There's rumor of a new species in New York. It can be aggressive, if threatened...

The Amazing Spider-Man
(2012)

Tonally, Marc Webb’s reboot of Marvel’s comic book hero this is all over the place. This is in part surely a symptom of the kind of “too many cooks” meddling that marred Sam Raimi’s third Spider-Man film. But it’s also due to the absence of a director with a clear vision for the series. Webb seems to have got the job through the assurance that he could work magic with the Peter-Gwen relationship, having scored a minor hit with young love comedy (500) Days of Summer. And that aspect works reasonably well, but he comes unstuck blending it with the requirements of superhero storytelling. In particular, he's uncertain how to approach the action.

At times the film goes for the Nolan Batman aesthetic, with stuntman Spider-Man seeming almost as grounded and unspectacular in his capabilities as the '70s TV version. And getting very beaten up, which takes him much longer to heal from than you'd expect (this Spidey really suffers, you know). But there are also sequences where I got the impression that the more real-world approach was used as a crutch to hide Webb's inexperience, evidence by choppy editing and confused geography. Having dissed him a bit, I'll give credit it where it's due, he does manage to build up a palpable sense of threat from the villain at times, most notably when Spider-Man is perched in wait in the sewers. And his rescue of the child on the bridge also sees suspense chosen over wall-to-wall CGI to good effect. But Webb lacks Raimi's skill with making the separate elements of a film flow together; even the overloaded Spider-Man 3 is more coherent than this.

Then there's the choice of the Lizard as villain, which actively works against keeping a foot (or missing arm) in the real world. Everything about the character, from choice of actor for Dr Curt Connors to design of the creature, pulls towards the cartoonish rather than the believable. If Dylan Baker had been swapped places with Rhys Ifans they'd both have felt more at home in the different Spider-verses. Ifans is okay, but nothing about his Connors makes much of an impact. He struggles against the over-familiarity of yet another damaged scientist with yet another diabolical ticking clock plan. Design-wise the Lizard has been compared to Goomba from Super Mario Bros, and that's not far from the truth. He's not a patch on the design of the comics; they've adopted change for change’s sake.

I could merrily pick away at elements of the plot, but if reports are to be believed big chunks of it went AWOL in the editing stage. I didn't particularly mind the unnecessary rewriting of the origins, but I found it difficult to believe the genetically modified spiders had been weaving away for 10 years without further investigation into their properties. Maybe they encouraged them to bite a few volunteers and they all died?

Of the rest of he cast, Emma Stone stood out and brought enormous charm to a largely reactive role. She had fantastic chemistry with Dennis Leary too; there was no stretch at all in seeing them as father and daughter. Martin "dentures" Sheen and Sally Field were also very winning.

I was less convinced by Andrew Garfield. His natural charisma worked in the character's favour, but he over-invests in a role where that level of turmoil felt inappropriate and indulgent (I know he’s a teenager, but really). It belonged in a different movie with a different character (the Nolan-verse, perhaps). In any emotionally charged scene the characterisation felt over-cooked and overwrought. Maguire may not have brought enough wise-cracking fun to the part, and Garfield makes the most of the scenes where he gets to indulge that side, but at least he didn't run the danger of becoming a tiresomely petulant brat. After yet another bruised and taciturn entrance at the end I was wondering why on earth Aunt May was putting up with him. The last scene between Peter and Mary only compounded this. I can accept that Parker has a lot to learn, but was the best way to tell us this having a laugh about breaking his vow to Captain Stacey (promises you can't keep are "the best kind")?

A few random thoughts. The music was rather sucky (I'm surprised to see James Horner was the composer); intrusive and simultaneously unmemorable. The Stan Lee cameo was blissful (Webb directs this scene with aplomb - so why do other sequences feel so flat?) The New Yorkers unite to aid Spider-Man with their cranes was appalling; the writers appear to have been inspired by various other nauseating scenes of plucky and rousing American spirit winning out (The ferry sequence in The Dark Knight and protecting Spidey in Spider-Man 2). And the most bizarre moment. So unexpected and bad taste it could have been excised from an early Peter Jackson film; the lizard mouse, snarling amid the remains of his poor cage mate. More warped inspiration along those lines might have given The Amazing Spider-Man the edge it needed to wash away the memory of the Raimi trilogy.

***

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She writes Twilight fan fiction.

Vampire Academy (2014)
My willingness to give writer Daniel Waters some slack on the grounds of early glories sometimes pays off (Sex and Death 101) and sometimes, as with this messy and indistinct Young Adult adaptation, it doesn’t. If Vampire Academy plods along as a less than innovative smart-mouthed Buffy rip-off that might be because, if you added vampires to Heathers, you would probably get something not so far from the world of Joss Whedon. Unfortunately inspiration is a low ebb throughout, not helped any by tepid direction from Daniel’s sometimes-reliable brother Mark and a couple of hopelessly plankish leads who do their best to dampen down any wit that occasionally attempts to surface.

I can only presume there’s a never-ending pile of Young Adult fiction poised for big screen failure, all of it comprising multi-novel storylines just begging for a moment in the Sun. Every time an adaptation crashes and burns (and the odds are that they will) another one rises, hydra-like, hoping…

Prepare the Heathen’s Stand! By order of purification!

Apostle (2018)
(SPOILERS) Another week, another undercooked Netflix flick from an undeniably talented director. What’s up with their quality control? Do they have any? Are they so set on attracting an embarrassment of creatives, they give them carte blanche, to hell with whether the results are any good or not? Apostle's an ungainly folk-horror mashup of The Wicker Man (most obviously, but without the remotest trace of that screenplay's finesse) and any cult-centric Brit horror movie you’d care to think of (including Ben Wheatley's, himself an exponent of similar influences-on-sleeve filmmaking with Kill List), taking in tropes from Hammer, torture porn, and pagan lore but revealing nothing much that's different or original beyond them.

You can’t just outsource your entire life.

Tully (2018)
(SPOILERS) A major twist is revealed in the last fifteen minutes of Tully, one I'll happily admit not to have seen coming, but it says something about the movie that it failed to affect my misgivings over the picture up to that point either way. About the worst thing you can say about a twist is that it leaves you shrugging.

There's something wrong with the sky.

Hold the Dark (2018)
(SPOILERS) Hold the Dark, an adaptation of William Giraldi's 2014 novel, is big on atmosphere, as you'd expect from director Jeremy Saulnier (Blue Ruin, Green Room) and actor-now-director (I Don’t Want to Live in This World Anymore) pal Macon Blair (furnishing the screenplay and appearing in one scene), but contrastingly low on satisfying resolutions. Being wilfully oblique can be a winner if you’re entirely sure what you're trying to achieve, but the effect here is rather that it’s "for the sake of it" than purposeful.

No one understands the lonely perfection of my dreams.

Ridley Scott Ridders Ranked
During the '80s, I anticipated few filmmakers' movies more than Ridley Scott's; those of his fellow xenomorph wrangler James Cameron, perhaps. In both cases, that eagerness for something equalling their early efforts receded as they studiously managed to avoid the heights they had once reached. Cameron's output dropped off a cliff after he won an Oscar. Contrastingly, Scott's surged like never before when his film took home gold. Which at least meant he occasionally delivered something interesting, but sadly, it was mostly quantity over quality. Here are the movies Scott has directed in his career thus far - and with his rate of productivity, another 25 by the time he's 100 may well be feasible – ranked from worst to best.

Well, you did take advantage of a drunken sailor.

Tomb Raider (2018)
(SPOILERS) There's evidently an appetite out there for a decent Tomb Raider movie, given that the lousy 2001 incarnation was successful enough to spawn a (lousy) sequel, and that this lousier reboot, scarcely conceivably, may have attracted enough bums on seats to do likewise. If we're going to distinguish between order of demerits, we could characterise the Angelina Jolie movies as both pretty bad; Tomb Raider, in contrast, is unforgivably tedious.

If you want to have a staring contest with me, you will lose.

Phantom Thread (2017)
(SPOILERS) Perhaps surprisingly not the lowest grossing of last year's Best Picture Oscar nominees (that was Call Me by Your Name) but certainly the one with the least buzz as a genuine contender, subjected as Phantom Thread was to a range of views from masterpiece (the critics) to drudge (a fair selection of general viewers). The mixed reaction wasn’t so very far from Paul Thomas Anderson's earlier The Master, and one suspects the nomination was more to do with the golden glow of Daniel Day-Lewis in his first role in half a decade (and last ever, if he's to be believed) than mass Academy rapture with the picture. Which is ironic, as the relatively unknown Vicky Krieps steals the film from under him.

My name is Dr. King Schultz, this is my valet, Django, and these are our horses, Fritz, and Tony.

This is it. This is the moment of my death.

Fearless (1993)
Hollywood tends to make a hash of any exploration of existential or spiritual themes. The urge towards the simplistic, the treacly or the mawkishly uplifting, without appropriate filtering or insight, usually overpowers even the best intentions. Rarely, a movie comes along that makes good on its potential and then, more than likely, it gets completely ignored. Such a fate befell Fearless, Peter Weir’s plane crash survivor-angst film, despite roundly positive critical notices. For some reason audiences were willing to see a rubgy team turn cannibal in Alive, but this was a turn-off? Yet invariably anyone who has seen Fearless speaks of it in glowing terms, and rightly so.

Weir’s pictures are often thematically rich, more anchored by narrative than those of, say, Terrence Malick but similarly preoccupied with big ideas and their expression. He has a rare grasp of poetry, symbolism and the mythic. Weir also displays an acute grasp of the subjective mind-set, and possesses …

He mobilised the English language and sent it into battle.

Darkest Hour (2017)
(SPOILERS) Watching Joe Wright’s return to the rarefied plane of prestige – and heritage to boot – filmmaking following the execrable folly of the panned Pan, I was struck by the difference an engaged director, one who cares about his characters, makes to material. Only last week, Ridley Scott’s serviceable All the Money in the World made for a pointed illustration of strong material in the hands of someone with no such investment, unless they’re androids. Wright’s dedication to a relatable Winston Churchill ensures that, for the first hour-plus, Darkest Hour is a first-rate affair, a piece of myth-making that barely puts a foot wrong. It has that much in common with Wright’s earlier Word War II tale, Atonement. But then, like Atonement, it comes unstuck.

Now In Full Color, with a Happier Ending

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