Ghostbusters

Hello dear reader,

9724 Days, or 1389 Weeks, or 233,376 Hours, or 14,002,560 Minutes.

That’s how long the gap has been between Paul Feig’s Ghostbusters and the Ivan Reitman sequel that hit the screens back in December of 1989. Twenty seven years of trying to get the third film off the ground. Several false starts. Numerous rewrites and more drafts than you’d normally see in your average double glazing advert. So why did Columbia Pictures spend put so much time and effort into getting what would have been Ghostbusters III off the ground? The simple answer to that is money. The original that hit the screens back in 1984 was, and by some considerable distance, the year’s biggest box office draw and although the 1989 sequel wasn’t as big of a hit. It crept in at number 7 on the top 10 of the year, with Batman, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade and Lethal Weapon 2, claiming the top three positions, it put enough bums on seats to get a script the green light. Now it’s one thing for a studio to want a another sequel but it’s a whole other ball game to get one made when one of the principle stars isn’t overly keen on making it. The star in question being Mr Bill Murray. Now, for those of you who don’t know much about Mr Murray when he’s not entertaining you on the silver screen or on your TV’s, Ipad’s, laptops etc, he is, shall we say, a little bit eccentric. He’s walks to the beat of his own drum and doesn’t really do things the way that others in Hollywood would consider ‘normal’. For example, he doesn’t have an agent, he has an answer phone and from time to time he’s known to listen to it. Rumour has it that when Sofia Coppola couldn’t get hold of Murray when she was trying to get Lost in Translation off the ground, she had to hire a private investigator to track him down.

So it’s safe to say that if Bill decides he doesn’t want to do something he doesn’t do it. Dan Ackroyd and the late Harold Ramis spent a long time trying to get Murray to change his mind but they never did. The closest they came was getting him to agree to it but only if his character ‘Dr Peter Venkman’ was killed off in the first act and then only appeared sparingly, throughout the rest of the film as a ghost. After about fifteen years of back and forth and several unsuccessful meetings Ackroyd, Ramis and Columbia Pictures gave up and the Ghostbusters franchise seemed to be forever languish in development hell.

Then came along Paul Feig, a man whose recent directorial efforts had shown he had a knack for making funny films. He set his stall out, made his pitch and before you could say misogyny and internet backlash he had a healthy budget to play with and marketing campaign that practically looked after itself.  The words ‘Female Reboot’ shouldn’t really be considered as dangerous. But given some of the reaction to this film, when it was announced that the four main lead characters were going to be lacking in that ‘ever so important’* Y Chromosome, you’d have thought that someone had announced that men were being rounded up in there thousands and being subjected to unspeakable horrors, like having their testosterone removed at needlepoint. I have mentioned kneejerk backlash, regarding casting decisions in previous blogs. Daniel Craig being a ‘Blonde Bond’ and Ben Afleck as Batman but the casting of four women in a comedy nearly broke the internet, at least twice.

*Sarcasm klaxon on full volume.

Melissa McCarthy, Kate McKinnon, Lesie Jones and Kristen Wiig. Four names that shouldn’t really cause that much controversy and if they’d been cast together in any other movie, assuming that also hadn’t have been another reboot of a male-centric movie in the first place, it wouldn’t have caused so much as a ripple in the fabric of movie journalism, to say nothing of the internet itself. But because of, what I hope were, a small group of Neanderthal, knuckle dragging, cockwombles (I would have used harsher language but there could be young’uns reading this) these four actresses have spent the better part of the last twelve months having to deal with trolls, and other assorted inbred, dingleberry fondler’s (still trying to keep it clean). Not to mention probably having to answer questions on it, every time they spend the day on a press junket. And you know what, every single one of them. To all the naysayers, all the ‘You’re going to ruin my childhood’ bandwagon jumper-oners and all the people out there that decided to bash this film before it was even released, I say this. GO FECK YOURSELF AND WHEN YOU’VE FINISHED FECKING YOURSELF, GO FECK YOURSELF AGAIN!

Right, I’ve climbed down off my little soapbox and I’ll now get down to the nitty gritty of why most of you are hear, my opinion of the film. Well I have good news and bad news. I’ll start with the good. It’s funny, not only that, it’s very funny. Paul Feig and fellow screenwriter Katie Dippold have come up with what at times is a laugh out loud script and I can’t remember the last time I watched one of those in a cinema. It also isn’t really based around one main lead character with the rest ridding along on the coattails of their mirth and merriment. Everyone gets an equal share of the spotlight and everyone gets to steal scenes throughout the movie. The other thing that screams funny here is Chris Hemsworth as Kevin the receptionist. If you haven’t been sold on the trailers so far and I’ll be honest, I think I fell into that category myself. The film is worth the price of admission purely on his performance. I wouldn’t want to spoil Kevin too much for you but I will say this. He has a dog called Mike Hat (say it out loud) and he has removed the lenses from his glasses because they got dirty. He’s the sort of character that would try and shoot someone with a sword, whilst shouting bang at the same time. Just think Thor with the IQ of a tennis racket and you wouldn’t be too far wide of the mark. But back to our four main leads. They are a very eclectic bunch. Kristen Wiig plays Erin Gilbert, a former friend of Melissa McCarthy’s Abby Yates, who is now trying to make a name for herself in the academia. Which is made harder when it’s brought to her attention that a book on the paranormal, that she co-wrote with Abby, is now available on Amazon. Abby has set her stall out to prove the existence of ghosts with the help of her assistant, Jillian Holtzman. Played by Kate Mckinnon, who by the way is nothing short of astoundingly brilliant. The three of them end up ‘leaving’ their respective position’s and team up to confirm and provide proof that ghosts are real. It’s whilst they are investigating the paranormal they come across Patty Tolan, a no nonsense, hardworking and  very outgoing MTA employee, played by Leslie Jones. The four of them team up and pull their resources to form…..wait for it, ‘GHOSTBUSTERS’. (Bet you didn’t see that coming did you!)

So to sum up the good news, I’ll say this. It’s fairly obvious that Ghostbusters has had a lot of time and effort spent on it. Twenty seven years to be exact. Paul Feig has done a great job in assembling a top notch cast and with the notable absence of Rick Moranis all of the original cast appear in cameo roles. Even the late and great Harold Ramis puts in a, blink and you’ll miss it, appearance as a bronze bust. There is a credit sting and as for the credits themselves, I’ll say this. If you like your Norse Gods with a bit of the Saturday Night Fever about them, you’re in for a very big treat.

Now for what I shall call the bad news. Or as I suspect some of you will say ‘Bavin, you don’t know what you’re fecking talking about’. For me the biggest let down, and there aren’t many, is the third act. The first two thirds of the film are great and I’d go so far as to say that the opening ten minutes of the film could be described in some corners of the internet, as actually scary. But for me where things go south is the last twenty five minutes or so. The villain of the piece Rowan North played by Neil Casey, stops being creepy and uncomfortable to watch and basically becomes what I would at best characterise as, the big white hype. The whole thing then rips off Poltergeist, pretty much lock stock and barrel, and has people jumping into other dimensions with cables wrapped around their waist and has more continuity errors then you can shake a class four, full roaming vapour at. On the whole though it isn’t a bad film at all. In my humble opinion I would happily sign legal documents to say that it’s a very solid four out of five stars. Columbia Pictures have a film that is not only respectful of what has come before. It’s also good enough to be considered on its own merits. If the universe is a fair and just place and judging on what politicians seem to call normal these days, it must be somewhere! Then I fully expect to see a sequel announced within six weeks of its release date. If they don’t green light a follow up film then going on previous experience it’s likely to be another twenty seven years before someone else comes along and tries a reboot again. And if that happens dear reader, I’ll be just north of seventy and to be honest, unlikely to even be able to spell Ghostbusters.

Twitter Review:

27 years in the making and only slightly overcooked in places. Funny, fresh & full on. 

#We’reReadyToBelieveYou

Useful Links:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1289401/?ref_=nv_sr_1

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t6hlkIlGFCI

http://www.empireonline.com/movies/ghostbusters-2016/review/

John Wick

Hello dear reader, well it’s that time again. It’s time to regale you with a story of retribution, death, violence and cute little puppies. The film in question, as you probably all too aware from the bloody great poster above, is John Wick. It’s a film that takes its aggression and carnage and turns them all the way up to eleven. But before I amuse you with stories of hitmen, hotels and baddy Russians I feel I need to go back a few years and start at the beginning.

Over the last five or six years there has been a growing trend in Hollywood to make revenge movies. Someone in tinsel town obviously realised that that particular cash cow hadn’t been flogged to death yet and after what must have been a very long and in depth meeting (yes, that is the sarcasm claxon you can hear in the background) they’ve been pumping them out ever since. We’ve had Liam Neeson playing Bryan Mills in Taken. A trilogy that should have been stopped after the first movie in my humble opinion. Robert De Niro tried the genre in 2011’s Killer Elite. Sean Penn, or captain grumpy as I like to call him, got his best hand cannon out and went to work in The Gunman. The list goes on and on. Clint Eastwood in Gran Torino, Michael Caine in Harry Brown, Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained.  Hell, even the last Fast and Furious movie falls into the revenge melting pot. The point I’m trying to make is that in the same way that Sequels and reboots seem to be in fashion at the moment, I think the revenge franchise is well and truly grabbing onto the bronze medal position with both hands and is very unlikely to let go anytime soon.

So that brings us back to Keanu Reeves in John Wick. Now even by his own admission Mr Reeves isn’t the greatest actor in the world. It’s unlikely that there will be an Oscar statuette adorning his mantelpiece anytime soon but the one thing he is good at is action films. He can phone these kinds of performances in, and some would argue that he does, without breaking too much of a sweat. Where’s the proof I hear you ask after such a malicious accusation? Well your honour I would like the following to be entered into evidence for the prosecution. Point Break, The Matrix Trilogy, Speed and Constantine. Now before any or indeed all of you Bill and Ted fans rise up against me and send the ’69 Dude’ army to wipe me off the face of the planet I would also like to enter the following for defence. My own private Idaho is by far and away the best performance I have ever seen Mr Reeves commit to the silver screen.  It is head and shoulders above anything else he’s ever done. It’s moving and very poignant. I’d also like to say that I personally have nothing against the man and the aforementioned Point Break does, depending on what sort of mood I’m in, make it into my top ten films of all time.

John Wick is the story of a man who falls in love with a woman who he thinks is too good for him given his past actions. A woman who makes him realise that there is more to life than being a professional hitman and then promptly retires from the killing business and settles down for the quiet married life and to live happily ever after. The preverbal spanner in the works comes along in the form of a terminal illness and before you can say ‘don’t die within the first ten minutes of the film’ the wife goes and dies within the first ten minutes of the film. This understandably leaves John Wick very upset and heartbroken. However the wife in question has organised a little gift to be delivered after the funeral so that John is not left alone. The gift turns out to be a puppy and with the cuteness button firmly depressed the film continues to plod along. Now the second and much bigger spanner that then turns up are the nasty Russians I mentioned earlier.  Now these pesky East European rapscallions come across John in an out of town petrol station and with the swagger that comes with thinking you’re untouchable enquire how much John’s beautiful 69 Shelby Mustang would cost to buy. Now Mr Wick tries to inform them to the best of his charming abilities that the car is not for sale, firstly politely and then fairly bluntly. John drives away and believes that he’s never likely to ever see these three annoyances again. Unfortunately for John they find out where he lives and then promptly break into his house after sunset and then set about beating him black and blue, killing the puppy and then stealing his car. This understandably leaves John the wrong side of irked and he then sets about hunting these guys down, who indecently have Lilly Allen’s brother Alfie Allen fresh from Playing ‘Man without penis’ in Game of Thrones, or if you want his real character name ‘Iosef TaraSov’ amongst their ranks and without wishing to go too far into spoiler territory let’s just say that Mr Wick is very good at his job.

John Wicks Reputation as a man that gets the job done has almost attained legendary status. When he was active as a Hitman he was a man that hit hard. A man that didn’t take any unnecessary risks and a gentleman that was so good at his chosen trade that he could well have attained a gold medal if killing had ever made it into the Olympics. This reputation is further fortified by the fact that when the Russian trio that stole John Wicks car take it to the local ‘fence’ garage to get rid of it the gentleman in charge of the garage, once he realises who the car belonged to, punches Mr ‘no willy’ Allen in the face.
John Wick is a film that doesn’t take itself too seriously but that said it does do what it needs to very well. It has a tight and sharp script that almost but not quite dips its toes into the black comedy genre. Its directors Chad Stahelski and David Leitch are both established stunt men and regarded by Hollywood as being the best at what they do. They both have worked with Keanu before, most noticeably on the Matrix trilogy. They know how action scenes should work and more importantly they know how to shoot them. Some on the set pieces in this film are breath taking. There’s a shootout in a night club that is as good, if not better than, the nightclub fire fight that Michael Mann brought us in Collateral. Its action is choreographed properly and almost stylised to perfection. It has martial arts, attitude and a plethora of on screen weapons that are used to dispatch victims in a quick and timely manner including guns, vehicles and even household items.
What John Wick also has is a very good supporting cast. John Leguizamo, Willem Defoe and even Ian ‘Lovejoy’ McShane rocks up as a hotel owner that has a very strict set of house rules. Without taking up too much screen time they underpin the story and help move the narrative on when required.

John Wick is a breath of fresh air when you consider what has come before it. My only niggle is that we here in good old blighty have had to wait the better part of six months for it to arrive on our shores. I’m pretty sure there will be a sequel and I’m pretty sure that as long as Keanu, its directors and screenwriter Derek Kolstad return it will be a film worth watching.
So if you like to plant your flag in the action revenge category and you think that Taken is a good film. Please go and watch John Wick and see how these films should be done properly.

Twitter Review:
‘It’s not what you did son. It’s who you did it to…’
#WreakMyRewengey

Useful Links:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2911666/?ref_=nv_sr_5
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C0BMx-qxsP4
http://www.empireonline.com/reviews/review.asp?FID=139014

Whiplash

Hello dear reader. I need to start by facing up to a problem. Over my recent blogs I have been extolling the virtues of various actors that seem to be trying to raise the bar, when it comes to talent and performance, so high that you'd need to pop down to your local B&Q (other D.I.Y. stores are available) and buy yourself a sturdy stepladder to even get close to them. First came Benedict Cumberbatch in The Imitation Game playing Alan Turning flawlessly. Then up popped Eddie Redmayne in The Theory of Everything playing Steven Hawking better than the man himself. Then Steve Carell decided to get in on the act playing John Du Pont in Foxcatcher. A character that takes verbal intimidation and the premise that money and the power that comes with it are really not the best of bed fellows. Now apart from the fact that these three roles are about real people they have nothing in common apart from the brilliance of the acting and the quality of the script. My problem is that J K Simmons may have just pulled the rug out from underneath all of them.

Whiplash tells the tale of a young drummer Andrew Nieman, played by Miles Teller. Nieman has managed to land a place in one New Yorks best and most cut throat music schools, Shaffer. Nieman is a focused and driven young man. He spends hours practicing and is determined to be remembered as a music great, if not genius and not to slip away into the annals of ambiguity and banality. There does not seem to be a sacrifice that he will not make in order to achieve his goals. So much so that he ends a relationship with a women for no other reason than she's not as import as his music. Nieman is the product of a single parent family. His mother having left him and his father when he was young. The father being played here by Paul Reiser is nothing special and that may well be the point. A high school teacher or if you believe others 'a failed writer' with seemingly no aspersions of grandeur. A father who just tries to provide for his son and spends his days mostly looking down instead of up. Paul Reiser is very much 'acting by numbers here. He really isn't given that much to do. But that said there are only so many ways you can sit in a cinema and eat popcorn or give a supportive shoulder to cry on...

Then we get to the villain of the piece. Most of you until now will have been unfamiliar with the name J K Simmons but you will almost certainly remember his face when you see it. Simmons is one of those supporting actors who have the talent to play very diverse characters. Everything from J Jonah Jameson, the hyperactive editor of the Daily Bugle in the original Spiderman films (if you need your memory jogging just think grey wedge haircut and very loud) to the supportive and understanding father in Juno. Simmons has never been the leading man. He's never been given a script before and told to just take the brakes off and see what happens. In Whiplash he is nothing short of (Insert superlative here). Simmons is the perfect fit to play Fletcher and It’s been a long time since i saw an actor play a roll this well. In fact I'd go so far as to say that this performance could be mentioned in the same breath as Alec Baldwin in Glengarry Glen Ross or Kevin Spacey playing Buddy Ackerman in Swimming With Sharks, it's that good. Fletcher's main purpose in life, as a teacher at Shaffer, is to hand pick the best students at the school, put them in his studio band and then drives them to point of breaking. His rationale being that unless the students are pushed out of their comfort zone then they'll never know if they have what it takes to be considered great. The other reason for the constant bullying and verbal executions that he delivers is that Fletcher will not except anything other than perfection from his musicians. He has such a hold over his class that even after being involved in a very big car crash on the way to a competition, that leaves the car totalled and on its roof and with Nieman left covered in blood and bruises, he still runs to the building in order not to miss his opportunity

Fletcher feeds on fear and ultimately this becomes the weapon that changes his life. (Slight spoiler alert ahead) Nieman fart and Fletcher both end up leaving Shaffer. They are fundamentally two sides of the same coin and although they don't want to admit it they need each other to be the best at what they do. 

Both Miller and Simmons are at the top of their game here. They both leave everything on the screen and have an intensity about them that a lot of actors just can't replicate. I think I'm right in saying that Miller is in every scene and he plays the drums himself. Simmons also plays piano in this and plays it well. For a film that was shot in nineteen days then edited together and shown at the Sundance film festival less that ten weeks after is nothing short of remarkable. Turn around on a film of this quality is just not done in Hollywood. There will always be investors that want input in the creative process. Then there are test screenings and the inevitable re-edits. Whoever it was at Sony Films that had faith in writer director Damien Chazelle to just leave him alone and let him get on with it should be commended. Whiplash should be on everyone's viewing list. If you have reservations about watching it because you don't like jazz or you think that it's just not the sort of film you'll enjoy. Take those reservations, put them in a box and then leave them in a cupboard somewhere. Then go and see what is almost certainly going to be one of the best films released in 2015 or any year for that matter. 

Twitter Review:

There are no two words in the English language more harmful than ‘good job’.

#J

#K

#Simmons

Useful Links:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2582802/?ref_=tt_rec_tti

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7d_jQycdQGo

http://www.empireonline.com/reviews/review.asp?FID=138922

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b2SLAgrouiw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=McqCf1MsM-A

The Amazing Spider-Man

Ten summers ago Sam Rami brought us his interpretation of Marvels Spider-Man universe with Toby Maguire as the geeky and quintessential web slinger. It was perfect bubble gum superhero fare. It ticked several boxes and with the two sequels that followed the franchise took over two and a half billion dollars. So the question that needs to be asked is this. Do we really want, need & require a reboot so soon?
To answer that question you need to know why it was even considered in the first place. The third and last Spider-Man film released in 2007 was a very clumsy affair. Filled with too many villains and a script that never really captured the audience’s attention in the way the first two films had. It was pretty much panned by critics across the board as being lacklustre, overcrowded and devoid of emotional investment. However it does go to show that we, the paying movie goers are a fickle bunch, as the third film had the highest box office take of all three.
That still doesn’t really explain why the powers that be decided to go back to square one with this A-List comic book character. There were a plethora of unresolved plot points left up in the air from the previous film that they could have chosen to run with.  Also if they’d had the foresight to see how big the Avengers film was going to be and been quick off the mark they could have asked very nicely if “good old spidey” could have come and played with them instead.
I think the main reason for the reboot lies in the fact that Sam Rami walked away from the director’s chair and was very closely followed by Mr Maguire about forty eight hours later. Columbia Pictures may have gotten cold feet with the idea of someone else playing Peter Parker and given the problems that Warner Brothers had with three different actors playing Batman over four films during the nineties I can’t say that I’m surprised with the decision.

So then, back to this new incarnation. The film starts with Peter Parker being given by his mother and father to his Uncle Ben and Aunt May, played by Martin Sheen & Sally Field respectively, to be looked after. We the audience are never given the reason why Peter’s parents do this but from what we are shown, it seems to be very much a case of pack quickly and get the hell out of dodge.
Jumping forward about twelve years or so, we are introduced to Peter in his late teens at High School.  Unlike the previous three Rami films Peter is never really portrayed as a teenager with issues. He doesn’t seem to have any worries, he always has perfect hair (not jealous, honest) and he doesn’t appear to be bullied in any way shape or form. In fact it’s his decision to stand up to the school “Jock” that causes the only High school dispute we see. Peter does get entangled in another fight on the subway later on but this is a very clumsy affair and it’s almost pitched at the viewers as farce. Just think Mr Bean meets the fight scene from Bridget Jones and you wouldn’t be too far wide of the mark.
As the film moves on and Peter gets ever closer to the inevitable “bite” I found myself thinking that New York has become a lot smaller than I remember. For example, there is a theory that states that everyone is connected to everyone else by “six degrees of separation”. In this film you’d be forgiven for considering that it was two or three at the most. Peter’s love interest is Gwen Stacy, played by Emma Stone, who just happens to be the daughter of the Chief of Police, portrayed by Dennis Leary. She also happens to be the assistant to the main bad guy Dr Curt Connors, who is hammed up to perfection by Rhys Ifans. Now I do understand that characters in a film have to know and communicate with each other but this just seems to be a bit too easy and is borderline lazy when it comes to the story. As I writing this I’ve just had a flashback to Disney’s “it’s a small world after all” ride and that dear reader is something a film should never ever be able to do.
So, the day comes when Peter goes to see Gwen at work, for reasons that never really become clear and wouldn’t you know it he happens to stumble across the only room full of genetically altered spiders within a thousand mile radius and before you can say “plot point” he gets bitten by one of them. Now it’s never really made clear what these spiders are doing in this room. From the few visual clues that are available I would have to surmise that they were either all weaving a very nice intricate rug or possibly looking for the Higgs Boson particle. Hopefully more light will be shed on this in the sequel.

Once Peter has started his journey down the “arachnid road” he soon realises that with his new found skills and abilities he can make a difference in the city and get results that the cops can’t whilst they work within the law. However as vigilantes have gotten a bad rap over the last decade  Peter decides that a costume will be required to maintain his anonymity and so sets about designing one. The inspiration for the final outfit comes from him falling through a roof and landing in a wrestling ring, where he sees a poster of a masked man. (You can almost see the light bulb above his head when he first sets his eyes on it). However my main problem with this is Peter manages to put together an immaculate, perfectly fitting, crime fighting uniform that is not only seamless but also looks like it costs north of ten thousand dollars.
Which leads me on to sunny point Number two. For some reason, logic notwithstanding, Peter seems to have this annoying habit of taking his mask off at the drop of a hat. Now I don’t claim to be an expert of superhero dos and don’ts but I guessing somewhere one page one of the rule book is a sentence or three that covers the importance of secrecy and concealment. Mr Parker seems to be more than happy to de-mask every time he meets someone breathing in and out. I wouldn’t mind betting that he has an instagram account dedicated to just such occasions. Apart From Lois Lane, who must go down as the worst investigative journalist in history as she can’t seem to spot the difference between someone wearing glasses and not wearing glasses, it must surely be of critical importance that you must maintain your secret identity. You’d never catch Batman popping off his cowl in public. No siree bob!

Which brings me back to the main villain of the piece, Dr Curt Connors. A one armed scientist who used to work with Peter's father and may or may not have something to do with Peter's parents disappearance. There is nothing wrong with the way Rhys Ifans plays the part but there may well be problems with the way it’s written. After taking a serum that Peter has played a part in developing, our one armed man (no, not the one from the fugitive) turns into a lizard. The problem with this is that our reptilian bad guy doesn’t actually look that scary or menacing. In fact I wouldn’t be at all surprised if there was a deleted scene where he sings “It’s not easy being green”. As the Lizard he wouldn’t look out of place in a Mario game and it’s never easy to buy into the fact that New York is in danger because of him. Another problem that seems to be glossed over is how a one armed man on the run from the police and Spider-Man seems to be able to set up and underground base in the sewer system of Manhattan whist A, doing it on his own and B, not being spotted. Again I can only hope that this little nugget of information is given to us in the sequel, set for release in the summer of 2014.  

I’ll finish by saying this. This is more a story about Peter Parker than it is of Spider-Man, regardless of how “Amazing” he is. It’s more about connections and relationships than it is about special effects and bang for your buck. This film does contain some of the best 3D seen on screen since Avatar but you never really get the feeling that it’s being used to drive the narrative forward properly. It  does however have the best Stan Lee cameo that I’ve ever had the privilege to see in a Marvel film and there have been a lot.
It may appear that I’m being too hard on Mark Webb and his film and that I’m expecting too much from it. It is after all a superhero movie not Citizen Kane. Maybe it should be OK to walk into a cinema knowing that you can leave your brain at the door for two hours and just sit back and be entertained.  The problem with this is that I do want more from my blockbuster movies these days. The bar has been raised with The Dark Knight and The Avengers, both of which took over a billions dollars themselves. I see no reason why studios shouldn’t be willing to invest as much time into the story and script as they are with the CGI and merchandising spin offs.

Twitter Review
The Amazing Spider-Man doesn't fall flat on its face but only because he has a web as a safety net.
#spiders,lizards&masks,ohmy

Useful Links:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0948470/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FpKPiHYJc54
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=16AwVWvjQhY