Time for the summer blockbusters! I had no desire to see The Amazing Spider-man, satisfied as I was by the Tobey Maguire films that seemed to have finished, what, two years ago?? But because we misread/remembered the movie times, we ended up going to see it instead of Prometheus. It was a blockbuster kind of day.
I had low expectations and found the film entertaining and more than a little interesting. Andrew Garfield’s portrait of Peter Parker was very updated and completely lacking Tobey Maguire’s endearing, goofy smile. This Peter Parker was edgier, nerdier, a guy who wanted to stand up to the bully but just didn’t have the brute strength for it. He seemed from the beginning set apart and different from his wholly wholesome aunt and uncle, those icons of yesteryear, Sally Field and Martin Sheen (really??).
However interested as I was in the newish storyline and the novel characterization, I kept waiting for the arc of the character to develop. Does this Peter Parker learn the lesson of the Spider-man myth: With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility?
This Peter Parker begins with a chip on his shoulder. He screws up by not stopping a petty thief at a convenient store (who actually bonds with him by throwing him a chocolate milk he couldn’t quite afford), a screw up that ends with Uncle Ben getting killed. The thief-turned-killer (an act more desperate than malicious) has long blond hair and a tattoo, so Spider-man targets blondes, looking for the tattoo. The sense is that the criminals without tattoos get off easy, left for police instead of, what, killed?
The chief of police is quite right in calling Spider-man a vigilante and wanting him off the streets. His antics interfere with police investigations. He’s not working with the police for good, but solely for himself. A real superhero works with the police (think Commissioner Gordon and the bat signal over Gotham).
Still, I have no problem with this set-up. It’s interesting– Peter Parker is a teenager, immature, and he’s not had to deal with power before. He wants to use his power for easy stuff that serves his own purposes. But his learning curve is uneven. He uses his power to humiliate the bully, who then becomes his friend. Yes, the bully gets nicer (to Peter, at least) but is it because he now sees Peter as an equal? Strong like him? It’s not like they join forces to protect the weak in the school.
Eventually, there is real evil to contend with– sort of. A very nice, well-meaning scientist, his father’s partner, turns his experiments on himself (again in desperation) and unleashes the lizard within, complete with nasty side effects– the desire to raise up a lizard army. Power is too great a temptation, and the lizard power is a reaction to that message underlying the film: human weakness sucks.
The lizard must be stopped, and Peter joins up at last with the police chief to stop him. But there still isn’t the moral– this is just Spiderman doing what he can to stop evil where he sees it. Must save humanity!
The only interesting thing here is the way the construction workers pull together to assist Spider-man. In their organization and activity, remaining in the danger to provide assistance, there is a clear nod to 9/11. Completely human civil servants bravely face death for the sake of the city. Again, a hope for something redemptive, a grand arc.
But it just falls short. Lots of possibilities, but when all is said and done just a lot of loose ends (what happened, for instance, to the real bad guy, the one who wanted to do genetic experiments on veterans? Still hanging from the Williamsburg Bridge?) and a muddy message.
Perhaps this Spider-man was meant to be more complicated. The good not purely good and the evil not purely evil. Perhaps we have to think about the longer arc of, say, a trilogy of films. If so, that’s really unfortunate. That’s not the superhero formula. That’s certainly not the Spider-man formula. The power conveyed by technology and learning to live with that power and use it responsibly is what Spider-man is about. Not getting the girl, beating the bully, breaking the backboard or designing a cool costume. That’s a teenage fantasy, not the stuff of heroism. This movie could have reached higher, much higher.