Amph Spider-Man & SSU Films (Madame Web, Venom 3, Kraven, Beyond the Spider-Verse)

While those particular movies did a decent job of portraying multiple villains, the Dark Knight Rises definitely did not live up to the standard set by its predecessors.



As for Toby and Kirsten...Toby at least looked the part of Peter Parker. Kirsten looked so...trashy. Not the ravishing redhead MJ's always been portrayed as.

 

He acted as if mildly retarded though, so I think Tobey was a poor choice. Garfield is so much better IMO.

 

Though it does look more like the comic, the new ones look...weird. Too big for the mask. Not sure if this is a real comparison, or if somebody just transposed the tweeted eyes onto the mask.

 

Though I had issues with the reboot costume, the mask I thought actually looked pretty good, and definitely better than the Rami mask, which I never liked.

 

My problem with the reboot mask was that Andrew Garfield rarely bothered to actually keep it on. Yeah, we get it, you are the guy in the Spider-man suit, now please put on the damn mask and stop bragging about it.

 

Something seems a bit goofy with that new mask.

 

Keep in mind the one on the right is not actually the new mask. They've only released a teaser image of the new eyes (isolated) and this is someone's best guess as to proportion and placement. I am not ready to judge the new eye design until I see them in context, photographed properly in proper lighting. After all the original teaser pictures of the costume from the ASM didn't look nearly as good as they did in the final film.

 

I think that up until Spider-Man 3, Toby's Peter kept the mask on unless there were reasons where it became necessary to remove it. IIRC, some sparks or something lit up one side of his mask during the train scene, so he pulled it off to see what he was doing (ie. saving people was more important than saving his identity--like Bruce Wayne intended to do during the press conference in TDK). He later removed it in front of Doc Ock to emphasize his request for help.

In Spider-Man 1, he was maskless in two scenes: when he removed it in his apartment (makes sense), and when he saved MJ in the rain (probably because he didn't have time to properly suit up?).

In Spider-Man 3...well, that movie was garbage.


In TAS, Garfield took off the mask pretty during every scene except for the carjacker scene. He took it off while hanging on his web in the sewer playing angry birds (or whatever game it was). Other scenes followed the same unnecessary facial exposure.

 

Studio desire for actor face-time can spoil things. Stallone went against character in Judge Dredd and spent a lot of time without a helmet on (that's not the only issue with that movie of course).

Topher Grace's "Venom" in SM3 had way too much actor face time and not enough teeth and tongue stuff. Jackman never wears the Wolverine mask in any of the X-Men movies, although that may be more to do with it being a difficult look to pull-off without seeming ridiculous.



Given the precedent for such things in Hollywood I am impressed that Hugo Weaving never got unmasked in V for Vendetta, which would have spoiled the mystery of the character.

 

I missed the part where it was necessary to keep his face exposed to a train full of hundreds of people. Who will all definitely keep his secret of course. Cuz New Yorkers are honest like that.

Like every other time his face was exposed in any movie, it was a flimsy excuse to follow a studio mandate. Let's not pretend that Raimi's films innocent of that ridiculousness.

 

They don't know his name. How are they supposed to expose his secret? "I saw Spider-Man! He was a 20-something white guy with brown hair!" That's about as generic as it gets.

 

Yes it's impossible to identify someone by their face.

 

There are over 18 million people in the New York metropolitan area. Please go find that one guy you saw one time. I'll wait.

 

Train full of people. Traumatic and memorable event. Famous hero unmasked. Yup no way anyone could possibly remember or identify him.

Regardless it was still stupid.

 

No, but there is something to be said if one fit that mandate into their story in a better way than the other did.

Regardless, I'm less concerned with the exposure of his true identity, than the exposed lack of plot in the new film.

 

Amazing Spider-Man Plot: Upon discovering secret documents of his father's a curious Peter Parker sets out to find answers relating to his parent's mysterious disappearance. He finds himself at Oscorp tower where a lab accident leaves him imbued with new abilities, but where he also comes across Doctor Curt Connors, his father's former partner. Connors is a man who may hold answers for Peter not just about his father but about his new found abilities. However, when Peter shares with Connors (who desperately wants to regrow a severed limb), vital information his father was trying to hide, Peter finds himself responsible for the monstrous lizard creature Connors turns himself into and must risk life and limb to stop his new mentor.

Not sure what's lacking there.

Additionally, while the removal of the mask is remarkably stupid and out of character in any movie, I like that ASM tried to at least turn it into character development by forcing Peter to learn a hard lesson about protecting one's identity when Captain Stacy died trying to help his daughter's boyfriend.

Again still dumb, but if forced to remove the character's mask I would rather it be an aspect of character development than constant coincidental accidents.

 

What's lacking is the whole rationale for having to stop the "monstrous lizard creature" in the first place. The movie didn't even attempt to explain it. The guy just magically became a supervillain because he looked ugly. His plans were lazy, contrived, and had no precedent in either his previous personality, nor even in traditional symbolism built around reptiles. The villains of Spiderman III were similarly stupid, but even their thinly sketched motivations made more sense than this. Let alone the fact that A)Peter never really seemed to see the guy as much of a mentor B)he didn't seem to feel particularly obligated about the whole thing, since the Lizard frankly spent more time hunting him than vice versa.

 

I'm glad to see the more Romita-style Spidey-lenses coming to the fore in the next film. With minor tweaking in terms of size and placement the mask seems to be edging ever closer to the classic 70s/80s look. I'm excited about the villains, too! Jamie Foxx as Elektro is a super-cool casting choice. (But how locked down is that?) I'm concerned, though, that the stinger at the end of ASM will have to be addressed somehow, and that that narrative leftover will muddy the waters of the new film. I think it might have been better if they'd left it out altogether.

 

Yeah, I tend to agree, with the exception that Connors "became the supervillain" as a result of the experimental serum making him crazy/evil. This was made clear when he got a whiff of the antidote at the climax and became "good" long enough to help/save Pete. Other than that, yes: the Liz was the weakest element of ASM in terms of credibility and characterization. There are scenes where he's just wandering in the sewers for minutes at a time, for no apparent reason. It's not exactly gripping stuff.

 

Peter says specifically he feels responsible for the lizard. He gave him the formula to crack the cross-species genetics for lizard DNA. How is that unclear?

I admit the character motivation for the lizard is poorly developed...much of the villain story was weak...but that's not plot....

 

Well yes, that's what we're forced to assume? But why? Logically, what is there about what he did that would make the formula turn him evil?

Contrast that with Green Goblin from the first Spiderman film. They clearly explained the gas was developed for its combat/military potential. They also noted that it was failing an animal trials because it tended to ramp up aggression uncontrollably. Largely psuedo-scientific throwaway lines. But at least they gave us a context for understanding why Osborne acted the way he did after being exposed to the gas. Likewise, look at how they extended the logic. Green Goblin was established as an alter-ego that wanted to protect and optimize Osborn's life. Thus, his ambitions never got larger than that. He never tried to have himself crowned king of America, or control a nuclear stockpile, or any stupid thing. Instead, what he pitched to Peter was exactly what he'd been doing all along: Join me and we can make our "normal" lives easy and comfortable through the use of our powers, even though realistically that limits the scope of what we do to small scale manipulation of one city. Whereas Lizard not only becomes evil for no reason, he also embarks on a mission to turn the whole world into lizard men. Which, frankly, is the single stupidest villain plot any major comic book film has ever had, even setting aside the incredibly strained logic they used to get us there.