felt detached and bored.

On another note, I only wore my 3-D glasses during the action sequences. I would recommend anyone seeing this in 3-D do the same. Remove them during the "dramatic" sequences and shot/reverse shot conversations, and you'll see the same image, just with an actual diverse color palette instead of grey, greyer, and greyest. This could be my theatre's fault, though, granted.

Just curious, did you like the Raimi trilogy or at least Spider Man?

I get the familiar beats but whereas I was cringing through Maguire's efforts, I really enjoyed seeing Garfield act and I thought the humour was done really well and the nuances in Garfield's performance made more scripting unnecessary. I believed his plight, his ecstatic discovery unlike Maguire's almost one note hammy performance.

I agree that him swinging or getting his suit didn't have the same excitement considering it's already been done before but the angles, the framing, the cinematography definitely won me over. Maybe I'm just more forgiving when Garfield and Stone just get you all pumped throughout whilst Maguire and Dunst basically dragged the film down and amazing shots, which I can't remember any, really, become dull.

I haven't seen that many movies this year but the Garfield/Stone pairing is phenomenal. In fact, I'm struggling right now to think of a better pairing, none of Raimi's Spider Man, definitely not Christian Bale/Katie Holmes or Maggie G. Thor's was awful, Captain America's underdeveloped, Iron Man's stock.

I enjoyed the first two Sam Raimi Spider-Man films, though I don't LOVE them. The second is the best. None of them are as good as, say, the Bryan Singer X-Men films or The Dark Knight.

I prefer Maguire and Dunst myself, but, yes, the Garfield/Stone chemistry is one of this film's qualities, despite her character being very, very, almost incredibly blandly written.

I liked the film quite a lot, but I can't get over how cheesy the Lizard looked, especially when talking.

They really should have gone with a different villain.

Gotta agree with that. The second is the best. Didn't like the first or the third.

Though, personally, I don't like the Singer X-Men films either. Rewatched them because I had fond memories and they drag a lot.

Maybe XMFC will hold up better and will be "the" XM movie and hopefully the sequel actually develops the ideas that XM embodies.

I didn't like XMFC much because I thought it was a retread of themes presented in XM1/2/3 that failed to develop and given Singer had a decade to actually give it some thought it was really disappointing to see it go nowhere. Granted, you don't have to explore it, but it's a much richer subtext to than say Iron Man or Thor. Hopefully the sequel does do that.

edit: Her character has not much to do, true, but even then Stone creates one unlike many, many others before her that leave a frustratingly wasted character at that. The chemistry helps loads of course.

That's the bit I'm referring to when I say I know it won't hold up.

Not as bad as the Green Goblin or at least I would hope not.

Either way, the scenes featuring Garfield/Stone just really work for me to not hold up as a whole.

The Lizard feels so arbitrary. His connection to Richard Parker goes nowhere. (He also doesn't recognize Peter at the door, despite the resemblance to his father being, per Uncle Ben, almost exact.)

He resembles the father, Earl, from Dinosaurs.

His doomsday-device plot to turn Manhattan's populace into lizards is "eh." Not very exciting. You never feel any apocalyptic sense of gravity and menace as this plan plays out.

Him going to the school to find Peter feels shoehorned in for the sole purpose of having another action sequence.

I was also let down by him transforming the entire SWAT team into lizard...only for them not ever be shown again until they start transforming back...

Spider-Man needs a 100 percent evil villain, a Joker type figure of destruction and mystery. Carnage?

No more antagonists who are tragic, flawed, and sympathetic at their core (and know or are connected to Peter).

Agreed. As if there was no room in the budget for them to...do...anything other than transform and then revert.

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And, yes, Carnage would fit the bill, but Carnage isn't someone who can be introduced right away.


Introducing the Kingpin could be good too for these purposes.

They also don't appear to have changed location after the transformation or have done anything whatsoever. I like to imagine a bunch of men-lizards just chilling after the transformation.

It reminds me of when Batman leaps from the window at the fundraiser to save Rachel in The Dark Knight, and then the film never shows what the Joker (searching for Harvey Dent) does up above. Must just grab a few shrimp and split.

Though I'd like to have seen them terrorizing the streets in that turn of events, it's really unnecessary to the movie anyway. It's what would be classified under special effects over story wouldn't it? I'm glad they saved money there.

It's not like the Avengers where the whole movie is pretty much spectacle only that you'd want more scenes they decided against or something like 2012 where the world is ending but they cannot show any other country besides the United States.

You didn't have me until the last line...

I know it's probably Norman at the end, but did anyone else think it was Peter's dad?

DId anyone else laugh at Stone's slutty outfit at Oscorp. I'm not complaining, I was just like Dam I would so work there too if they allowed that.

I was too busy drooling.

Garfield and Maguire - Maguire's portrayal of being a lovable loser, I liked more
Stone and Dunst - Stone is very cute, but Dunst was waayyy hotter
Visual effects - Tie
Action - better in TASM overall, though Spidey swing in SM1 was cooler for me
Uncle Ben - Tie
Aunt May - Rosemary Harris wins this
Villain - SM1
Origins story - SM1 easily, TASM doesn't even compare
Love story - Tie, though nothing beats the upside down kiss indeed
Humor - Tie, but the humor in SM2 mauls both films
Sequel build-up - TASM