Caught in the Web

New 'Spider-Man' trailer hints at 'amazing' things to come

On February 6, fans all over the world were treated to a special satellite link-up for the first showing of the new trailer for "The Amazing Spider-Man," along with a sizzle reel of nearly 10 more minutes of footage from the movie. Introducing the Los Angeles showing was director Marc Webb, while New York's screening was attended by the new Peter Parker himself, Andrew Garfield. Emma Stone, playing romantic lead Gwen Stacy, was on hand in Rio, while Rhys Ifans, who appears as Dr. Curt Connors/The Lizard, did the honors in London.

After a brief intro from Webb, the lights went down and the 3-D trailer unspooled across the screen. With the movie shot in 3-D (not converted in post-production), the first thing to say was that the stereoscope looked rich, layered and immersive -- one of the best pieces of 3-D film we've seen, and that was just the trailer!

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Make no mistake, Webb and Columbia Pictures seem to have gone out of their way to distinguish this "Spider-Man" from Sam Raimi and Tobey Maguire's three previous pictures. Whereas the Raimi films were bright and cartoony, this clearly is going for a more brooding, darker, more realistic approach, yet at the same time there are scenes that capture the comic book fun of Spidey as he is on the page.

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Most importantly, there is a new level of emotional investment in the characters and Peter Parker's plight that could really make this stand out from the superhero movie pack. Garfield is a natural in the role, capturing Peter's inherent intelligence with a kind of gawkiness that feels right for the part. His chemistry with Stone is powerful, his interaction with Uncle Ben (a great Martin Sheen in the brief footage we saw of him) equally sweet and real, and his handling of the action assured and impressive.

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The trailer sets up the story and the conflicts quickly, while showcasing a rapid series of action highlights. We see Peter at dinner with Gwen and her police captain father (Denis Leary), who does not care for Pete's defense of Spider-Man's crime-fighting spree. We see Peter discovering something -- it's not clear what -- about his late father's past and how it relates to the work of Dr. Connors. There are shots of Peter constructing and testing his webshooters, then giving them a workout for real against petty criminals. We also see him swinging through the air above the streets of New York -- and it must be said that the scenes here of Spidey flying through the air look far better than what Raimi was able to get at the time. The suit looks very cool, much more textured, and we also get a larger helping of Spidey's famous humor.

We don't get to enjoy a full look at Connors' mutated alter ego, the Lizard, but we get several fast shots of the all-CG character in action, too, including some spectacular flashes of him and Spider-Man locked in hand-to-claw combat. We still miss his snout and even his lab coat -- both absent from this new design -- but we're glad to see he has a tail, which makes him even more reptilian. We're worried about the creature being completely computer-generated, but it might not be until we see the finished film that we'll be able to tell whether it works.

The trailer ends on a cliffhanger as a gigantic antenna structure topples from a roof onto Spider-Man, but there's enough going on to create a level of excitement that the marketing for the movie had been kind of lacking up until now. There is enough different stuff on hand -- the newly introduced characters, the overall look of the film -- to possibly emphasize to audiences that this is a fresh take on the Spider-Man mythology. But on the other hand, it really is his origin story again, with a few different wrinkles, and that might be a harder sell just 10 years after seeing it on the big screen in 2002.

Once the trailer was over, Webb said a few words about taking a different approach and emphasizing Peter's struggle with being an orphan and coming to terms with the death of his parents -- something we never got at all in the Raimi movies. From Rio, Stone made the interesting comment that her Gwen is different from Kirsten Dunst's Mary Jane in the earlier movies because "Gwen falls in love with Peter Parker, while Mary Jane falls in love with Spider-Man." And Garfield chimed in with his now customary excitement, thanking fans everywhere for their support, "which means the world to all of us," and flashing some wicked humor when asked why he wanted to play Spider-Man: "Because I'm not an idiot."

After their remarks, the audiences in all 13 cities were shown a sizzle reel of another eight to 10 minutes of footage from the movie -- this time only in 2-D, as some of the effects work was not finished yet. Some of this material was shown last July at Comic-Con, while some of it was from the trailer and some was completely new. The sizzle reel expanded on what we saw in the trailer, particularly in Peter's family life and his interaction with both Gwen and Connors. There's a sequence in which Gwen admits to her fear that she never knows if her father is coming home from work each night, which also relates to her concern for Peter. Meanwhile, the lost piece of his father's work which Peter brings to Connors is inadvertently the key that turns Connors into the Lizard, thus giving Peter the responsibility to stop a monster he had a hand in creating. Although we've seen Peter battle a mentor/scientist in both "Spider-Man" and "Spider-Man 2," this version adds that new connection, which could make it a more powerful battle for our hero.

It's probably a good thing if we don't describe the sizzle reel in too much detail, since watching it essentially gives one a pretty good idea of the movie's complete plot. There are questions for sure -- how is Uncle Ben's fate handled? How does Gwen discover Peter's secret identity? -- but those remain unanswered for now.

The biggest question, of course, is whether fans will go for this reboot so relatively soon after the first three Spider-Man films. We've been unsure about that all along, but the trailer (which is now online as of Tuesday morning) and extra footage gave us the feeling that there is enough of a different approach happening here that "The Amazing Spider-Man" could well live up to its name.

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