It's been a rough few years for Spider-Man. His third live-action film became a joke for many film-goers because of the infamous dancing Emo-Spidey sequence. Julie Taymor teamed up with Bono and The Edge to bring a Spider-Man musical to Broadway, only to be faced with significant financial, injury, and critical problems that are still ongoing. Any word on whether or not they've paid Julie Taymor any money yet or settled on royalty issues for the creators? Now the rebooting of the franchise is nigh. Andrew Garfield will be replacing Toby Maguire as the pint-sized web-slinging superhero (even though he's 6 feet tall: no shorter actors could fit the bill this time?) in the 2012 feature The Amazing Spider-Man. It is, once again, the origin story of Spider-Man. He will be bullied, he will be bit by a radioactive spider, and he will slowly develop his powers and persona over a roughly 2 hour period.
My question is this. Is there anything in the first trailer (embedded below) to actually get excited about? I'm not sold at all.
It looks like a darker, grittier version of 2002's Spider-Man. Chances are, the villain is going to be another scientist who encounters Peter Parker in a laboratory setting. The only big difference is Gwen Stacey instead of Mary Jane Watson. That means, at the very least, this new run of films will actually follow the comic's chronology.
Here's what I don't understand: why go dark now? Spider-Man is the wise-cracking nerd with a huge self-deprecation streak. I talked about Captain America's cheesy dialog earlier; he's got nothing on Spider-Man. Everything comes across as a joke because he's having too much fun playing his hero alter-ego.
But that's not my concern with this trailer. My concern is the first person perspective sequence. Are we, as the audience, really going to be shaken around the rooftops of NYC in mind-blending 3D? I was getting sick in the theater from the 10 seconds of that in the trailer. What's going to happen when that pops up over the course of the film? I'm not sold on that being an effective storytelling device. It's a gimmick to me, and a poor one at that.
What do you think? Is The Amazing Spider-Man going to live up to its name? Or should the series have tried to plod on with the original cast and tried to fix the mistakes of the third film? Sound off.