If you follow the site at all, you know that I’m really not that jazzed about the upcoming reboot of the Spider-Man franchise. It doesn’t even have anything to do with my Sam Raimi fanboy status – I just feel like I’ve just seen the first Spider-Man story so many times already that seeing it again doesn’t thrill me in any way. Marc Webb’s movie looks perfectly fine…but it really looks just like the previous Spider-Man origin story with a different villain. Spider-Man fights thugs in an alley, no one knows if he’s a good guy or a bad guy, his aunt and uncle dote over him (I’m shocked that the phrase “With great power comes great responsibility” hasn’t come up yet), he fights with some bullies at school, the villain taunts him, and they fight in a place that’s very high up. Yeah yeah, I know that the webs aren’t biological and this has Gwen Stacy and it’s the Lizard instead of the Green Goblin and it’s a tower not a bridge and blah blah blah blah blah. The point is that this hero origin story is essentially the same as the last one that’s still fresh in our minds because, at the time, it was pretty damn cool. The special effects may not have aged well, but it was made recently enough that people haven’t forgotten about it. The Batman franchise got away with this because we had never seen Batman’s origin story before, so even though things like Wayne Manor, Alfred the butler, and a hollow romance with a bland female character felt familiar, there was enough new stuff for us to get invested. The Amazing Spider-Man looks pretty much like the same story told in Sam Raimi’s first Spider-Man movie, and, well, why shouldn’t I just watch that? I have it right here – no need to pay the $15-20 for the price of a 3D ticket. Am I alone in feeling this way?
The Amazing Spider-Man comes out July 3, 2012.