“But those are the best kind.”

When broken promises involve breaking a promise to a dead man just to get it in, and the film plays it up as something triumphant with a heroic final swing, they are decidedly NOT the best kind. This is the Eddie Brock origin story.

A hackneyed attempt at recapturing magic of the original Raimi masterworks while influencing it with “what are the kids into?” mentality. 

A completely misused cast is given nothing to work with or simply too much, as character motivations for some of our best performers change from scene to scene, especially that of Peter Parker’s who can’t catch a break in the writing department. Watch Andrew Garfield’s SDCC appearance when he was cast for some heartbreaking shit. He deserved so much better.

Denis Leary as Captain Stacy fates much better, as the writing on his character is the only one with a clearly defined arc and culmination. Peter losing two new father figures in Dr. Connors and the Captain stumbling to the edge of Oscorp Tower, looking out at the gorgeous NYC skyline as flakes of flame and the cure fall around him? That’s the shit right there. The music swelling, the soft piano carrying us to an, admittedly, retread of Raimi’s film from a different route. Where the fuck was THAT movie hiding? And where did it go after?

 Love James Horner but even his score doesn’t work outside of that scene. And say what I will about MAN OF STEEL, at least that movie is tonally consistent. This one can’t decide what kind of movie it wants to be. You could do something with that representing Peter’s worldview (even his professor tells her class at the end that there is only one story: “who am I?”) but you can’t just drop story arcs at the halfway mark or inbetween scenes? You have to do things with them.

But I do love the look of NYC at night here. Crisp digital lights and soft blues highlighting that gorgeous skyline. Wish we got more of that in latter Spidey appearances.

And seriously, too bad about everything else. So much potential.

Full thoughts at TWP Retrospective
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