And, by that, of course, I mean the clips themselves are so far from HD, or even standard D, quality that somebody at Sony ought to be fired. Seriously, the video looks like the editor had a cold and sneezed on the original film stock and thought it best not to tell anyone. As for the audio, you know that feeling you get when you hit your head on an cupboard door (that shouldn’t even be open, damn it) and all sound becomes a sort of white noise for a split second? Imagine two minutes of that, coupled with the same jerk who left the cupboard open also trying to gouge your eyes out.
That said, if you’re like me and still on the fence about Marc Webb’s reborquel, Amazing Spider-Man , this may allay some fears. Take a look, if you can stand it:
What we’ve got here is Peter Parker discovering his powers and creating his superhero persona, much of which isn’t terribly far removed from Sam Raimi’s interpretation in the first Spider-Man. Holy crap, he can stick to things! Holy cow, he’s super strong! Holy moley, he shoots web out of… his specially designed and built web shooters (patent pending). Okay, that last part is different, and considering how Spidey uses his webbing here, it’s probably a good thing the filmmakers removed any possible coming-of-age metaphor with that particular aspect of the character. Otherwise, that knife-wielding thug would be having an even worse time.
No, what really stands out, building on some of the earlier trailers and clips we’ve seen, is Peter’s sense of humor. Glibness and over confidence are trademarks of the comic book version, so it continues to be reassuring that Webb and Sony are putting the funny front and center. The script, at least the characterization, seems fine. Now it’s just a matter of whether or not Andrew Garfield can pull it off.
Oh, and I guess we can cut the production some slack for the clips’ affront to aesthetics and human decency since they were originally meant for the Kellogg’s sponsored Amazing Spider-Man app for Android devices. I’m sure these will at least look better on your phone or Kindle Fire. But, still. They had to know these were going to be uploaded onto the real web sooner than later. If they were expecting later, they clearly don’t understand how the Internet works.
Rob Payne also writes the comic The Unstoppable Force, tweets on the Twitter @RobOfWar, and his ware can be purchased here (if you’re into that sort of thing). He still can’t help but feel that this take on Spider-Man looks more like Generic Superhero than an adaptation of the comic books.