Review No.136: The Amazing Spider-Man

From arthouse to blockbuster now as we turn our intention to possibly the third most important superhero movie of the year that being the franchise rebooting The Amazing Spider-Man. Yes though it's only been a mere five years since the downright dismal Spiderman 3 we've been taken right back to before Peter Parker was bitten by the spider and was still a rather ordinary high school student. Sam Raimi's place at the director's chair has been taken over by 500 Days of Summer's Marc Webb while 28 year old Andrew Garfield goes back to school and, to be honest, is totally believable as a teenager. Garfield's Peter Parker isn't nearly as geeky as Tobey Maguire's was instead he is more of a cool outsider with his skateboard and his camera he isn't the one that gets beaten up at lunchtime although he does get punched a fair few times when he tries to stick up for the geek. There is also a new love interest in the form of Gwen Stacey, played by Garfield's now real-life girlfriend Emma Stone, a smarter and more interesting girl who he doesn't follow round like a lovesick puppy as much as Parker did with MJ in the last set of films. The Amazing Spider-Man is also much more interested with Peter's parents and why he was left with Uncle Ben and Aunt May in the first place it is a mystery that he starts to uncover when he finds his father's old briefcase. He discovers that his father's old partner the scientist Dr Curt Conners is behind a project to try and genetically repair the dying Norman Osborn, who we all know as the Green Goblin but who doesn't feature here, and after tracking Connors down Peter is bit by one of the spiders which are part of his research. We all sort of know much of the rest of the story as Peter struggles with his new-found abilities however he does help Conners to solve his problems but this comes at a cost as the Doctor decides to inject himself with his new formula and in the process becomes the film's villain The Lizard. At the same time Peter's experiments have meant that he neglects his uncle and aunt with the former being shot after trying to stop a robber so to avenge Ben's death Peter dons the mask and apprehends any of the villains who bare a resemblance to the man who bumped off his beloved uncle. Obviously things come to a head between Spiderman and the Lizard which inevitably involve both Gwen and her police chief father however the ending has some ambiguity to it plus giving us some ammunition for a sequel which I'm sure we'll see in the near future.

When The Amazing Spider-Man was first announced I personally believed it to be a bit of redundant endeavour as the Raimi/Maguire Spiderman films were still fresh in everyone's minds there didn't seem to be any reason to reboot the franchise. While this to an extent may be true Marc Webb has done a good job of making this film as different as possible as we have a new love interest, a new way in which Peter becomes Spiderman and a new villain in The Lizzard. What makes The Amazing Spider-man work so well is that the majority of it is set while Peter and Gwen are still at school, something that was skipped over fairly quickly in the Raimi original, this gives the film its own identity with Peter using his new skills to fend off those who pick on the weak. The relationship between Gwen and Peter is also a lot more equal as he didn't follow her about as much Maguire did Mary Jane Watson instead the two have an easier chemistry which may be due to the fact that the two struck up a real romantic relationship during filming. To me Andrew Garfield played the everyman well and as I previously mentioned was totally believable as a 17 year old schoolboy while his metamorphosis into Spiderman was very well dealt with indeed. Stone is also great in her role, although I love her in everything, making Gwen a funny and intelligent love interest who doesn't define herself through her relationship. There is great support from Martin Sheen and Sally Field as Ben and May the former in particular has some great warmth in his scenes with Garfield which makes his death scene even more poignant. Whereas I felt The Avengers film over-egged the pudding in terms of its set pieces The Amazing Spider-Man makes you wait with only two really big moments one involving an accident on a bridge and the other was the climax at Oscorp. It's fair to say that the film drags at times and that some of the high school scenes are fairly generic but for me this was better than Raimi's first Spiderman film if not quite on the level of 2004's Spiderman 2. Overall this is one of the best blockbusters of the year so far due to its mixture of visual splendour, emotionally balanced script and great performance across the board.

Verdict: One of this year's strongest blockbusters The Amazing Spider-Man is overlong but kept me interested throughout due to great performances, a brilliant script and wonderful set pieces so for those reasons it gets 8/10

Review No.115: The Five Year Engagement

I was woken up today with the sad news that writer-director Nora Ephron, most known for her role working on romantic comedies, had passed away only a day after I'd watched the best romcom in a good while. That film was The Five Year Engagement which is written by Nicholas Stoller and Jason Segal, who most recently worked on the script for The Muppets together, with the latter starring alongside Emily Blunt as a couple who have to postpone their wedding. The film starts with Segal's chef Tom trying to arrange a romantic way to propose to Blunt's Violet however she works out something's going on before he has a chance to do it eventually she makes him go through with his elaborate plan before agreeing to it. After an awkward engagement party Violet's sister Suzie, played by Community's Alison Brie who pulls off a very convincing English accent, and Tom's fellow chef Alex get together before having baby and eventually getting married essentially stealing the thunder of Violent and Tom. The next setback is when Violet is asked to take up a post-grad position at Michigan University after a discussion with Tom they agree to move however he fails to tell her that he was offered a head chef job at his boss' new restaurant. While Violet thrives in her new position it is Tom who struggles to find work eventually working at a deli making sandwiches and basically filling up his days waiting for his fiancée to come home. Tom becomes unhappy in Michigan which means that Violet has to confide in her professor, played by a suitably slimy Rhys Ifans, but will she give into temptation and risk wasting the engagement that has been going on so long?

Something else that goes on far too long is this film, at just over two hours The Five Year Engagement suffers from too many similar scenes as Tom struggles to adjust to his Michigan lifestyle. I think at least fifteen to twenty minutes could've been trimmed either from these scenes or some of the latter parts of the film building up to the inevitable conclusion. The other element of the film I wasn't too keen on one was the fact that the problems in Violet and Tom's relationship arise from a stale doughnut but I won't go into that as I'm expecting most of you haven't seen the film. I don't think the Michigan tourist board will be too happy with this film as their state is presented as a complete hole in which there is nothing to do, there are no job opportunities for culinary-minded chefs and the only place of note is the university but I suppose at the end of the day the film's setting is where most of the jokes are found. Thankfully the film has more negatives than positives mainly due to the brilliant chemistry between real-life friends Blunt and Segal who seem like a believable couple from their first meeting at a new year's party through to their ups and downs depicted in the film. Blunt is perfectly charming a great counter-balance to Segal's usual goofy routine which here is completely endearing. Segal and Stoller's script is also full of laughs throughout with my favourite moment being Alex's song about Tom's former conquests set to the tune of 'We Didn't Start the Fire' as well as a rather uncomfortable version of 'The Birdy Song' danced after a shocking revelation. Ifans is also brilliant as the smarmy professor who tries to entice Violet throughout her time at the university while these scenes are also spiced up by her post-grad colleagues who all have increasingly bizarre ideas about what would work best as a test experiment. Overall this reminded me of Segal and Stoller's earlier film Forgetting Sarah Marshall as both are peppered with decent jokes but suffer from being overlong and having a bad narrative structure. That being said I definitely enjoyed The Five Year Engagement more as it had bigger laughs, more chemistry between the central couple and most crucially of all no Russell Brand. So it's a very sad RIP to Nora Ephron and while The Five Year Engagement may not be on the same level as When Harry Met Sally or Sleepless in Seattle but I think she'd be glad to know that even after she's gone the genre she created is still going strong.

Verdict: A charming and funny romcom that boasts plenty of jokes plus an easy chemistry between the leads is let down by being overlong as well as becoming repetitive in its final third so for those reasons it gets a very high 7/10