Just cutting to it.
- I know absolutely nothing about the Spider-man comic books. I remember liking the first of the Tobey Maguire films; the second one I was decidedly “meh” about, and the third one was ridiculous
- I still can’t decide how I feel about Andrew Garfield’s Peter Parker. I mean, Andrew Garfield is a performer I have no qualms with; it’s more the character as a whole, I guess? Sometimes he was do the right thing guy, and that’s okay. Sometimes he was the angstfaced boy, and that I understand, really I do, but, y’know. Sometimes he was really awkward and endearing, or all technically articulate, which gave me the occasional moment of “oh, hello, there.” Technical articulateness is a problem that way. (Or he was both, like explaining that he broke in because he really loves science. Yes, all right.) Sometimes he was actually sort of cocky; not in a Spider-man 3 dancing down the street way, thank god, actually sometimes in a fairly amusing way, but sometimes in a way that made me want to shake my head and sigh. I guess I’m okay with this Peter. I found him to have more endearing moments than the Tobey Maguire Peter, so that’s something.
- I could really do without the token “oh, look, I’m just discovering I can fly around the city, I’m going to go ‘whoo’ really loudly” scenes. I mean, yes. It must be exciting. I just… don’t need that in so many films.
- Dr. Curt Connors (Rhys Ifans) slash “I am a giant lizard, rawr.” I am the terrible person that kind of tends to giggle at giant lizards, but I did it quietly, hopefully I didn’t disturb anyone.
- Sigh. I have come to several conclusions about science in films and television:
- I may not understand most of it, but I like hearing people discuss it.
- And the minute the prefix “neuro-” is attached to any word, my ears perk up.
- Computer readouts that are projected into the air and can be manipulated in a 3D fashion will mean either that someone good is studying something potentially bad or more likely that bad things are going to go down.
- Someone will often have good scientific intentions.
- These intentions will always go awry.
- I will always shake my head at the people trying to use science to make everyone better/perfect/unflawed. Has nobody learned their lesson about doing that? It will never end well, because perfection does not exist.
- Aaand Gwen Stacy (Emma Stone). I like her face, I can’t help it, I just smile when she is around. I think I’m now one of those people who partially judges superhero films (or really any films, actually) on how they deal with female characters, so, okay, verdict: could have been better, could have been worse. I mean, I am sort of over the “pushing you away to protect you” thing, in any context, but the implication was that Peter was abandoning that plan fairly quickly. I liked that she was all intelligent and articulate also, and she had her silly moments; there was some awkwardattraction, and I’m good with that. I liked that she wore the same pair of boots throughout a lot of the film (because real people do that) and that she had a vest on at one point (because of my vest problem). I understand why they handled Captain Stacy (Denis Leary) telling her to get in the car while he took the thing up to the top of the tower, though at first I was “…” about it slightly; she did do things, with the trophy-hitting and the science!! and all that, so that’s something, but, y’know. I’m always good with the doing more.
- Mostly acceptable 3D. The end surprise web blast into the credits was unnecessary.
–your fangirl heroine.
