It's just like the 2002 movie...only terrible

Alright, some background. I may not talk about it as much as Nintendo, Steph, or Desmond, but I love Spiderman. Love it. Comics, games, and especially the Sam Raimi/ Tobey Maguire movies. The first Spiderman was and is one of my all time favorite movies. I saw it 11 times in the theaters. Seriously. 11 times. That being said, the new Amazing Spiderman movie that came out this week, staring Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone...

Sucks.

Hard.

"Is that the best you got? That sucks."

Let me just describe the Peter Parker this film introduces us to. This is a Peter Parker, who skateboards. That should have been my first warning. The film portrays him as an outcast, yes, but not the lovable nerd who really wants to belong, like the Peter we all know and love, more the brooding, ear-bud wearing, depressed kid, whose seems like he is choosing to be an outcast. Oh, and he's a genius, I guess? Cause he understands his fathers formula gibberish and he knows how to use Google? Second, and probably most damning of this pre-spider bite Peter, is in the first 15 minutes of the movie. This Peter not only isn't really the target of bullies, but actually tries to stop a bully (the ever present Flash Thompson) from picking on another kid. This may seem ok, but this is Peter before the bite. The Real Peter would have never purposely have put himself in harms way and actively confronted Flash. That is the whole setup for a scared, awkward kid, becoming a hero.

"I'm laughing at how wrong my casting is"

This Peter has absolutely none of the natural charm or "nice-guy" personality that either the Maguire or the comic Peter has. This is important because the lovable loser to lovable hero transition IS Spiderman. The Dark Knight made about 8 zillion dollars by darkening up the Batman franchise, so why wouldn't it work here? Because he's not brooding, he's not dark, for the love of Stan Lee, he ISN'T Batman.

 As a film, this Spiderman drops the ball just as hard. The biggest win of the previous series was Raimi's ability to develop the characters slowly, fully, and most important, realistically. Pete and MJ have lived next door for years, and been friends for a long time, before the romance slowly blossoms through out the 3 films. TASM instead thinks a realistic romance is to introduce the 2 lovers in one scene, one scene where Peter almost cost's Gwen her job, then the next scene they have dinner together with her family, where he basically gets kicked out for pissing of her dad ( Denis Leary, who is too awesome to be in this crap), and then they are in love and tells her he's Spiderman. Seriously. 3-4 scenes together and it's love and the secret identity is out the window.

"Hi I'm Peter, I'm Spiderman, and your name is?"

Speaking of secret identity, this Spiderman takes his mask of freaking every 5 minutes. In front of some kid in a burning car, in front of the cops, in front of Gwen, the Lizard, the police again...seriously EVERYONE of importance in the movie sees Spidey unmasked. What should be, and always has been a big deal in any superhero story, happens multiple times, with little fan-fair and virtually no consequence.The only excuse for this I can think of is that they paid for Andrew Garfield's pouty face and feathered hair, so they had to find every excuse to show it.

Did I mention The Lizard looks like a Goomba from the live action

 Mario Bros. movie?

Gwen is also a completely blank and empty character. She is introduced as the pretty girl who stops Flash from messing up Peter's hair, then all of the sudden she is also a genius who works at Oscorp after school for the genius Curt Connors (the villainous Lizard). Oh, also she's the police chiefs daughter. Who she is connected to is a much bigger part of her character than any actual substance or personality. Most of the time she just swoons and cleans Peters wounds and gets sad about stuff.

Finally, the plot. The trailers for TAMS all said that this would be the "untold story" of Spiderman and delve into the mystery of what happened to Peter's parents. Well the first 10-15 minutes of the movie hold up to that, setting the scene for a mystery of who was after his parents that made them run away leaving Pete with Aunt May and Uncle Ben, did they really die in a plane crash, and why was Mr. Parker working on spider genetics? These mysteries lead Peter to meet his dad's old colleague, the above mentioned Dr. Connors, then drops all the stuff about his parents I just mentioned. Seriously, the circumstances around his parents disappearance don't just go unanswered, but are completely absent from the remaining 2 hours of the film.

"It's real simple....the script writers forgot to finish our plot, because they needed more scenes of Peter brooding

 The film does this on many occasions, and really lends to it's disjointed feel. It brings up plots, characters, and settings, only to abandon them moments later. Norman Osbourne dying and his lackey going to illegally test cures on veterans at the VA hospital? Yeah we just let that go cause...uh...Oh and Daily Bugle wanting freelance photos of the Lizard, so Spidey sets up a trap in the sewer, with his camera webbed to the wall like in the comics...and then he doesn't get any pictures and we never see anything about the Bugle again. Even Uncle Ben's killer (oh uh spoiler alert... I guess) gets hunted down for about 3-4 minutes and then Peter gets a girlfriend and promptly stops caring.

"This new Spiderman movie? Crap....Crap....mega Crap"

I could go over the over dramatic acting (I'm looking at you Sally Field), really boring music score, and jerky, jarring edits and cuts, but that's not why I hated this film. The reason I didn't like this Spiderman movie when I love all things Spiderman is that this movie, my friends, is NOT my Spiderman.

I'm sure this all Obama's fault somehow