Amazing Spider-Man -- early reviews are in

[Guy1]

Sadly, that's where the whole thing would jump the shark.



Except Peter used his powers to do it and not in a good way, which is what bothered Ben. Peter didn't behave responsibly which is why he got on him like he did. Peter had the great power, but he didn't use it responsibly. And fighting isn't the only solution to stopping bullying.

Right, except, well, Flash was a douche to pretty much everyone who wasn't him or his friends from what we saw.
His intro was him being a dick to Peter, he was being a dick to a kid at lunch and then beat the shit out of Peter for lulz and then was being a douche to a random girl in the gym.
Now, given how badly Flash beat him up and how often he attacked other people, I personally feel Peter would have been somewhat justified in fighting back physically, I know i would have, but he didn't. Peter was the bigger man and stopped at just trolling him in basketball. As a result of Peter defending himself, combined with Peter slamming against the locker, Flash learned to respect Peter and stopped bullying him and the two made amends off screen. Walking away solves nothing. You just need to stand up for yourself and push back.
Watch I Am Number 4 if you want to see the results of just trying to walk away.

[SephirothDZX]

Someone said "this Peter is the worst main character in a movie"
I disagree, watch Triple X and see what a complete douche that Xander Berkeley is, barely anything about him is likable
Disobeys orders, respects no one, gives away his fellow cop, always foul mouthed.......
He's more of an a**h*** than Peter Venkman from Ghostbusters. At least Peter has his charm and moments, and a good use for being the way he is making the movie more entertaining. Xander makes me wish to see him shot in every frame since Jackson had a chat with him

To be fair, Triple X came out in the early 2000's back when Austin 3:16 and that whole "do what i want, obey nobody" mentality was running rampant with teens.

[Mat001]

Right, except, well, Flash was a douche to pretty much everyone who wasn't him or his friends from what we saw.
His intro was him being a dick to Peter, he was being a dick to a kid at lunch and then beat the shit out of Peter for lulz and then was being a douche to a random girl in the gym.
Now, given how badly Flash beat him up and how often he attacked other people, I personally feel Peter would have been somewhat justified in fighting back physically, I know i would have, but he didn't. Peter was the bigger man and stopped at just trolling him in basketball. As a result of Peter defending himself, combined with Peter slamming against the locker, Flash learned to respect Peter and stopped bullying him and the two made amends off screen. Walking away solves nothing. You just need to stand up for yourself and push back.
Watch I Am Number 4 if you want to see the results of just trying to walk away.

That doesn't always work out that way. Not every bully will back down if you stand up to them. The ones that are cowards, yes. The ones that aren't, don't. A bully will only bully you because they know that you will respond. Ignoring them takes away their ability to get under your skin and thus they'll get bored and move on. If you read my other posts, you'd know that fighting doesn't always solve the problems.

[SephirothDZX]

That doesn't always work out that way. Not every bully will back down if you stand up to them. The ones that are cowards, yes. The ones that aren't, don't. A bully will only bully you because they know that you will respond. Ignoring them takes away their ability to get under your skin and thus they'll get bored and move on. If you read my other posts, you'd know that fighting doesn't always solve the problems.

Well, Parker didn't just fight him. He flat out humiliated him.

[1505627]

Well, Parker didn't just fight him. He flat out humiliated him.

and from all appearences, it did solve the problem

[Aziz Abbasi]

To be fair, Triple X came out in the early 2000's back when Austin 3:16 and that whole "do what i want, obey nobody" mentality was running rampant with teens.

What a role model xD

[Black Atom]

Finally got around to watching this and I'm pretty shocked how utterly terrible this movie is. I couldn't wait for it to end. It's far, far worse than any of the Sam Raimi movies and I could literally go for hours dissecting its flaws. But the main one is this: I’m not someone that insists that movie adaptations of comics need to be 100% faithful to the source, except when diversion from the source makes the story less effective. Boy is that the case here. In this movie, Peter’s biological father’s legacy is more important than his bond with Uncle Ben. This point of divergence has the obvious flaw that it gets rid of one of the really unique things about Peter Parker and the Spidey myth and makes him like countless other heroes who inherited some innate goodness from their awesome fathers. More importantly for this movie, the elimination of Ben’s legacy (“With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility”) isn’t replaced by anything else. That’s why, as the Hulk critique someone posted says, this story isn’t really about anything.

In the original Spidey origin, Peter starts out as selfish and irresponsible and learns the folly of his actions. The Spider-Man myth is just a pretty simple morality tale that’s really not too hard to screw up. This movie version of Peter Parker actually starts off pretty heroic. He sticks up for a kid and puts himself in harm’s way even BEFORE he has any super-powers. He gets yelled at by Uncle Ben about responsibility for forgetting to pick up his aunt because he lost track of time while being INSTRUMENTAL IN THE MOST IMPORTANT BREAKTHROUGH IN MEDICAL SCIENCE IN MANKIND’S HISTORY. Blowing off something like that is something any teen might do and Peter actually has pretty good reasons in this case. Uncle Ben’s rationale for being mad at Peter in this instance actually seems kinda stupid—like it only happens because the screenwriter knows at some point prior to his death, Ben must give Peter a speech about responsibility, even though it doesn’t make a lot of sense in this context. The next time Ben admonishes Peter it’s for…humiliating a bully that chronically tortures students and is prone to outbursts of psychotic violence (even by comic-movie standards, this version of Flash Thompson is a fucking psycho. Why push the archetype this far)? I’m not sure I understand Ben’s (or the movie’s) logic here. It’s not liked Peter picked a fight with Flash intentionally to beat him up and humiliate him (you know, like Superman did to that guy in the diner in Superman 2) – he intervened to stop him from repeatedly swatting a basketball at a girl. So…Peter shouldn’t use his powers to stop strong people from abusing the weak? Because I’m pretty sure that’s what Spider-Man’s (and every superhero’s) whole deal is. Ben’s morality is stupid and nonsensical and therefore the parable of this version of the Spider-Man myth is stupid and nonsensical.

So, because this movie isn’t about anything, nothing that happens is important. For starters, Uncle Ben’s death isn’t important. Since Ben’s morality makes no sense, his death has no impact on Peter’s becoming a hero. I mean, does Peter really learn the lesson of responsibility from Ben’s death? His failure to stop the robber was actually pretty uncharacteristic based on his depictions up to that point and just seems like momentary poor judgment from a teenager having a crappy day. Peter’s failure in this movie isn’t anything like it was in the classic origin, where Peter ONLY used his powers for money and self-glorification and had no heroic intentions at all until he realized the robber he let go was the same that killed his uncle. The Raimi movie even improved on this, as Peter lies about his intentions to his uncle, creating the circumstances for his death. In the movie, Peter’s decision to become a “real” hero seems to occur when he rescues the child on the bridge—but even before that his actions were pretty darn heroic. He was rushing headlong into a fight with a lizard-monster that could toss cars around, which seems pretty heroic to me. So it seems Peter was really already pretty heroic and just needed the power and circumstances to bring it out, which makes Uncle Ben’s death (and entire existence) in this movie pretty pointless.

It’s clear they really wanted the driver for Peter’s angst, heroism and coming-of-age to be his biological father’s legacy. Again, I’m not averse to shaking things up, but this change makes Peter like tons others heroes in fiction who are inspired or haunted by their father’s achievements/failures. Classic, boring Oedipal crap. It’s like every Marvel character that gets a movie has to have serious daddy issues: Hulk, Iron Man, Thor…now Spider-Man, I guess. More importantly, it’s especially a problem in this movie because they killed Uncle Ben off for no real reason. Why not just have Uncle Ben live? Why have Uncle Ben at all? Or Aunt May? Or Gwen? We just go through the motions with each of them, even though nothing they do seems logical if you're able to divorce yourself from your expectations of what the characters will do based on your pre-existing knowledge of them.

[kane]

Finally got around to watching this and I'm pretty shocked how utterly terrible this movie is. I couldn't wait for it to end. It's far, far worse than any of the Sam Raimi movies and I could literally go for hours dissecting its flaws. But the main one is this: I’m not someone that insists that movie adaptations of comics need to be 100% faithful to the source, except when diversion from the source makes the story less effective. Boy is that the case here. In this movie, Peter’s biological father’s legacy is more important than his bond with Uncle Ben. This point of divergence has the obvious flaw that it gets rid of one of the really unique things about Peter Parker and the Spidey myth and makes him like countless other heroes who inherited some innate goodness from their awesome fathers. More importantly for this movie, the elimination of Ben’s legacy (“With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility”) isn’t replaced by anything else. That’s why, as the Hulk critique someone posted says, this story isn’t really about anything.

In the original Spidey origin, Peter starts out as selfish and irresponsible and learns the folly of his actions. The Spider-Man myth is just a pretty simple morality tale that’s really not too hard to screw up. This movie version of Peter Parker actually starts off pretty heroic. He sticks up for a kid and puts himself in harm’s way even BEFORE he has any super-powers. He gets yelled at by Uncle Ben about responsibility for forgetting to pick up his aunt because he lost track of time while being INSTRUMENTAL IN THE MOST IMPORTANT BREAKTHROUGH IN MEDICAL SCIENCE IN MANKIND’S HISTORY. Blowing off something like that is something any teen might do and Peter actually has pretty good reasons in this case. Uncle Ben’s rationale for being mad at Peter in this instance actually seems kinda stupid—like it only happens because the screenwriter knows at some point prior to his death, Ben must give Peter a speech about responsibility, even though it doesn’t make a lot of sense in this context. The next time Ben admonishes Peter it’s for…humiliating a bully that chronically tortures students and is prone to outbursts of psychotic violence (even by comic-movie standards, this version of Flash Thompson is a fucking psycho. Why push the archetype this far)? I’m not sure I understand Ben’s (or the movie’s) logic here. It’s not liked Peter picked a fight with Flash intentionally to beat him up and humiliate him (you know, like Superman did to that guy in the diner in Superman 2) – he intervened to stop him from repeatedly swatting a basketball at a girl. So…Peter shouldn’t use his powers to stop strong people from abusing the weak? Because I’m pretty sure that’s what Spider-Man’s (and every superhero’s) whole deal is. Ben’s morality is stupid and nonsensical and therefore the parable of this version of the Spider-Man myth is stupid and nonsensical.

So, because this movie isn’t about anything, nothing that happens is important. For starters, Uncle Ben’s death isn’t important. Since Ben’s morality makes no sense, his death has no impact on Peter’s becoming a hero. I mean, does Peter really learn the lesson of responsibility from Ben’s death? His failure to stop the robber was actually pretty uncharacteristic based on his depictions up to that point and just seems like momentary poor judgment from a teenager having a crappy day. Peter’s failure in this movie isn’t anything like it was in the classic origin, where Peter ONLY used his powers for money and self-glorification and had no heroic intentions at all until he realized the robber he let go was the same that killed his uncle. The Raimi movie even improved on this, as Peter lies about his intentions to his uncle, creating the circumstances for his death. In the movie, Peter’s decision to become a “real” hero seems to occur when he rescues the child on the bridge—but even before that his actions were pretty darn heroic. He was rushing headlong into a fight with a lizard-monster that could toss cars around, which seems pretty heroic to me. So it seems Peter was really already pretty heroic and just needed the power and circumstances to bring it out, which makes Uncle Ben’s death (and entire existence) in this movie pretty pointless.

It’s clear they really wanted the driver for Peter’s angst, heroism and coming-of-age to be his biological father’s legacy. Again, I’m not averse to shaking things up, but this change makes Peter like tons others heroes in fiction who are inspired or haunted by their father’s achievements/failures. Classic, boring Oedipal crap. It’s like every Marvel character that gets a movie has to have serious daddy issues: Hulk, Iron Man, Thor…now Spider-Man, I guess. More importantly, it’s especially a problem in this movie because they killed Uncle Ben off for no real reason. Why not just have Uncle Ben live? Why have Uncle Ben at all? Or Aunt May? Or Gwen? We just go through the motions with each of them, even though nothing they do seems logical if you're able to divorce yourself from your expectations of what the characters will do based on your pre-existing knowledge of them.

You have some good points here.

I have watched the film on blu ray a month ago and was mostly disappointed. I am probably too old, but the whole teenage angst stuff with the bully, the girl etc. bored me. So did the whole uncle ben /aunt may situation, maybe because I knew what was comming.

[1505627]

black atom, i think going up against the lizard is part of the save the child moment. and it is the first truly heroic thing he did in the movie

[Black Atom]

black atom, i think going up against the lizard is part of the save the child moment. and it is the first truly heroic thing he did in the movie

Well, that isn't true. Even if we consider a heroic act to be a completely selfless one, when Peter helps the boy Flash is bullying, that's pretty heroic. Even when he forgets about Aunt May, he's helping a scientist figure out how to cure dismemberment. That's pretty selfless. I mean, he makes a personal sacrifice (his aunt) for a much more important cause, I'd say. It's sorta stupid for Ben to lecture Peter about this, since he didn't shirk his responsibility to May for selfish reasons. So Peter's pretty heroic long before the scene on the bridge (which is why he shows up at the bridge in the first place) which makes his lapse with the armed robber actually somewhat out-of-character and forced.

[Guy1]

The next time Ben admonishes Peter it’s for…humiliating a bully that chronically tortures students and is prone to outbursts of psychotic violence (even by comic-movie standards, this version of Flash Thompson is a fucking psycho. Why push the archetype this far)? I’m not sure I understand Ben’s (or the movie’s) logic here. It’s not liked Peter picked a fight with Flash intentionally to beat him up and humiliate him (you know, like Superman did to that guy in the diner in Superman 2) – he intervened to stop him from repeatedly swatting a basketball at a girl. So…Peter shouldn’t use his powers to stop strong people from abusing the weak? Because I’m pretty sure that’s what Spider-Man’s (and every superhero’s) whole deal is.

Thank you.

[Vidocq]

This flash was pretty Psycho? This was the most human movie Bully I've seen. Ever. What's the worse he does? Punches Peter? Boo Fking Hoo.

[Vidocq]

...And! He lays off and offers his condolences when Uncle Ben dies. A regular movie Bully (sht, my school bully also did something like this) would have gone ''Ha! You uncle died like a bitch, you punk.'' or something like that.

Honestly, this movie made me give a damn about Spiderman. THIS is how a kid who grew up with out his birth parents acts.

[1505627]

Well, that isn't true. Even if we consider a heroic act to be a completely selfless one, when Peter helps the boy Flash is bullying, that's pretty heroic. Even when he forgets about Aunt May, he's helping a scientist figure out how to cure dismemberment. That's pretty selfless. I mean, he makes a personal sacrifice (his aunt) for a much more important cause, I'd say. It's sorta stupid for Ben to lecture Peter about this, since he didn't shirk his responsibility to May for selfish reasons. So Peter's pretty heroic long before the scene on the bridge (which is why he shows up at the bridge in the first place) which makes his lapse with the armed robber actually somewhat out-of-character and forced.

that reminds me: Did ben even know peter was meeting with connors

[Vidocq]

that reminds me: Did ben even know peter was meeting with connors

No, he didn't tell them. All he knew was that Peter didn't pick her up and she had to walk alone at night back home.