Apparently, not everyone loves their friendly neighborhood Spider-Man, at least not as he was portrayed in last weekend's box-office winner, The Amazing Spider-Man.
While by no means a perfect superhero flick, nor anywhere near as purely fun as The Avengers, The Amazing Spider-Man was an ambitious attempt to retell Spidey's origin in a way that won't make the kids' eyes roll. As a cinematic enterprise, Amazing was pretty slapdash, filled with dangling plot threads, underdeveloped characters, and an aesthetic that is a pretty blatant Nolan knock-off. That said, I still recommend it (I'd give it a B) to both comic book fans and the uninitiated because, despite it's flaws, Amazing is vaguely ambitious -- not swing for the fences ambitious, but audacious enough to upend central elements of a classic origin in service of table-setting and trend-chasing. This vague ambition that has insulted so many critics and Spidey purists but thrilled the casual audience is no different than any attempt by the Big Two comic publishers (DC and Marvel) to court readers younger than 30.
Based on the box office, Amazing was a success with that casual audience--one which is far less elusive to movie studios than comic book stores--but it seems the price of that success is a collection of disappointed fans and movie reviewers who felt that this new, hip Spidey, and his franchise-establishing origin--just doesn't measure up to Tobey Maguire's puppy dog-eyed portrayal of Peter Parker in Sam Raimi's vibrant, campy trilogy that launched a decade ago. The point of contention is likely rooted in director Marc Webb and his attempt to capture the zeitgeist of the contemporary teenage experience as well as the popularity of serial storytelling with a drawn-out mystery at the core with Amazing.
In Amazing, Webb introduces us to a "postmodern"--for lack of a more salient term--Peter Parker, one who exists in a world where geeks are gods and fewer kids are bullied because they have an aptitidue for technology and an appreciation for comic books. The Peter Parker of Amazing, played with equal parts snark and smarts by The Social Network's Andrew Garfield, recalls the disgruntled everyman of Stan Lee and Steve Ditko's early Spidey stories. He's nowhere near as passive as Tobey Maguire's spin on the character, going so far as to stand up to bullies before he turns into Spidey. He's even more comfortable with girls--in this case, the target of his affection is the (SPOILER ALERT) doomed Gwen Stacy (played with typical pluck and wit by Emma Stone)--which brings to mind one of Parker's defining traits: his bad luck with multiple women. Now, think about that for a moment: Peter Parker is smart, reasonably handsome, decent, and kind of a ladies man. How do any of those traits translate into socially awkward geek? They don't necessarily, mostly because Peter has been whatever the era of or creator needs him to be (case in point: John Romita Sr.'s fashioning of Parker as more of a square-jawed lead tailored for romance comics than a bookish "science geek").
The sheer fact that Garfield's Peter is a bit dickish and geeky yet comfortable-ish around a lovely lady like Gwen reflects an amalgamation of multiple facets of Parker as he has been defined through the ages, all pulled together into a shape that would seem reasonably appealing to the modern "disenfranchised" teen geek. To respond to this version of Peter Parker with the disdain that some critics and comics fans have shows something of a misunderstanding of the basic nature of comics, that of constant change.In fact, such responses recall the shocked response of Channing Tatum's Jenko in this past spring's 21 Jumpstreet. Jenko could not understand how in five short years geeks, gays, and eco-emo kids rose to popularity when jocks and cheerleaders clearly should have ruled the high school roost. By that same token, some critics find it difficult to digest the very real need for Sony to make Spider-Man attractive to a new demographic by making his alter-ego less of a mopey wallflower and more aggressive, snarky, confident, petulant, and, well, contemporary. This may not jibe with more classic interpretations of Peter--I'll admit that Garfield seemed far too "cool" to be Peter Parker before reflecting on this topic--but times change, and while the core of the characters should remain, the trappings will inevitably change.
As much as the changes to Spidey himself reflect an attempt on Webb's part to reach a younger audience, so to does Webb's, more likely Sony's, choice to craft Spidey's efficient origin into a serialized mystery. The Abrams-Lindelof Mystery Box approach--so named for Lost creator J.J. Abrams and showrunner Damon Lindelof--to storytelling is "hot" these days, and its popularity is very attractive to studios looking to build franchises rather than tell to good, complete stories. As a result, we get a flick like Amazing Spider-Man that ties Spidey's origin into a "touch of destiny" mystery that removes some of the everyman quality of Spidey's beginning. Of course, the purists and some critics rankle at this change, with good reason, but the, excised, notions that Peter Parker is genetically destined to become Spider-Man and the secrets of his parents are far more intriguing than implied by the Lee and Ditko's original tale are not new. In fact, Marvel has repeatedly broached this concept with mini series like 2006's Bullet Points, which asserts that, one way or another, Peter Parker was destined to become a super-powered hero of some sort, and the entire existence of Madam Web, a clairvoyant who guides Spider-Man towards his 'destiny' as a hero. This concept expands to other heroes as well, particularly Captain America, the perfect test subject for the super soldier program simply based on his inherent goodness and decency. Granted, the whole "chosen one" angle is inherently hokey and terribly rote thanks to overuse and is generally a poor fit for Spider-Man's story, which has always had kind of a "it could be you" vibe, but it is nothing new. Marvel has always pushed the limit of the integrity of its original stories by allowing its creators to make strenuous connections between errant plot threads, an approach which is far from limited to Marvel (see Grant Morrison's multi-year run on Batman).
The serialized franchise building on display in Amazing may be disheartening because it appears to be a naked attempt by Sony to retain the Spider-Man license, which it absolutely is, but it is hardly unique to the movie studios. As much as this approach disappoints some of the audience, it is, for better or worse, the nature of comic books writ large; they must constantly reinvent themselves at the risk of losing the past generation of readers; but if we accept that some of the more popular characters are not the sole dominion of one generation and must be made relevant to the next generation of readers then we can come to place where we accept the idea and the spirit of the effort even if the execution is flawed. Amazing Spider-Man may not be the most perfectly executed version of Spidey origin, but the changes are far more indicative decades old trend of reinvention that consistently risks gaining a new audience at the expense of another. That said, the new Spidey flick may not be everybody's cup of tea, but it deserves at least .
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