Weekend update: The Amazing Spider-Man and Cosmopolis

The Amazing Spider-Man (2012)

© Columbia Pictures

Shortly after I saw The Amazing Spider-Man, a friend asked me how I would rate it. I gave her the letter grade, which she didn't get (she went to a school that didn't use them, apparently), so I gave her a percentage instead. She was shocked by my answer. First I tried to explain it away as the movie starting at a deficit with me because 1) I love Spider-Man and 2) I love the Sam Raimi Spider-Mans. That doesn't really explain it, though, and it's not really fair. It's more like this.

Anything other than the acting in this movie kind of sucks.

It has all the right elements: Peter developing the webs 'cause he's such a super-smarty, Gwen Stacy as his first love, Curt Connors doing wrong by trying to do right. All of those things work because the people playing them are so phenomenally well-cast (if you weren't already in love with Andrew Garfield, I don't know how much longer you will be able to hold out). It's all as it should be: Peter realizes a little something about himself and about growing up, and it gives him a confidence he never knew was always waiting inside him. But he's still a spaz who has to bury his head in his hands because what did he just say. And that Footloose-esqe moment of discovery . . . man, oh man.

But it's not right. Marc Webb's an excellent people director, but he doesn't have the visual elegance to craft an action sequence worth following. The score is horrendously distracting (really, James Horner, banging on the piano keys? Have you grown bored?). The plot is sketchy and oddly suggests that we really need to know Flash's back story. Flash! I live Chris Zylka and wish him well, post-Secret Circle, but c'mon. Forget about Richard Parker's amazing scientific discoveries and his dun Dun DUN!

It's like this -- if you don't put a crocodile snout on The Lizard, he risks looking like a turtle without his shell. B-

And, quite frankly, Sam Raimi and Tobey Maguire own the New York Subway. Don't even go there. 

Cosmopolis (2012)

It's probably not a good sign when you start to wonder, "Why is this happening? Why is this happening to me?" while watching a movie. It's happening because I paid for it to happen. It's possible that I'm a masochist.

I'd be lying if I pretended that anything other than morbid curiosity drew me to this project. Von Pattinson? Cronenberg? Are we flipping maps again because that is some topsy-turvy shit.

I'll never fully fail a Cronenberg movie because I can't argue with the man's technical gifts or high level of commitment to the messages of his products. But beyond that, man. If I wanted to watch a movie that required so much work and delivered so little pay off, I'd probably watch Haneke again. D