Some stories have stories in them that deserve to be told.
The Wizard of Oz is one such story: when Dorothy lands in Oz and involuntarily kills the Wicked Witch of the East, we get the feeling that her arrival is a mere footnote in something bigger and far more complicated.
Who is the Wizard of Oz? How did the land come to be divided between the Witches, and how did each of them turn good or evil? Part of those questions have been given an answer of sorts by the musical Wicked, but now Sam Raimi is going for the most pressing one: Oz the Great and Powerfultackles the life and fortunes of the man at the very heart of the story.
Raimi is no stranger to the fantastic and the baroque, and here he has pulled out all the stops, to the point of looking positively Gilliam-esque.
James Franco plays the ambitious titular character, swept away from his native Kansas into the land of Oz, where he meets the witches (a distinctly non-green Mila Kunis, a typically angelic Michelle Williams and an unusually devilish Rachel Weisz) andbecomes its mysterious leader by lending his abilities to the forces of good. Or so it appears: the trailer is suitably vague about the story, but it features plenty of ravens in flight and ominous choir music.
Will it be any good? How will Raimi handle the big secret (and huge letdown) at the core of the original story, in which Oz the Great and Powerful is revealed to be an indistinct man with nothing of the wizard whatsoever about him? How does the Wicked Witch of the West get her green skin? So many mysteries, so many stories.
Some stories have stories in them that deserve to be told . The Wizard of Oz is one such story: when Dorothy lands in Oz and involu...
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The gear-shift in the superhero movie is now unmistakeable.
Where once they aimed to essentially replicate the experience of reading a comic book, they now strive to be edgy, risk-taking dramas that do more than simply pay lip-service to their characters' emotional lives.
That, anyway, is the theory; and it explains why the studios turning them out have been hiring more and more unlikely directors to see them through.
Christopher Nolan, plucked to re-energise the Batman series after completing the gritty, noirish Insomnia, may have started the trend, but Marc Webb – hired on the strength of a single film, the indie rom-com 500 Days of Summer – is arguably the most extreme example.
The Amazing Spider-Man is the fourth in the recent series, which began in 2002; it was originally intended to be a continuation of them until original director Sam Raimi left the project.
Thus reborn, Webb's film has returned to the meat of the first of Raimi's Spider-Man films: how grumpy suburban teen Peter Parker has arachnid-like superpowers foisted upon him, then turns crime-fighter and romancer, before facing off against a transforming supervillain.
This Spider-Man film, which we are forced to call a "reboot", tinkers extensively with the story as presented by Raimi.
Parker, as played by Andrew Garfield, is no hapless super-nerd, but a mumbling, shambling skateboarder who, though perhaps not extra-strength catnip to the ladies, has no trouble in catching their eye. Moreover, the central love interest here isn't girl-next-door Mary Jane Watson, but the considerably kookier Gwen Stacy (Emma Stone), promoted from a more incidental role in Spider-Man 3.
Perhaps most radically, we are also introduced briefly to Parker's parents, never seen, and only rarely mentioned, in the Raimi films. Parker's abandonment issues have nevertheless loomed large in all Spider-Man films, and those looking for deeper shading of Parker's emotional make-up will no doubt be pleased to see them.
Be that as it may, Webb successfully treads a fine line between keeping the hardcore superhero-movie fans happy and injecting a dose of meaningful affect. Parker is generally reckoned to be the most "relatable" figure in the superhero canon, but the pastel-bright synthetics of the earlier movies did little to dispel the sense that the comic-book world could only construct its characters out of clunking great blocks of melodrama.
In re-engineering Parker into the introspective, uncertain male more typical of his previous film, Webb is aided by a terrific performance from Andrew Garfield, who brings a genial unflappability that allows him to negotiate the often-ludicrous demands of the superhero plotline. At the same time, Webb also shows an unarguable facility for the more traditional action elements of the story, and the 3D certainly helps: he pulls off some properly nauseating shots as Parker dives off skyscrapers, rescues kids from falling, and the like.
It's the successul synthesis of the two – action and emotion – that means this Spider-Man is as enjoyable as it is impressive: Webb's control of mood and texture is near faultless as his film switches from teenage sulks to exhilarating airborne pyrotechnics. It's only towards the end, when there is no choice but to revert to CGI – as Rhys Ifans' Lizard goes on the rampage – that The Amazing Spider-Man gets a little less amazing: cartoony reptilian carnage has just lost its power to enthral if it's rather obviously happening inside a computer.
Among the many superhero movies out at the cinema this year we will find the force watch another?
guardian.co.uk
The gear-shift in the superhero movie is now unmistakeable. Where once they aimed to essentially replicate the experience of readin...
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