Spider-Man (2012) Reboot

[Richmond Clements]

Empire review is up: http://www.empireonline.com/reviews/reviewcomplete.asp?FID=135132

And Total Film: http://www.totalfilm.com/reviews/cinema/the-amazing-spider-man

[brendan1]

Hmmmm. Bit underwhelming those reviews.

[Richmond Clements]

Yeah, sounds like one for a cheap afternoon showing.

[Goaty]

Empire review mentions that this film more on relationships, less on superheros stuff, are it try to be Twilight??

[radiator]

Empire review mentions that this film more on relationships, less on superheros stuff, are it try to be Twilight??

I'm no expert on Spiderman so correct me if I'm wrong, but hasn't the comic always had a large focus on the high-school-teen-relationship angle?

Seems perfectly appropriate to push that and aim for a wider audience than the usual fanboys.

[Goaty]

Your right, Radiator, hope people will enjoy the film...

[brendan1]

Empire review mentions that this film more on relationships, less on superheros stuff, are it try to be Twilight??

I'm no expert on Spiderman so correct me if I'm wrong, but hasn't the comic always had a large focus on the high-school-teen-relationship angle?

Seems perfectly appropriate to push that and aim for a wider audience than the usual fanboys.

The fanboys being exactly the ones who should be most aware of the comic "having always had a large focus on the high-school-teen-relationship angle"?

[radiator]

The fanboys being exactly the ones who should be most aware of the comic "having always had a large focus on the high-school-teen-relationship angle"?

I don't quite understand what you're getting at.

My point is that - I think - that the teen romance angle has always been quite prominent in the source material and it makes sense to emphasise this in the marketing to draw in a broader audience. One can hardly accuse it of 'doing a Twilight' because it's in keeping with what - to my mind - the series has always been.

The fact that the film apparently is more about the relationship than superheroics, combined with the charisma of the leads (who I have very much liked in previous things I've seen them in) actually makes me a lot more interested in this film than I otherwise would have been.

[brendan1]

And the 2002 Spiderman grossed over $800m worldwide box office, so one would have to assume that the job of widening the appeal beyond "fanboys" was done satisfactorily well the first time around.

[JamesC]

I just hope the video game is good!

[radiator]

I just hope the video game is good!

I'm stunned that they still haven't worked out how to do a properly good Spiderman game after all these years.

I remember everyone going on about how good the Spiderman 2 game was but I thought it was very average and boring.

They've never seemed to really nail that physicality and inertia of web-swinging - the vertiginous sense of height and scale.

Imagine what a top-flight AAA dev studio could do with the license, like a Spiderman version of Arkham City.

[brendan1]

I just hope the video game is good!

They rarely are!

I think the whole "Booooo, it's trying to be like Twilight" isn't entirely fair, but neither is it without any basis for worry.

For a start, Raimi's approach was always that of a "fanboy", and he delivered (certainly two) amazing films that performed brilliantly at the box office (I think the third one was a little bit confused and overlong). But he still kept in the romantic side of the character, and the nerdiness, but cast less obvious "swooooon!" stars as his leads.

The more obviously appealing Garfield certainly has a tweeny-appeal that Maguire doesn't have, and when it comes to Hollywood, there's no way they'd be looking at the source material (certainly no more than Raimi did), they'll be thinking "where's the audience for this? What's working?"

And what's been working since the first Spidey in 2002?

Film adaptations of shit, children's literature like Twilight, The Hunger Games and Harry Potter, with good-looking tweeny stars who have nice hair and lots of growing up angst.

Fuck all to do with the source material, or "widening the appeal" to an audience who would actually be totally fucking unaware of the source material anyway, but about what makes good box office.

[JOE SOAP]

I'm stunned that they still haven't worked out how to do a properly good Spiderman game after all these years.

Hours of web-slinging joy.

[JamesC]

I remember the Fantastic Four Questprobe game. I always got stuck in the tar pit!

[M.I.K.]

I liked the Hulk one, in which it was possible to become sufficiently enraged by typing "bite lip".