This is how you make a great super hero movie.

Rating: 10/10 (7 May 2014)

I feel like the director went the Les Miserables approach with this movie, which is absolutely fantastic. What I most admired about Les Miserables and this movie, is that it creates the atmosphere and scenery for so many situations. In other words, within 2 hours, you felt the uneasiness of a breakup, the depression of loneliness, the butterfly stomach of a love scene on top of a bridge in the sunset, the crave of attention and/or being wanted, the uprising feelings or being hopeful and so so so much more. A movie where you have control over all aspects of life and the job of the director is to put the audience into the characters' shoes and into the movie. Absolutely fantastic job on that, Mark Webb.
There are also many little detailed moments that are entirely unnecessary for the plot, but add so freaking much more meaning and symbols for us to analyze, and the thing about these details is that it doesn't impact the way we film fanatics look at the movie, but also the general audience. Like that little boy who was bullied but eventually became the only one in the city brave enough to stand up to a monster, who else felt like oh my god so powerful? Another one would be the electronic music bit in the middle of an epic fight scene. It is super enjoyable for the general audience, but you can also take it as what other people may despise, like the type of music or that character, is music to someone else's ear. Or when peter was meeting Gwen to "be just friends" and how he passed the traffic and being completely unable to take his eyes off her. I honestly can't think of anymore off the top of my head but there are also little witty details that just perfectly fit spider-man's style like Gwen telling the cab driver to stop the car when they were already stopped in traffic and ugh cant think of anymore again dang it.
Let's talk about the storyline. Geez. Crosscutting between multiple events is kinda common in TV series and in some movies. But here, all events are eye-grabbing and eventually play a huge role in affecting Spiderman and/or the audience. I mean that random added bit of the two intersecting planes? That is an obvious victim of the loss of electricity that we might never think of because it doesn't relate to most of us. This ties to the two points I mentioned above because it is like a super mini sub-movie that we just watched of how two full planes of passengers escaped the grasp of Death and it didn't affect the storyline but added so much more intensity. The story progression overall is super smooth and keeps the audience's attention.
The fight scenes. Amazing. I mean you do have to get creative when one puny spidery figure is fighting all these unusual and powerful villains. You'd think it would get old that it would just be spidery shooting webs everywhere but Na, Na, never once did I feel something was overdone. I would only complain about how Harry's fight scene was too short since most parts of the movie was a buildup to his anger aside from electro- dood.
Another bone that I have to pick with this movie is that sometimes it got too unrealistic. For one, spider man got shocked full blast by the entire power plant which was powerful enough to kill an electric monster, yet he was still able to get up and even have another intense fight? come on. or what kind of locking mechanism would be activated when you kick a stone wall hard enough to pop a whole laboratory train out of the floor, which even opens its doors for you lol.
In terms of mise en scene, there were a couple that I noticed but I have to admit, it really kept my focus on the storyline ha ha. First of all there were a bunch of dutch angles that I'm not entirely sure if they were a stylistic choice or really had something else going on: that one shot though, where his aunt was about to tell peter all she knew about his dad, peter bent down to match her eye level and that twisting shot, oh ho ho. Another one is when peter was finding out the truth about his dad and watching the video from the computer, and how much the back of the computer was taking up the frame; the reflection shots of the flashbacks of peter's old house's door through the number 26; many shots being shot through transparent planes in "OSCORPS" like when harry was checking the programs; when peter was listening to Gwen's voice-mail saying she got the scholarship and suddenly the extreme long shots portraying peter as so tiny and powerless; how there were always things between Gwen and peter, including the tree when they were trying to be just friends, the Chinese lanterns when they were breaking up, the police fence when peter had that "good conversation" with her after defeating electro-dude for the first time; harry stepping out of literally the darkness to open up to peter when they first reunited and a couple more that I can't remember right now again. The color usage was great too, subtle but super effective, like the orange warm feel when they were on top of the bridge being lovebirds.
I have a feeling that we are about to enter that era where analyzing film will have one extra category - special effects. Especially the 3D aspect. I think that can have a lot of potential. I'm not sure if there were any good 3D loaded cinematography in this one but I wouldn't be surprised if there were.
All in all in all in all in all, 10/10 amazing movie