Review: The Amazing Spider-Man (2012)

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2012, Andrew Garfield, Emma Stone, Marc Webb, Rhys Ifans, The Amazing Spider-Man

Director: Marc Webb
Stars: Andrew Garfield, Emma Stone, Rhys Ifans
Plot: When Peter Parker tries to investigate what happened to his parents, he is bitten by a genetically engineered spider and acquires new powers which he must use to thwart the plans of a mad scientist.

Marvel Studios’ behemoth of a cash-nabbing conveyor belt continues to churn out the obligatory blockbusters. After Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk, Thor and Captain America, we had The Avengers (basically an excuse to cobble most of the above together in an attempt to squeeze more money out of us) and now a remake after just 10 years (not a reboot, as some had claimed) of the Tobey Maguire-starring Spiderman franchise. Cue another twenty-something high-school student playing the geeky Peter Parker, but this time he’s without Mary Jane and has to face an even more irritating adversary than the extremely camp Green Goblin.

Parker (Garfield) walks into his father Richard’s (Campbell Scott) study and discovers that it has been broken into. His parents quickly scoop up him and a plethora of documents, taking Peter to stay with his Uncle Ben (Martin Sheen) and Aunt May (Sally Field) from where they flee into the night. Years later, a teenage Parker is attending Midtown Science High School, where he is being bullied by Flash Thompson (Chris Zylka), but catches the eye of Gwen Stacy (Stone). When he returns home, Peter finds some of his father’s papers and discovers that he once worked with Dr. Curt Connors (Ifans) at OsCorp. Managing to fake his way into OsCorp by stealing an ID, Peter gets into one of the labs where he finds that spiders are being genetically modified as part of a series of experiments – one of which bites him on the back of the neck, resulting in shocking, spider-like qualities.

Peter goes to visit the one-armed Connors, who is trying to find a way of splicing lizard DNA to replicate their ability to grow new limbs in place of lost ones. Connors is also being pressured by his employer Dr. Ratha (Irrfan Khan) to find a cure for the enigmatic dying head of OsCorp, Norman Osborn. Peter tells Connors that he is Richard Parker’s son and gives him the answer to a ‘decay rate algorithm’ equation that solves the conundrum of methodology that has been, until now, elusive. At school, Peter gets revenge on Flash and gets into trouble, forcing his uncle to change shifts in order to meet with the school principal. Ben asks him to pick up his Aunt for him, but Peter instead goes to the lab at OsCorp where he and Connors manage to regenerate a limb on a three-legged mouse. Upon returning home, Ben berates him for not fetching May – Peter storms out and Ben goes after him, but when Peter lets a thief go by who then runs into Ben and shoots him, Peter realises that he must seek revenge by using his new-found abilities, except that he hasn’t reckoned on the appearance of a giant lizard who begins terrorising the city.

The Amazing Spider-Man is not too unlike its ten-year-old cousin Spider-Man (2002). There are some very familiar plot strands in here, which are based on the comic strip but suggest a lack of direction rather than a re-imagining. Indeed, if you were to watch the two films back-to-back you might question the wisdom of Marvel’s producers for even bothering – and you would be mostly right. Let’s not forget that it is only five years since the third and last film in the previous franchise graced our screens to predictably diminishing returns. So, why bother? It would be a hard cynic to point solely towards the ultimate goal of lining the pockets of Marvel’s executives. If this new dawn in the Spider-Man saga were a complete and utter waste of time, then to belittle it straight away on such grounds would be justified. Yes, there is little originality as far as the story is concerned, but there are plus points to be had, even if at first glance it looks like a money-making exercise. The casting is critical if we are to believe that new life has been breathed into this particular incarnation of arguably Marvel’s most famous superhero. Garfield, Stone, Sheen and Field is a superb billing which should appeal to both young and old audiences alike.

Andrew Garfield, who bears a striking resemblance in a certain light to the gangly gait (and hair) of Andy Murray (Wimbledon 2, anyone?), conveys a terrific sense of zero-turns-hero, whilst he finds out how to harness his new powers to his delight at first, but then horror when he realises the implications. There are some nice touches of comedy which Garfield portrays well, such as flooring a group of thugs on the subway and humiliating the school bully. There’s perhaps a better sense of believability as opposed to Tobey Maguire, who was a little stiff and starchy in comparison. Emma Stone, who at five years younger can just about get away with playing teenagers for a little longer, is very competent as the love interest. She is not as wimpy as Kristen Dunst’s Mary Jane, yet doesn’t overdo the ‘independent woman’ vibe, which could have become irritating. The major blot on the landscape is Rhys Ifans’ Dr. Connors, who is camper than a row of tents. When the compulsory mad doctor turns into a lizard there’s a relief of sorts, but even then the guys in the CGI department have done a valiant job of making the character even less convincing, if that was the intention. As with many superhero films, the villain of the piece has to be worthy of fighting, yet here it is severely lacking.

The Amazing Spider-Man may look great behind rose-tinted 3D spectacles, but the fact of the matter is that Marvel have regurgitated rather than rebooted. Having said that, there is plenty of time for the game to be upped and for this particular superhero to redeem himself. In Garfield we may very well have to trust for now.

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Review: Anonymous (2011)

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2011, Anonymous, David Thewlis, Rhys Ifans, Roland Emmerich, Vanessa Redgrave

Director: Roland Emmerich
Stars: Rhys Ifans, Vanessa Redgrave, David Thewlis
Plot: Contrary to popular belief, it was Edward De Vere, Earl of Oxford, not William Shakespeare who wrote Hamlet, Macbeth et al. Here we learn his story and the reasons behind the conspiracy, set against the backdrop of Elizabeth I’s reign.

“Plays are the work of the devil!” yells one stereotypical medieval God-fearer in Anonymous, a film that suggests that not only William Shakespeare was in fact an illiterate fool who didn’t write a single word of ‘his’ plays, but also that our dear Virgin Queen Elizabeth I was in fact a bit of a floozy who played the field and bore a son (or two). If you can swallow all this, then read on.

After an exceedingly luvvie introduction from Sir Derek Jacobi in the present day, we see Ben Jonson (Sebastian Arnesto) in the early 17th century, who is running along a rain-soaked London street while being pursued by Robert Cecil, Earl of Salisbury (Edward Hogg). Cecil is searching for a pile of valuable manuscripts which Jonson hides in the Globe Theatre, which is then burned down by Cecil’s men. The action then jumps back five then forty years as we follow the life of Edward de Vere (Jamie Campbell Bower, Ifans) which runs parallel to much of Elizabeth I’s (Joely Richardson, Vanessa Redgrave) reign. The succession of Elizabeth is discussed in detail between the Tudors and the Cecils, father William (Thewlis) and son Robert. Edward de Vere is seen as a child prodigy, performing the role of Puck in A Midsummer Night’s Dream for the Queen at the age of about eight or nine. He is later sent to live in a Puritanical household of William Cecil, where he kills a servant who is spying on him.

Cecil blackmails de Vere over the murder into a loveless marriage with his daughter Anne (Amy Kwolek, Helen Baxendale) and also to stop writing. De Vere later becomes the lover of Elizabeth I and unknowingly fathers an illegitimate son, later known as Henry Wriothesley, 3rd Earl of Southampton (Timo Huber, Xavier Samuel), whose parentage is hidden from everyone except the Cecils. Not only is de Vere hamstrung by the restrictions to write plays and his wife’s impatience, his father-in-law is concerned about the royal lineage and plans to have James, the son of Mary Queen of Scots, crowned as king but is concerned about Henry’s possible claim to the throne. De Vere visits a theatre to see a play by Ben Jonson, but it is stopped halfway through as it is considered by the royal militia to be seditious and Jonson is arrested and imprisoned. De Vere then secretly writes Henry V and Richard III as propaganda against Cecil’s cause, but when Jonson turns down the opportunity to take the writing credit, it falls to an actor – William Shakespeare – to do so.

Anonymous is an almost impenetrable mess of a film, which introduces characters at an incredible rate of knots whilst confusingly jumping back and forth between time periods. Just when you were beginning to follow one timeline, in comes the same character a few years older/younger and we have to start all over again. With such a huge number of faces (most of whom have incredibly long titles) to keep track of, this is ironically similar to watching one of the plays of Shakespeare himself. Rhys Ifans’ posh Edward de Vere is a far cry from his scruffy Spike in Notting Hill (1999), the role that launched his career on a global scale, but, as the main focus of the film, is actually convincing if a little too camp at times. The supporting cast is pretty anonymous (no pun intended), except for Sebastian Arnesto’s Ben Jonson and that is only because he has one of the film’s more meatier roles.

Casting mother and daughter Joely Richardson and Vanessa Redgrave as Elizabeth I is inspired. Not only do you have two accomplished actresses, but also the ready-made look complete with red hair. These are the only plus points as far as the acting is concerned – most of the time there is too much grandiose thespianism instead of playing characters with a little more restraint. The plot might be absurd and difficult to follow, but the superb recreation of Elizabethan England is in complete contrast to the pretty dire events surrounding it. Roland Emmerich, who directed and produced the futuristic and slightly less-than-subtle films The Day After Tomorrow (2004) and 2012 (2009), here takes on a historical world and though it might be a little too Hollywood, fans of The Tudors will no doubt lap it up.

Anonymous is a tame effort at suggesting that Elizabeth I and William Shakespeare led fraudulent lives. There maybe some demand for Da Vinci Code-style conspiracies, but one look at the poor box office takings will tell you all you need to know.

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