If you are going to 'reboot' a franchise only 10 years after you first started it then surely you take a fresh approach. Get in new actors (check) change the tone and style (X) start at a different point in our heroes history (X), bring in a new story (check/X)
And that is the problem. As good as Andrew Garfield is and he has a lot more screen presence, charisma and human appeal than Tobey Maguire, the story just feels too familiar. The style and the tone of the film feels too familiar and I just got bit bored.
Aside from Garfield and new leading lady Emma Stone, between which there is great chemistry, and a new baddie - a badly CGi'd lizard - there isn't anything new. I was hoping that director Marc Webb would do for Spiderman what Christopher Nolan did for Batman when he 'rebooted' that franchise with Batman Begins but no.
It's a real shame because I do like Andrew Garfield and it was worth seeing for him but only once and I won't be buying the DVD.
Meanwhile there is Batman coming off the high that was The Dark Knight with the Oscar winning performance by Heath Ledger - surely the most inventive performance as a villain we will see for a long time.
Dark Knight Rises had big shoes to fill and it did, sort of. Tom Hardy was always going to have a tough job as the baddie Bane made all the more difficult because he wears a mask over his mouth and nose, and it is quite difficult to make out what he is saying sometimes.
He isn't the Joker and nor should he be but, he isn't The Joker. Neither did he feel as clever as a villain. He's more of physical villain, there is no humour in his character he just wants to batter Batman.
Without giving too much away The Dark Knight Feels like a very elaborate escape movie. It has the thrills and spills and the ice cool gadgets like the bat bike which I just love, but I just can't connect or feel very much empathy for our leading man. He is just a little too aloof to get a real sense of his sacrifice.
I did enjoy The Dark Knight Rises. It put a smile on my face but it did feel a little long and I'm not rushing to see it again. My ideal would be the colour of Andrew Garfield's Spiderman in the Dark Knight setting but as that isn't going to happen I think Batman easily wins.
Spiderman I'm giving 58% on IMDb it has 76% with a Metacritic score of 66% while on Rotten Tomatoes UK it has 89% from critics and 65% from users
The Dark Knight Rises I'm giving 78% on IMDb it has 89% and a Metacritic score of 78% while on Rotten Tomatoes it has 87% from critics and 92% from users.
I think thats a fair compare and contrast job. I did enjoy Batman at the Imax and felt that it did benefit from the larger projection. It certainly did not feel overlong and was compelling viewing. The rather less impressive Spiderman was just that. I was rather bored with the whole lizard thing but felt that there was a better grasp of the emotional intelligence in the new film compared with the pure comic-book story of the Tobey Maguire series.
Posted by: Simon Pudsey | 08/19/2012 at 08:10 PM