ENTERTAINMENT
'Spider-Man' reviews mostly good but not all of them
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- CREDIT: Columbia Pictures
Daybreak Daily’s afternoon visit to the pop-culture theater finds a rundown of reviews for “The Amazing Spider-Man,” which opens on Tuesday nationwide, and the mystery music video.
NEW YORK TIMES: “Oh, Spidey, has it really been five long years since we saw you in “Spider-Man 3,” where you were plagued by a doppelgänger, a hectic plot and franchise exhaustion? Way back then you were played by the cute boy-man Tobey Maguire, and the girl with the fatal-beauty smile was given sweet life by Kirsten Dunst. Now, in “The Amazing Spider-Man,” you’re played by the cute boy-man Andrew Garfield, whose elongated limbs and pencil neck go a ways to make him look like the geek next door. The lovely young miss, meanwhile, is Emma Stone, whose pillowy lips serve as flotation devices that — along with her natural appeal and Mr. Garfield’s likability — keep this resuscitated studio product from fully capsizing.” http://nyti.ms/M3Uvc6
WASHINGTON POST: “The good news is that Garfield and Stone whip up a warm, convincing froth as two teenagers caught up in a beguiling case of puppy love. The not-so-great news is that by “reboot,” the studio means taking audiences once again through every step of Peter’s transformation into Spider-Man, including the fateful mutant spider bite, an equally pivotal incident involving his beloved Uncle Ben (Martin Sheen), and those first wobbly forays discovering his superhuman powers of strength and agility and the ability to shoot bolts of monofilament to encase malefactors in sticky Saran Wrap cocoons.” http://wapo.st/MsyC9x
HOLLYWOOD REPORTER: “Directed with emotional depth and plenty of comedic touches by Marc Webb (no pun intended), this somewhat darker depiction of your friendly neighborhood superhero inserts a touching portrait of adolescent angst into an otherwise predictable dose of CGI-fueled action.” http://bit.ly/OioGyr
WALL STREET JOURNAL: “The film does open the hero's soul to more than the nerdiness and repression of earlier incarnations. Peter Parker is now given to rage, scorn, humor and romance, though the ragged script—credited to James Vanderbilt, Alvin Sargent and Steve Kloves—gives the star little chance for emotional nuance.” http://on.wsj.com/NhVrsS
LOS ANGELES TIMES: “The unmistakable air of Hollywood calculation hangs over"The Amazing Spider-Man,"but this isn't necessarily a bad thing. The studios wouldn't survive if they didn't make smart bets from time to time to balance their multiple bonehead maneuvers, and this new superhero saga is a shrewd wager that mostly — but not entirely — pays off.” http://lat.ms/P5Vn4X
ROLLING STONE: “The core of the new movie is the love story. It's no accident that Marc Webb was chosen to direct. Webb is the man behind (500) Days of Summer, the 2009 hit with Zooey Deschanel and Joseph Gordon-Levitt that is one of the best movie romances of the decade. Webb never loses touch with the film's emotional through line. And he allows time and space for Garfield and Stone, both stellar, to turn a high-flying adventure into something impassioned and moving." http://bit.ly/MGqAtj
USA TODAY: “The climactic face-off between Spider-Man and The Lizard drags on too long, and Spidey's perilous leaps and dangles are not enhanced by the lackluster 3-D. His movements are more naturalistic, and less kinetic, than in Raimi's movies, but still captivating. Told winningly, The Amazing Spider-Man is as much a coming-of-age story as a crime-fighting action saga.” http://usat.ly/MGbrIj
HUFFINGTON POST: “Like the 2010 A Nightmare on Elm Street remake, it ultimately fails both as a film and as a fleshed-out re-imagining of a known property, rendering it irrelevant in the cinematic pantheon. By hewing too closely to what came before while mostly failing to be superior and/or notably different, it renders itself needless.” http://huff.to/N6sjX1
VULTURE: “For all its under¬lying cynicism, the new Spidey picture is pretty damn good. The lesson should not be that lazy multiplex viewers and Comic-Con fanatics will pay to see anything with ¬Marvel’s name on it, but that first chapters — a.k.a. “origin stories” — are easier to make and more reliably fun.” http://bit.ly/R33HzA
ROGER EBERT: “This is a more thoughtful film, and its action scenes are easier to follow in space and time. If we didn't really need to be told Spidey's origin story again, at least it's done with more detail and provides better reasons for why Peter Parker throws himself into his superhero role.” http://bit.ly/OiCCIS
NEW YORKER: “If Webb had had the guts to pursue the truly inventive, and the biologically accurate, Peter would not have surprised Gwen at her bedroom window or shared a dreamy kiss. He would have crawled out of her drain and been beaten to death with a mop.” http://nyr.kr/Ntod7K
NEWSDAY: “There's nothing. . .fresh, fun or emotionally satisfying in "The Amazing Spider-Man," a much-hyped, expensive-looking and ultimately soulless reboot. It spends a lot of time improving Spidey's gear -- textured Spandex, stronger webbing -- but fails to do the one thing it was created to do: bring something new to a familiar tale.” http://bit.ly/N6vrCd
DEADSPIN: “It's not necessarily Marc Webb's or Andrew Garfield's fault that this movie mostly just feels like a rerun. But it does. It feels like we just did this.” http://deadsp.in/O0oNv0
SALON: “Pretty good summer flick! A non-insulting, generally likable retake on Spidey’s origins that is somewhat closer to the original comic books and is geared particularly for teens and older tweens.” http://bit.ly/MGkxF9
AND FINALLY: Today’s mystery music video. http://bit.ly/LVB34Y
--Skip Wood (Follow me on Twitter @DaybreakSkip)
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