Storm Informs

Sony Pictures recently released a promo shot of how Andrew Garfield will look as Spidey in The Amazing Spiderman, which is currently filming and due for release in 2012.

I think the new Spidey looks pretty sweet and have high hopes for the new film, especially since I believe the original Spiderman trilogy is vastly overrated.

Here are 5 reasons why the new Spiderman film will be better than any of the Spider-films that came before:

1)     TOBEY MAGUIRE’S PETER PARKER WAS A COMPLETE TOOL

This is one of the primary reasons I find the original trilogy less than stellar.  In all three Spidey films Maguire comes off like a total and complete tool.

From his geeky smile when ogling Mary Jane to his Dudley Do-Right doofiness and conservative sense of morality, Tobey Maguire’s Peter Parker belongs more in an episode of Full House than he does in an action film.

And did I mention the fact that when not web-slinging he spends his time in Spiderman 2 and 3 riding around on a scooter?  Because he does.  And it’s retarded.

No wonder this guy doesn’t get laid once in the trilogy

Still not sold?  Let’s look at the facts:

Maguire spends the first movie pining over Kirsten Dunst (I’ll get to her later), despite the fact that she’s depicted as a needy, insecure airhead who is incapable of not being in a relationship with a guy, no matter how poorly she’s treated.

She starts the first film dating a jerkwad then moments later is involved with James Franco until finally warming up to Peter, who rebuffs her, which then sends her directly into the arms of some other douche in Spiderman 2. I’m not kidding, this chick jumps from man to man more than a nymphomaniac ballerina at a fire hall.

The Peter Parker of the comics is a pretty cool guy, not some total dweeb who yearns to date a girl that isn’t good enough for him, or Spiderman, for that matter.

Maguire’s Peter Parker is also extremely socially awkward — take another look at his ham-fisted dialogue exchanges about the nature of love in Spiderman 2 during dinner with Dr. Octopus and his wife, or even worse, his stupid friendship with the gangly, geeky daughter of his terribly stereotyped Ukrainian landlord.

“Hey Pete, want some milk and cookies?”  ”Golly gee willikers, thanks a lot, you weirdo bony bitch.”

Finally, the most obvious and egregious example of Maguire’s dorky performance occurs in the embarrassing and sacrilegious Spiderman 3, in which an alien symbiote turns Peter Parker temporarily evil.

Maguire’s acting is so lame he can’t even play a bad ass correctly.  Instead of using excessive force on criminals or smacking around Kirsten Dunst, Maguire morphs into an emo douchebag, reports a fraudulent co-worker and goes dancing at a jazz club.  As a result, he comes off looking about as intimidating as a hot-tempered weasel.

My bangs make me evil.  Also, I just pooped a little.

Toss in the fact Maguire absolutely humiliates himself and the entire 50 year history of Spiderman by dance humping through the streets of New York and you have yourself a slew of reasons why Andrew Garfield’s updated take on Peter Parker in The Amazing Spiderman has nowhere to go but up.

2)     SAM RAIMI IS A MEDIOCRE DIRECTOR

Sam Raimi surprised many when he was announced as the director of the first Spiderman film ten years ago.  Up until that point, Raimi was best known for cult hits like the Evil Dead trilogy and Darkman.

Now I’m not saying that Raimi isn’t a competent director, I’m just saying he’s not a great one.  There’s no denying that Raimi’s first Spiderman film was groundbreaking and kicked open the door for a new wave of comic book films and cemented comic book characters as extremely hot commodities in Hollywood.

However, I believe that many of the accolades that Raimi’s Spiderman films received were in fact because modern audiences finally got to see what was essentially a faithful adaptation of a beloved comic book character in a big budget summer tent-pole film.

What about the four Batman films that came before Spiderman?  Not faithful adaptations.  Tim Burton turned the first two films into goofy gothic circuses, whereas the latter two Joel Schumacher directed films were absolute cartoonish travesties.  The Superman movies?  Extremely dated.

As a result, Raimi’s Spiderman truly was the first modern post-CGI big budget faithful comic book adaptation.

Is it really possible audiences were so starved for a good comic book movie that we remember the Spidey films as better than they actually were?  Let’s look at some of Raimi’s directorial decisions:

The villain of the first Spiderman film, the Green Goblin, is played by an over-the-top Willem Dafoe.  But is there really any depth to the character other than the fact he’s kind of a douchebag dad to James Franco? Does Dafoe’s Goblin come anywhere near the complexity of Heath Ledger’s Joker who is a frightening representation of chaos personified?

Not even close.

And how about Green Goblin’s costume?  Seriously, he looked like a Mighty Morphin’ Power Ranger in that get up.

Triceratops!  Sabretooth Tiger!  Tyrannasorus!  Green Goblin!

The Dark Knight’s Joker, however, kept the traditional elements in the comic books (purple suit, clown face, green hair) but augmented other aspects to make the character more believable and cinematic (mouth scarred with a Glasgow smile, clown face comes from make up, green hair is wild and disheveled).

And even though Spiderman 2′s Doctor Octopus was a better villain than Dafoe’s Green Goblin, he still comes off as lame at times.

From the inexplicable reason for why Alfred Molina’s pasty belly hangs out during fight scenes to Doctor Octopus’ unearned redemptive and cheesy “I won’t die a monster” line at the end of the film, Raimi lacks that instinctive ability that allows great directors to recognize when something doesn’t work within their film.

Sam Raimi also seems to have a penchant for extreme cheesiness in his Spiderman films.  From the dorky “Raindrops Falling On My Head” montage in Spiderman 2 to the horrendous evil emo Peter Parker montage in Spiderman 3, Raimi really ratchets up the tackiness numerous times in his trilogy.

An equally ridiculous sequence also occurs near the climax of Spiderman 2.

After stopping a runaway train, needlessly whipping off his mask and then conveniently passing out, the passengers on board suddenly turn into a bunch of southern Baptists and start passing around Tobey Maguire’s unconscious body like he’s Jesus himself.

They should have called the movie Spiderman 2: The Passion of the Christ

Talk about a heavy-handed saviour metaphor.  Again, this is just another example of Sam Raimi being out of touch and inserting crap that has no business being in a Spiderman movie.

Nobody goes to see a Spidey flick because they want to see religious symbolism — they go to see him swing around, stick to walls, crack jokes and kick the shit out of bad guys.  The trick is to layer in themes and metaphors throughout the film a la Christopher Nolan.  Instead, Sam Raimi just smacks the audience over the head with it.

In addition, Sam Raimi also elicited extremely cartoony performances from his supporting cast (J. Jonah Jameson in the trilogy is particularly goofy),  and used the very tired and lame “supervillain has kidnapped Mary Jane” plot device as the climax of all three of his Spiderman films.

While The Amazing Spiderman’s director Marc Webb still has a lot to prove, his best known film (500 Days of Summer) was inventive and clever, and he has selected some excellent actors to round out his supporting cast (Martin Sheen as Uncle Ben, Sally Field as Aunt May) — which is a move that Christopher Nolan used successfully in his Batman films.

3)     MECHANICAL WEB SHOOTERS

This is definitely one of the most interesting things about the new Spiderman movie. For 50 years in the comics, Peter Parker has used his scientific genius to create a web fluid which he then shoots through devices he wears on his wrists.

However, apparently Raimi felt these devices were too unbelievable, even though the audience had no problem accepting Spiderman’s other fantastical abilities, including his super strength, stickiness and spidey sense.  As a result, Raimi snubbed his nose at comic book tradition and went with organic spinnerets in Spiderman’s wrists.

The problem?

Even if you accepted the fact that Peter Parker somehow developed organic web shooters from his genetically engineered spider bite, Raimi overlooked the fact that Spidey’s spinnerets would form in the same place as a spider’s — in the rear of the arachnid’s abdomen, which on a human-spider hybrid like Peter Parker, would be his ass.

That’s right, in Raimi’s films Spidey should have been swinging around New York shooting webbing out of his butt.

It has already been confirmed (and you can see them in the banner pic above) that in The Amazing Spiderman our favourite web-slinging hero will be using mechanical web shooters.

The web fluid used by Spidey in the comics is also designed to dissolve after an hour, whereas in Sam Raimi’s trilogy, the issue is never addressed and for all we know Spiderman’s organic webbing never dissolves and every time he goes web-slinging through the city the NYC skyscrapers are left covered in cobwebs and looking like a hideous eyesore.

Not to mention the fact that this poor bastard would be shit out of luck

4)     NO MORE SNAGGLETOOTH

I can’t stand Kirsten Dunst.  She’s a terrible actress and a far cry from the super hot model who is the Mary Jane Watson in the comics.  Add in the fact that she portrayed Peter Parker’s great love as a whiny, annoying piece of supervillain catnip and Spiderman fans around the world should rejoice that she won’t be present in The Amazing Spiderman.

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Can Opener

In fact, one could argue that Dunst’s performances were so bad that they gave Marc Webb cause to drop the Mary Jane character from The Amazing Spiderman altogether.

Regardless, with the attractive and charming Emma Stone starring as Peter Parker’s love interest Gwen Stacy in the new film, at least we don’t have to worry that she might accidentally slice his lips off if they have an upside down kiss.

5)     NO DANCE HUMPING

This one explains itself: