Next time, re-boot harder.

I just saw The Amazing Spider-Man, and it was good. I liked it. It was a matinee and I'm usually more agreeable towards movies for which I paid less than 11 dollars to see, but for real, it's pretty good. In fact, I enjoyed this movie despite the fact it's another origin story and I totally hate origin stories.

Behold: X-Men Origins: Wolverine, a 97 minute explanation of where Logan got
the leather jacker he wears in X-Men 1. Turns out he stole it. Mystery: solved.

Time: our deadliest foe.
Just ask old people.

So yeah, decent movie, but what's that? You'd like to hear me complain about something? Anything? No matter how nit-picky? Well, I don't usually...well, ok, there is one thing but it's pretty spoilery, so if you haven't seen the film, stop reading. Still there? Ok. Now, really it's only a spoiler if you didn't already know that one out of every three comic book adaptation movies is required by law to end with a scientifically implausible destructo-device that gets shut-down seconds before going off.

'Goddamn right I can.'

-Magneto

X-Men had Magneto's mutation machine, in Batman Begins it was Ra's al'Goul with a toxic microwave thing and in Spider-Man 2 it was Doc Octopus's reactor deal. It's like no one involved in these movies felt that their villains are threatening enough on their own or that the climaxes were exciting enough without the artificial tension created by a ticking clock or a soulless computer voice counting down our hero's remaining time. I mean, Magneto can reverse the planet's magnetic poles causing untold havoc. What does he need with an Anna Paquin-powered MacGuffin?

"Hmmm...it needs something...maybe...a... 
countdown! Vanderbilt, you're a genius!"

-The screenwriter, not rocking the boat

Anyway, This movie's villain, Dr. Connors, aka The Lizard, has one of these devices, complete with countdown, which Spider-Man has to shut off before it's too late. Since it's a remake, you'd think the writers would have gone out of their way to avoid repeating the plots of other comic-book movies, but here we are. In fact, this movie, a re-boot of another movie which itself was adapted from a comic book, even has this scene at the end in which Peter Parker's English teacher talks about how there's only really ten plots in all of fiction...it's like they wanted us to know that they know that we're on to them.

Spider-Man's Giant Robot: not in the movie.
Would have been surprising though.

So maybe all fiction is just variations on a limited number of plots. That's cool, and hey, it's just a movie, right? After all, The Amazing Spider-Man isn't really about the doom-gadget, it's about characters and relationships and characters turning into lizards and how that effects their relationships. I can usually accept a well-worn plot if it's a good movie, and this was a good movie, it's just that this particular doom-gadget is especially stupid. Now, I'm about to get even more spoiler-ific here, so skip the rest of this if you want to be surprised. Well, actually if surprise is the only thing your looking for in a movie, don't see The Amazing Spider-Man.

Super-Villain Solutions and Logistics
for the 21st Century

Anyway, like I said, more spoilers. In this case, the device in question is a airborne chemical delivery system thing invented by Oscorp in case they ever need to distribute a biological agent, like say a cure for polio or a mutagen that will turn everyone in New York into lizard-people. Ok. Fine, you can see where this is going right? The Lizard steals the thing, loads it up with Lizard juice and starts the clock.

'Oh, I get it! It's the thing from before!
Remember? The thing?'

-some jackass in every audience

Sure it seemed a little too convenient that Dr. Connors would happen to work at a company that would have the perfect machine on hand just in case he ever goes nuts and wants to mutate millions of people. And yes, it was a little heavy handed the way the writers set it up for the audience at the beginning of the movie by having Dr. Connors give a tour of Oscorp in which he points out the device and practically says 'pay attention audience, this will be important later!'

But what I want to know is why does this machine, built ostensibly to deliver an aerosolized cure for bed bugs or whatever (it's New York, right?) have a 'countdown to detonation?' Shouldn't it just have an 'on' switch? I mean, it's supposed to be a piece of medical equipment, yet it comes equipped with a dramatic tension-inducing countdown timer for no goddamn reason.

"Thank you for choosing the Oscorp Asthmax 3000. Detonation
of life saving medication in your mouth will be commence in two minutes..."

Above: No.

So yeah, like I said, TAS (the amazing acronym) is a good comic book movie. The re-hashy plot and brain-meltingly stupid weaponized lizard-o-matic don't really ruin it, they just make me wonder how much better it could have been if they'd just tried a little harder to be different from every other comic adaptation of the last 20 years. Look, as a nerd I have a moral obligation to find fault in everything, so take my complaining with a grain of salt. Also, let's not overlook the fact that the film contains absolutely no Bono whatsoever. None.