You've got to love Hollywood movie moguls. They are just so gosh darn optimistic. No matter how many bombs they produce, no
matter how many bad Ben Affleck blockbusters they make, no matter how many
incoherent films the Wachowskis churn out, someone is always willing to double
down and make more. How many times has
there been a movie version of The Lone Ranger that succeeded?
If you have a successful franchise that seems to be slowing
down, just reboot. Dump the old cast
(and I do mean old, if they are getting into their twenties) and start afresh
with a new vision. It worked for Star
Trek; not so much for Superman. But
Superman will go on no matter what, and even Brandon Routh can’t kill the Man
of Steel.
The news out of Hollywood is that Sony will team with Marvel
on a new Spiderman franchise, booting out Andrew Garfield and starting over
with . . . who? They have time to figure
that out as the new Spiderman won’t be unveiled until July 28, 2017. The hope is that they won’t have to begin the
next round with an origin story as we’ve already seen Peter Parker’s Uncle Ben
die twice in 15 years.
Let’s get one thing straight—Andrew Garfield is not to blame
for the lackluster box office of The Amazing Spiderman films. Yes, he’s a tad old (31 now), but he was an
immense improvement over Toby Maguire, who completely lacked Peter Parker’s
puckish sense of humor and anti-authoritarian mind set. Maguire (a fine actor) portrayed Peter Parker
as a sad sack; what Mary Jane ever saw in him is beyond me.
The problem with the last two Spiderman films was the
scripts. Okay, let’s be fair; scripts
have been the problem with 4 of the last 5 Spiderman films. The original was overly-ladened with all the
origin story schmaltz. In Spiderman 3
they threw every super-villain they could think of into the mix—Sandman, Venom,
the black ooze, Green Goblin 2. In the
rebooted Amazing Spiderman the supervillain was a large reptile (shades of
Godzilla). As for Amazing Spiderman 2 .
. . I don’t know as they lost me at Jaime Foxx and a Rotten Tomato rating of
53%. The criticism I’ve read indicates
that, like Spiderman 3, they threw in too many characters and not enough pluck
and quips.
Only Spiderman 2 works.
Really works. I consider it to be
the best superhero movie of all time, the Citizen Kane of spandex. It has Spiderman’s greatest nemesis, Doctor
Otto Octavius aka Doc Ock, but with a humanized origin story; tremendous action
sequences that really operate in three dimensional space; the Christ imagery as
Spiderman is pulled back into the elevated train by the people he just saved
from drowning; and an ending worthy of Shakespeare, with Spidey winning not by
super strength but by appealing to the humanity still within his enemy. If only Tobey Maguire wasn't so mopey.
Will rebooting the Spiderman franchise yet again work? Of course it will! Today’s youth market will see virtually
anything with CGI action and a connection to comic books (excuse me, graphic
novels). But it better have legs,
because starting over a third time may not be an option.
Why has adapting Superman been so easy (the early TV series,
the Christopher Reeve movies (well, the first two were excellent), the Lois
& Clark series) and Spiderman has proven so problematic? I think it’s because Spiderman, despite the cliché
ridden origin story, is a more fully realized character than Clark Kent. Clark Kent’s only problem is that Lois likes
some muscle-bound freak more than him.
Peter Parker has money troubles, school pressures, a well-meaning but
nagging aunt, guilt over his uncle’s death, a girlfriend he knows is way out of
his league and, on top of it all, a deranged newspaper editor who turns his
heroics into a public menace. But he
responds to it all with wit and a good natured attitude. It is difficult to capture that subtlety and
work in all the CGI explosions.
So I wish Sony good luck with the next reboot of
Spiderman. Just don’t think you are
going to find a better actor for the role than Andrew Garfield.
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