Powerless and Irresponsible: How “The Amazing Spider-Man” Fails the Superhero Genre Part 3 (Finishing Stories)

One Film at a Time Guy

Contrary to what Hollywood would like to believe, loose ends are not the key to capturing people’s attention.

Dangling unanswered questions in front of a scrutinizing audience doesn’t result in passionate inquiries regarding the answers to unresolved threads. It results in audience irritation regarding an unnecessary element that didn’t need to be implemented if it wasn’t going to be addressed or touched upon in any significant form. This is a flaw that both of “The Amazing Spider-Man” films once again fall victim to. Unlike their other flaws however, I hesitate to call the lack of self-containment within these movies poorly thought out because that would imply that they were even moderately developed to begin with.

 

The first film, while better about this than its sequel, carries itself in a rather presumptuous manner regarding its franchise’s popularity and guarantee of a sequel.

Discussions of Peter’s parent are injected into the film at almost every turn; why would Richard Parker leave his son, what was he working on, why is his work shrouded in so much mystery, etc. Unfortunately, the question of why he matters is left completely unanswered. 

There is nothing in “The Amazing Spider-Man” that could not have been accomplished had Peter’s father never been mentioned more than twice. Finding the formula for Connors’ serum could have just as easily been executed as simple curiosity regarding a background element of Peter’s life rather than feeding into this odd obsession with chasing something that hasn’t had a direct impact on his life in over 12 years. Connors’ blackmail by his supervisor regarding the details of Richard Parker’s activities could have been a simple exercise of corporate pressure regarding his position and prospect of regaining the limb that he has lost. Peter and Uncle Ben’s argument could have been born out of misunderstanding regarding what he’s been doing with his spare time in connection to his apparently out of character recklessness and irresponsibility.

Simplifying Peter Parker’s motivations and cutting out all of his brooding over questions he can’t answer that only exist to set up future installments could have trimmed the film of a good 5 or 10 minutes that could have been put toward fleshing out the apparent parental connection that he is supposed to feel towards his aunt and uncle, why Gwen Stacy would fall in love with him and his stalker-esque tendencies after only 4 conversations or answering the question of how a well-dressed, handsome, snarky, skateboarder is a social outcast.

These problems, however, are utterly dwarfed by the haste and greed of “The Amazing Spider-Man 2,” which not only maintains the problems brought on by its predecessor but adds to them by intentionally not even bother to resolve even half of its own plot points.

Joining the dilemma of Peter’s father, which feels so out of place during the film whenever it comes up you would swear you were watching a completely different movie, are the ambiguous fate of Electro, who is assembling the Sinister Six for Harry, how he’s assembling them from a cell in an institution for the criminally insane, where he and Peter stand, why he wants to assemble a team of super villains in the first place, what Peter is doing with his life out of high school, what Aunt May will do to ensure her financial stability, where Curt Connors stands in the building OsCorp conspiracy and a plethora of other threads both major and minor given such little attention that they barely even qualify as story.

That doesn’t even cover the sense of disconnection that the films feel from one another. After spending a significant portion of a 2 hour film pushing the idea of an obsession regarding the mystery of his lost parents, Peter apparently drops solving the mystery entirely to go back to his new life with powers.

The films resulting from this thought process of over-promising and under-delivering have yielded the lowest box office returns for the entire franchise and have forced Sony into reconsidering its exclusivity of the license with Marvel. The fact of the matter remains however that it tragically didn’t have to come to this at all.

Both film series have dealt with similar ideas but the Raimi films managed to earn more money and acclaim while integrating them into the narrative with definitive conclusions. How does Aunt May deal with her prevalent money troubles? By selling her home of 2 films and moving to a new apartment shown to be her residence in the next installment. How does Harry cope with his father’s death? By logically associating it with Spider-Man, who returned the body to him, bringing him into conflict with his best friend in the future.

The film doesn’t leave questions unanswered but rather presents complete answers that can be expanded upon later if need be. While the original trilogy provides a solid example of this, the practice goes beyond “Spider-Man.”

In “The Dark Knight,” the only thread continued from “Batman Begins” is Bruce Wayne’s crusade to protect Gotham. Beyond the returning cast, the story it told was entirely different from its predecessor and ended on a note that could be considered a cliffhanger only in the most technical sense of the word. “Iron Man” brings all of its plot threads full circle before adhering to the unpredictable nature of Tony Stark by dropping a single bomb shell of a moment that instantly hypes the audience for its titular character’s continued adventures.

Even “Thor” and “Captain America: The First Avenger” manage to tell complete tales that wrap up their own personal arcs despite ending on cliffhangers designed to set the stage for “The Avengers.”

All of these movies manage to succeed on their own merits in addition to enhancing projects that are far grander in scale but even if Sony wanted to create a detailed cinematic world with a coherent mythology arc for its protagonist, there are numerous ways to approach the ordeal that are far less convoluted. The best example of it isn’t even in its own genre.

Consider, if you will, the journey of a boy from adolescence to adulthood, growing into his potential and abilities while facing threats that become more dangerous as time passes. As he grows, his innocence diminishes but he never loses his optimism for life, knowing that from his tragedy will be born a hero that desires to insure that nobody suffers the pain of loss that he has been subjected to. His 6-8 film journey ends in an epic that culminates in him facing an entire army of powerful villains that stand between him and the antagonist that he is drawn to by fate. Sounds, pretty familiar doesn’t it?