Posted in: Movies, Preview | Tagged: amazing spider-man, andrew garfield, marketing, opinion, rhys ifans, sony, trailer

Why You're Going To Love The Amazing Spider-man

I was invited, yesterday evening, to a screening of some footage from the upcoming Amazing Spider-Man movie.

I think it's going to be a good film. It's a solid, interesting superhero flick made with a lot of care. As a bonus, it has an underlying retconned mystery that might alone drive an entire season of Alias or Alcatraz.

There seems to be a fair bit of Peter Parker's teenage cockiness on show. And no small measure of I Am Number Four 'sk8r-boy in a hoodie' pinup material, so that's great news for teenage girls and Caroline Flack. Andrew Garfield has completely mastered, too, the art of expanding his hair into a stylish Lord Lichfield bouffant as soon as he takes his Spidey hood off.

And, speaking as a Brit, having our boys as Superman, Batman, and Spider-man is unaccountably satisfying.

Most importantly, the action scenes we saw look, well, action-packed. There's one phenomenal shot of Your Friendly Neighbourhood Web-head atop a collapsing radio mast thingy that's just astounding. Especially on the (I don't personally like 3D but it ain't going away) 3D screen.

The costume looks substantially cooler than the already perfectly good one that Tobey Maguire made his own, and while I think dropping Raimi's organic web-shooters is a backwards step, the mechanical ones look shiny and interesting.

The little we saw of The Lizard looked convincing. Dr.Connors's new hand has that conventional 'melty white plastic' look that all new clones have in blockbuster sci-fi movies but he soon firms up into a meaty, intimidating villain.

But the fine people at Sony are no fools. They know that in 2012 they're going to need a lot more than a well-crafted tights-and-fights flick to make the end-of-year box-office Top 10.

The Number One spot already belongs to The Avengers. Take four heroes, any one of which is a pop culture icon strong enough to warrant a t-shirt of their own and add a five-movie-deep mythos that's been nearly a decade in the making and you've got an unsurpassable SMASH. Seriously, anyone else who thinks they've got a shot has been talking to Mysterio.

The Silver medal can only go to Batman. The Dark Knight Rises is the climax to Christopher Nolan's literary fiction superhero trilogy that has made even stuffed-shirt broadsheet film reviewers sit up and take notice.

So at best, Spider-man is chasing the bottom step on the podium And with Prometheus, Skyfall and The Hobbit all threatening to do stellar business, even the Bronze medal won't come easy.

For that matter, Brendon assures me that The Hunger Games is going to take some beating.

So what Sony have done is given me a master class in how marketing is done in the 21^st Century.

What really matters, in the age of all-powerful social media, is the sense of ownership. My Mum thinks I'm the best writer in the world. You're reading this, so you know better. But you'll never convince my Mum. I'm her son, so I'm automatically the best.

Traditionally Muslims, when weaving a fine rug, would always introduce a deliberate imperfection rather than presume to rival the perfect nature of their God.

In a similar way I, when reviewing a film for Bleeding Cool, will always try to find one negative even in the raviest reaction, rather than risk the accusation that I'm just some easily-pleased fanboy with a few PR contacts and a thesaurus.

But you can bet that if I were to ever get a green light for my ultra-violent R-rated musical Murder Burlesque, I'd insist it was the greatest film ever made and it made Citizen Kane look like Peppa Pig.

Why? Because it's mine.

That's what Sony did last night. They created a buzz around the globe with people who came out of  screenings raving about The Amazing Spider-Man because they feel like it's theirs. Twitter was alive last night with positive comments tagged #AmazingSpiderMan.

And it really isn't bad. There's no reason not to rave. In any other year it would be the biggest smash of the Summer. As it is, Sony's marketing team have done the best they can to get their boy to the No.3 spot.

And you know what? It might just be enough.

If you somehow haven't yet seen the new trailer, check it out.

And here's the original teaser.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ga5qwRTxBls[/youtube]

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