‘Dark Knight Rises’ review and spoilers

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I didn’t expect to like “The Dark Knight Rises” as much as I did.

The conclusion to director Christopher Nolan’s Batman saga – and make no mistake, this is a conclusion, as well as a new beginning – has sounded a little frustrating from the word go. Nolan’s well-known aversion to the more comic-bookish aspects of the Batman legend has irritated me a bit. Sometimes his decision to play it realistic worked quite well (Heath Ledger’s Joker). Sometimes it just seemed like a case of an embarrassed auteur ashamed to be playing around with comic books.

“Batman Begins” worked in Nolan’s realistic world, particularly as it established the mechanics of how a driven billionaire would become a street-fighting vigilante. “The Dark Knight” elaborated on that premise and at times seemed more like a gritty heist and robbery cop movie than a superhero movie. But it worked.

“The Dark Knight Rises,” as everyone knows by now, opens eight years after Batman has been framed for the murder of District Attorney Harvey Dent. As we saw at the end of “The Dark Knight,” Batman and Commissioner Jim Gordon agreed that to martyr Dent, who had slipped into madness and become Two Face, and make Batman a criminal was the best way to bring peace to Gotham City.

In the new movie, Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) has become a recluse with bad knees, coming out of the rebuilt Wayne Manor only when Bane (Tom Hardy) attacks the Gotham Stock Exchange and Selina Kyle, a cat burglar with a great shtick, gets mixed up in the action.

At about two hours and 45 minutes, “The Dark Knight Rises” is long but doesn’t feel like it. The movie has some pretty nifty action scenes and some that are uncomfortably similar to the real-life tragedy that took place in Aurora, Colorado, a couple of nights ago. Scenes of Bane’s bad guys walking into crowded rooms and opening fire might make you squirm.

“The Dark Knight Rises” is intense and brutal and definitely not for kids.

So what worked and what didn’t work about the movie?

Spoilers ahead. Seriously.

What worked:

The character relationships. Alfred and Bruce. Batman and Jim Gordon. Even Batman/Bruce’s banter with Anne Hathaway’s Selina Kyle – and her roguish, you’re-never-quite-sure-of her-allegiance stance, which could have been corny but wasn’t – felt just right. So did her badass, “I can do this” attitude.

Batman’s words of wisdom: During the movie, Nolan foreshadows the change that’s coming by showcasing Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s earnest police officer John Blake. I mean, he’s an orphan, for goodness sake. And at one point he discards a gun after killing a man. (He does arm himself later, however.) But of all the telling instances pointing to John Blake’s ultimate destiny, the most interesting is a scene in which Batman tells Blake that he wears a mask not to protect himself but to protect those that he cares about.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt. Oh man, how Nolan kept all of us guessing for months about the role that Gordon-Levitt was playing. Would be be a bad guy? Would he be Robin? Nightwing? Azrael? By the end of the movie, it was obvious Nolan intended for Blake to carry on in Bruce Wayne’s boots. The clincher? Blake’s real name was Robin. And how about the ending in which Blake, working from directions given him by Batman, finds the Batcave and steps on a platform which rises under him? Future Dark Knight Rising, anyone?

Returning characters: Jonathan Crane, AKA Scarecrow, and most importantly Liam Neeson as Ra’s al Ghul, made this feel like a circle-completing movie. I totally understand why Nolan didn’t want to bring the late Heath Ledger back as the Joker even though I’m sure there were many ways he could have done so. Still, seeing Crane and Ra’s al Ghul made me want something … just a little something … to acknowledge the Joker.

The ending. It was obvious that Nolan intended to take his Christian Bale Bruce Wayne/Batman off the chess board before Warner Bros. could sully the character with any Justice League or Batman vs. Superman movies. I didn’t seriously think Nolan would kill Bruce Wayne off, but he did something just as dramatic: He retired him. And, for the most part, it felt right. And it made me glad that they did it in a way that ushered in a new Batman.

What didn’t work:

Batman’s eight-year absence. So after lifelong friend Rachel dies at the hands of the Joker in “The Dark Knight,” Bruce – motivated not only by grief but the idea that the law-abiding people of Gotham no longer need him – decides to become a recluse and STOP FIGHTING CRIME? No. No way in the world. The implausibility might have been lessened, to some extent, if we had seen a montage of scenes of Batman up on a fire escape, ready to swoop in if a mugger approached a family in one of Gotham’s most notorious alleys, only to realize he was no longer needed.

And doesn’t Batman’s hiatus contradict one of the premises of this movie? For eight years Gotham has been a peaceful place. So Bane traps most of Gotham PD underground (and don’t even get me started on how stupid it was to send all the cops – all of them – into the sewers) and the peaceful people of Gotham City decide to riot?

Bane. It’s a sign of how strong the rest of “The Dark Knight Rises” is that the movie works despite the fact that Bane is the weakest villain of the three movies. Even the Scarecrow was a better character. Sure, Bane is a tough guy and a good fighter. But Ledger’s Joker gleefully killed guys like that in “The Dark Knight.” And having Liam Neeson return as Ra’s al Ghul, even in a dream sequence and in the person of a good younger double, just emphasized how much more interesting his character was compared to Bane.

Tom Hardy. Sorry, Tom. How many ways did you detract from this movie? Maybe it was the truly bizarre mask. Or the fact that you’re just not big enough to be Bane. Or maybe, just maybe, it was the bizarre accent that too often sounded like, as some Internet wit pointed out, Darrell Hammond’s hilarious impersonation of Sean Connery on those old “Saturday Night Live” takeoffs on “Jeopardy.”

“The Dark Knight Rises” was a good finale to Nolan’s Batman tale. He did a good job and made the character memorable. Now I’m ready for some Marvel Comics-style universe building for the DC comics movie universe.

iPhoneography: Drizzly D.C.

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It was raining, or threatening to rain, most of the time I was in Washington, D.C., a couple of days ago. I was there for an awards ceremony, with work and home obligations bookending the trip, and there wasn’t a lot of time to waste.

I managed to see a few sights and take a few pictures with my iPhone. There’s nothing you haven’t seen before by thousands of other, better photographers. There’s something interesting about the city’s many monuments and buildings when it’s raining, however.

I never got near the U.S. Capitol, unfortunately. I checked out the White House from all sides but it was the least interesting building I saw.

I’m guessing that, in this post-9-11 world, Pennsylvania Avenue will never be reopened. It’s a shame, in a way, that you can’t buzz past the White House on your way somewhere (unless you’re on foot or on a bike). But the closed street makes for some nice photo opportunities.

One of the most mind-boggling, purely in terms of size, buildings I saw was the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, named after the former president but originally the headquarters of the nation’s military commanders when it was built in the late 1800s. My picture can’t do justice to its size. It is truly mammoth.

The Lincoln Memorial is majestic, of course.

The juxtaposition of the memorial to the Washington Monument and the reflecting pool makes it the most memorable place in D.C. The pool was drained for repairs while I was there, unfortunately.

Perhaps the most moving memorial in D.C. is the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, including the Wall, designed by Maya Lin and featuring the names of more than 58,000 soldiers killed in Vietnam.

The rain only seemed to make the day more appropriate for viewing the wall.

Another element of the Vietnam War memorial is the statue of three soldiers.

The statue is realistic and hauntingly beautiful.

New ‘Man of Steel’ trailer: Huh?

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My first reaction when I saw this weekend’s “Man of Steel” trailer for Zack Snyder’s revisiting of the Superman franchise was that it didn’t look like a trailer for a “Superman” film.

What is this, Zack Snyder and Chris Nolan’s big-screen version of “The Deadliest Catch?”

If you haven’t seen the trailer, the preview is filled with shots of foggy landscapes, a kid running around in the yard outside his house and a bearded guy hitchhiking and working on a fishing boat. (The bearded guy, of course, is Henry Cavill, the star.)

Only at the end, after the “Man of Steel” title, do we get a “Chronicle”-like glimpse of Superman streaking through the sky, breaking the sound barrier.

The trailer raises a lot of questions, most of them about the choices Warner Bros., Nolan and Snyder have made about the movie and how they’re going to market it.

Why, why, why another retelling of the story from the beginning? Are filmmakers unable to resist the mythology of the death of Krypton and Clark’s Smallville years? Haven’t we seen this already, more than enough times?

Are they playing the “Amazing Spider-Man” game? The makers of that recent movie tried hard to convince us there was an untold story to Peter Parker’s parents and his origin. There really wasn’t one. Is the point of this movie (and trailer) to create the impression that the few early scenes in which Clark struggles with the decision about what to do with his powers are as important as what he does later? Isn’t that a dangerous game considering we all KNOW what he does later? Wouldn’t that be like devoting half of a movie to Sherlock Holmes’ dithering about whether to become a detective or a blacksmith?

Who is Clark imitating? When Clark is running around his yard using a red towel for a cape, who is he imitating? Really? In Nolan’s one-superhero world, why would young Clark possibly be wearing a cape before he becomes Superman? And are we supposed to believe that the down-home Kansas Kents would have red bath towels?

Wait, Superman can fly? Really, the build-up in the trailer is to a shot of Superman flying? Is that considered the most impact-full image of Superman they can present? Or a feeble attempt to reassure us that, yes, all that pretty but meandering footage we’ve already shown you is from a Superman movie.

I’ll go see this next May, despite this seriously bungled early marketing attempt and my misgivings, previously noted, about the “edgy” tack they’re apparently taking.

But so far I don’t have a good feeling about “Man of Steel.”

iPhoneography: County fair carnival rides

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What would summer be without a county fair? The fair gives us food that’s good and bad for us, carny games and carnival rides – and an opportunity for iPhone photos.

Here’s a look at this week’s Delaware County Fair, held in Muncie, Indiana.

The last couple of hours of daylight and the onset of twilight is my favorite time to take carnival pictures. You’ve got enough light to get some details but a strong source of light to make for dramatic backlighting. Then, within a few minutes, the sky darkens enough to create beautiful artificial lighting photos.

Here’s another shot of the Yo-Yo.

 

The Ferris wheel is always a favorite.

 

The Freak Out looks very different by day …

… and night.

Gotta love the games, including the ever-popular balloon-busting ones.

And the prizes. When I took this, a young woman operating the game said, “Are you taking a picture of my crabs?”

Night falls on the midway.

 

‘Dark Knight Rises’ spoilers? We’ll know soon

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I haven’t yet seen “The Dark Knight Rises” and I won’t even see it when it opens Friday because of a prior commitment. So almost everyone reading this will know before I do if there’s any truth to the spoilers circulating in the last couple of days.

In other words, keep in mind I have no idea if these spoilers are true. But based on what I’m reading, at least some of them are pretty accurate.

Oh yeah – SPOILERS!

The movie’s ending indicates more adventures of the Dark Knight are going to happen. We already know Warner Bros. wants to reboot the character after Christopher Nolan finishes his trilogy. The studio would love to build to a billion-dollar Justice League movie.

So after months of speculation that Joseph Gordon-Levitt would inherit the Batmantle in this movie … early indications sure make it sound like that happens, at least in some respects. Some reviews have outright said the ending sets up an “offshoot” movie, which certainly makes it sound like a continuation that isn’t another movie about Bruce Wayne.

A villain returns … but not the one you might think. Although the Joker survived “The Dark Knight,” Heath Ledger’s untimely death made it impossible for him to make even a small appearance in the movie. Rumors persisted that Nolan would include Ledger nonetheless, perhaps through unused footage or CGI.

Nolan is saying this week that Ledger is not in the new movie in any form. But early indications are that Cillian Murphy returns as the Scarecrow for at least one scene.

Batman bites the dust? Considering that in the comics Bane breaks Batman’s back and puts him out of commission for a while, everybody expected something dire to happen in this movie.

But I’m thinking David Letterman was kidding when, in a recent interview with Anne Hathaway (Selina Kyle in the movie), he says that Batman gets killed. Anyone who watches Letterman – who, during his days as a weatherman in Indianapolis forecast “hail the size of canned hams” – knows that’s typical of his humor.

I do believe that “The Dark Knight Rises” brings Bruce Wayne’s story to an end. I just don’t think the movie kills him off.

We’ll see this Friday. Well, at least some of us will.

 

 

New Comic Con images: ‘Guardians of the Galaxy,’ ‘Man of Steel’

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The news was coming out of San Diego Comic Con faster than a speeding bullet tonight.

The Warner Bros. panel, according to online reports, included footage of Zack Snyder’s “Man of Steel,” the latest Warners/DC reboot of Superman.

The company also released a new teaser poster showing Henry Cavill as Supes:

The Marvel Films panel had some interesting news, including some titles: “Thor: The Dark World” for November 2013; “Captain America: The Winter Soldier” for April 2014 and “Guardians of the Galaxy” for August 2014.

Those follow the previously announced “Iron Man 3” for May 2013.

The “Winter Soldier” portion of the next Cap title would lead fans to expect that Bucky, Cap’s sidekick who “died” in the first movie, will be back. That’s because in the comics, after an absence of several decades, Bucky returned as the Winter Soldier, an assassin trained and maintained in youthful form by the Soviets.

“Guardians of the Galaxy” is an even more interesting turn of events that has, so far this evening, split fan opinion online.

The movie has been predicted for a few weeks now since Thanos, Marvel’s cosmic villain, showed up at the end of “The Avengers.” The Guardians, who have been around in one form or another since the 1960s, are longtime enemies of Thanos.

As another superhero team for Marvel movie-making besides the Avengers, they make as much sense as anything and are a more likely group in some ways than the Inhumans (fan fave characters who might have too many ties to the Fantastic Four for Marvel’s film arm to have the rights to) or the Defenders (which has included, over the years, such off-limits characters as the Silver Surfer and already-familiar ones like the Hulk).

Yet “Guardians” feels like a risk because it is cosmic in scope – a concept that was tested in “The Avengers” but still feels pretty disconnected from the “reality” established in Marvel’s movies so far – and because the characters are an unusual bunch, including Rocket Raccoon.

It’ll be interesting to see who Marvel chooses to helm “Guardians” and what direction the movie takes.

 

Comic cons: What I miss (and don’t miss)

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So I’m sitting here and watching G4’s coverage of San Diego Comic Con – and also checking out some of the best comments on Twitter – and once again thinking, “Wow, I wish I was there.”

Followed quickly by another thought: “Wow, I’m glad I’m not there.”

I’ve never been to Comic Con but I’ve had a lot of experience at lesser cons from Chicago to Cleveland to Indianapolis to Denver. I’ve stood in line for speakers and autographs and snaked through the dealers room.

Some of my most vivid memories are attending “Star Wars” Celebrations when they were every-three-years events timed to coincide with the release of the prequels. The first was in Denver in 1999 at a decommissioned military base. Outside at a military base. In rain and sleet. At some point when we were standing in line in the cold mud to get into an event, my friend Andy said he was glad it was me who was with him and not his wife. “I’d already be divorced by this point,” he said.

Anyway, here’s some of the best – and worst – about convention-going.

The best:

The sense of community. During a comic convention – and the same goes for science fiction conventions – take a look around. There’s anywhere from a few hundred to several thousand people around you and they all love the same thing. Okay, maybe they’re not all fanatics about Famous Monsters of Filmland or Flash Gordon serials or vintage issues of The Flash. But they’re like-minded enough about some fannish thing to turn out in numbers and geek out.

The sense of excitement. It’s hard to be blase about that comic, movie or TV show when you sit through a convention hall presentation about it, hearing not only the words of the creative team but also the energy and expectation of other fans.

The costumes. A lot of fans get frustrated that much of the news media coverage of conventions focuses on geeks in costumes. While I’m writing this, G4 is interviewing Damon Lindlof as he stands in front of a bunch of guys in “Predator” costumes. No reason, why? But costumes add a lot of visual appeal to conventions, and I’m not talking about just the several dozen Slave Leias at every con. One of my favorites of all time? An Elvis stormtrooper.

The dealers room. Oh man, I’ve spent a lot of money in convention dealers rooms over the decades. Movie posters, magazines, comic books, DVDs. You can find almost anything in some dealers rooms. I bought the original script for the Tim Burton “Batman” movie at a convention. Dealers rooms are an opportunity to find things you never expected and never knew existed. One tip: Bring a lot of cash.

Briefly, a few things I don’t miss about convention-going:

The overwhelming crowds. I’m not inclined to freak out in big crowds. A few years of attending Mardi Gras in New Orleans will cure almost anybody of crowd phobia. But really big conventions will test your tolerance for elbow-to-elbow people.

The obliviousness of people. This is the extension of the overwhelming crowds scenario. I can’t count the number of times I was stopped cold in a convention hall or dealers room aisle by some oblivious guy who didn’t realize there were, I don’t know, a thousand people lined up behind him, also trying to get through the crowd.

The … shall we say … hygiene issues of some fans. ‘Nuff said.

 

New ‘Fantastic Four’ on the way; what we want to see

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Timed in part to generate buzz on the floor of San Diego Comic Con, 20th Century Fox has announced that Josh Trank, who brought a new approach to the superhero origin movie with “Chronicle,” will direct the studio’s reboot of the “Fantastic Four” movie series.

Well, everyone is guessing it’s a reboot. But it’s unlikely that Jessica Alba and Chris Evans will be taking a third turn as the Storm siblings.

I wasn’t bitterly, bitterly disappointed with the 2005 “Fantastic Four” movie and its 2007 sequel, “Rise of the Silver Surfer.” I was just bitterly disappointed. Only one bitterly there.

That’s because the FF are second only to – and maybe equal to – The Avengers as the favorite Marvel Comics of my childhood.

Getting everything about the FF right for a “Fantastic Four” movie won’t be an easy task, especially with so many fans suspecting that the new flick is just Fox’s way of keeping a handle on the characters so the title won’t revert to Marvel and the characters and their storylines won’t become part of Marvel’s born-and-bred movie universe.

But Trank generated some good will with “Chronicle,” and he might be up to this task.

Here’s what he needs to do:

Get the tone of the Fantastic Four right: That just about says it all. The book has always been one of Marvel’s offbeat properties. Most of the characters are related to each other or lifelong friends with all the frictions that entails. That means very different relationships than those among “The Avengers” in Joss Whedon’s blockbuster.

Reed Richards is a genius but not an ass. Not most of the time. The brains of the group is a difficult character, probably the most difficult of the foursome. He’s incredibly smart but remote. Imagine Robert Downey Jr.’s Tony Stark without the quips.

Sue Storm has to have something to do. She’s the Invisible Woman! She can … become invisible! (Okay, and also throw force fields and stuff). Sue’s powers must have seemed a lot more special in the early 1960s. Since she’s married to Reed and the sister of Human Torch Johnny Storm, she’s the glue that holds the family together. But she has to do more than look blonde and say, “Johnny! Reed!”

Look at the recent movies for an example of how to handle the Human Torch. Seriously? Yes. One of the few things that the “Fantastic Four” movies got right was Johnny Storm’s irreverent hot shot. He’s a prankster and full of himself. There’s a reason one of his best friends in the comics is that wiseacre Spider-Man.

Ben Grimm. Ben Grimm. Ben Grimm. The Thing is the heart and soul of the Fantastic Four. He’s a rollicking character, a guy who will “clobber” any creature and hurtle toward a threat as huge as Galactus. But Ben is also the most tender-hearted. He’s been dealt a terrible hand in life. Yet he gets right in there and jokes and brawls and fights the bad guys. And a note to Trank: Ben Grimm needs to be taller than the other members of the team. Maybe he doesn’t have to be as big as the Hulk was in “The Avengers,” but he needs to be bigger than he was in the recent movies.

Big scope. BIIIIIIG scope. The Fantastic Four comic was huge in scope, with Earth-threatening menaces like Galactus, fantastic Reed Richards inventions the size of a house and adventures that spanned space and time. I hope they don’t try to do the movie on the cheap.

While I’d like to see the FF in the Marvel movie universe, Trank and Fox might be able to do a lot with the beloved characters in a self-contained movie. If they respect the characters, the concept and the classic storylines, that is.

You shoulda been a superhero: Some inspired ‘Batman’ casting choices

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It’s a guessing game – a match game of sorts – that comic book fans have been playing for decades. Who should play their favorite superheroes and villains in a movie?

With Marvel Comics movies, the casting game is going on, officially and unofficially, in Hollywood and in Everytown, all the time these days. With a couple of Marvel movies in the works, including “Iron Man 3” and “The Wolverine,” and a couple more in the offing – “Guardians of the Galaxy,” maybe? – somebody’s being cast as a Marvel character every few days.

With “The Dark Knight Rises” coming out soon and Warners and DC Comics planning a reboot for the Batman character, I got to thinking about ideal or almost-happened casting for Batman movies in the past. Only one of these falls into that “almost happened” category, though. The rest are just random thoughts that popped into my head over the past couple of decades.

Michael J. Fox as Robin. Okay, wait a minute, wait a minute. Remember the controversy when Michael Keaton was cast as Batman” in Tim Burton’s 1989 movie? Keaton was primarily a comic actor with a receding hairline and not enough chin. But he did a great job.

I know from reading an early draft of the script – more about that another day – that Robin was originally meant to be a character in the movie. So, given the late-1980s period, why not cast 80s star Michael J. Fox as Dick Grayson/Robin? Fox had the right stature, both physically and Hollywood-wise, for the part. He’s quite capable of pulling off a dramatic scene and he might have brought a Burt Ward-style energy to the movie.

Marlon Wayans as Robin. Early in the history of the Tim Burton “Batman” movies, there was talk of a street-wise, “urban” actor being cast as Dick Grayson. There’s a Dick Grayson character in that early script and Wayans, who was 17 when Burton’s movie was released, was set to play the part. Wayans even said in 2009 that he got paid for the role but Burton didn’t include the character. As we all know, Dick Grayson didn’t show up until the third “Batman” movie and by that point was played by future “NCIS” TV star Chris O’Donnell. I wish we’d gotten the chance to see Wayans in the role.

Ray Liotta as the Joker. Liotta is familiar to most of us from “Goodfellas” and other films, but take a look at him above from the 1986 Jonathan Demme movie “Something Wild.” Jeff Daniels plays a mild-mannered guy who falls in with a wild woman played by Melanie Griffith. It’s all fun and games until the woman’s homicidal ex-boyfriend shows up, played by guess who? I remember sitting in the theater in 1986 seeing Liotta’s crazy and scary expressions and thinking, “Damn, this guy would make a good Joker.” He sure would have been more physically intimidating than Jack Nicholson.

Willem DaFoe as the Joker. I liked DaFoe as Norman Osborn in Sam Raimi’s “Spider-Man” movie. I wasn’t crazy about the Goblin outfit, but that’s another story. Anyway. Osborn wasn’t DaFoe’s first opportunity to play a bad guy. Here’s how he looked in Walter Hill’s 1984 action musical “Streets of Fire” as the murderous leader of a biker gang. Look at that face and tell me he wouldn’t be ideal as the Joker.

Armie Hammer as Batman. Or Superman. Everyone knows that DC and Warner Bros. are struggling to get their superhero film franchises off the ground – other than the very standoffish “Dark Knight” movies. They’re planning to reboot the Batman character almost immediately and want to jump-start a “Justice League” movie. (Of course, they’re only about $1.5 billion behind the box office take for “The Avengers.”)

But as fans know, Warners almost got a “Justice League” movie off the ground in 2008. A script was completed, casting had begun and apparently some costume tests were done. I’d like to pause right now to wonder how it’s possible that none of those costume photos have ever been leaked to the web. Anyway. Armie Hammer, later known for “The Social Network,” was cast at Batman before the movie got derailed. Hammer, who’s like seven feet tall, would have worked very well as a young Bruce Wayne. Or a young Clark Kent, for that matter. With Henry Cavill coming next year in “Man of Steel,” it’ll be interesting to see if he figures into future “Justice League” movie plans, if Hollywood will circle back to Hammer or find some virtual unknown for the role. That tactic worked very well with Christopher Reeve.

Secrets of ‘The Amazing Spider-Man’

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Granted, “The Amazing Spider-Man” isn’t loaded with Easter eggs and teasers for the greater Marvel cinematic universe like “Iron Man” and every related Marvel movie since 2008. After all, “Spider-Man” was made by Columbia/Sony and is outside the Marvel movie universe. It’s not building to an “Avengers”-style team-up.

But director Marc Webb and the other makers of “ASM” have thrown a few strands of a larger Spider-Man story – as well as some Easter eggs – into the movie.

There she goes: Did anyone else wince at the scene when Peter, getting ready to fight the Lizard, apologizes to Gwen and tells her he’s about to throw her out a window? He does so, zapping her with a web and lowering her lightly to the ground below. He’s trying to get her out of harm’s way.

The scene was very reminiscent of the famous “Gwen Stacy dies” issues of “The Amazing Spider-Man” comic 121-122, in which the Green Goblin throws Gwen to her death, only to have Spidey catch her with webbing. But Gwen is dead anyway. I think the debate in fandom raged for years about whether the fall or the sudden stop at the end – thanks to Spidey’s webbing – was what killed her.

There’s no way that Webb didn’t realize the significance of throwing Gwen out of a building and catching her with webbing. Had to be an Easter egg – and foreshadowing.

Tip of the hat: I’ll have to look for this Easter egg when I see the movie again, but I’m told there’s a photo of “Community” actor Donald Glover in Peter’s room in “The Amazing Spider-Man.” This is neat because, when the reboot was announced, someone suggested that Glover could play the part. The casting didn’t gain any traction, but now that Spidey in the Ultimate world is African-American, why not do a little universe-blending?

Meet the parents: Much more so than in previous “Spider-Man” movies, “The Amazing Spider-Man” teases about Richard and Mary Parker, Peter’s parents. They’re seen in a flashback at the beginning of the movie and some of the marketing for the film teased “the untold story” of Spidey’s origin. I don’t think the movie really lived up to this hype, but Webb and the screenwriters definitely created some aura of mystery about the Parkers and their connection to Oscorp.

After decades in which they were relatively overlooked in the comics – and their deaths were taken for granted as a mechanism to put Peter in his aunt and uncle’s care – Marvel decided to elaborate on the background of the characters, retconing them as agents of Nick Fury’s SHIELD spy organization. If “Amazing Spider-Man” generates sequels, it’ll be interesting to see how the makers explore the past of the characters – especially since SHIELD is part of the separate Marvel movie universe and theoretically not open to the “Spider-Man” movies.

Who’s the guy? I mentioned this in my earlier review, but the movie’s end credits are interrupted by a scene of Rhys Ifans’ Curt Connors, incarcerated and being visited by a shadowy figure. I assumed this was Norman Osborn, the future Green Goblin.

But a number of sites have since theorized that the character was other Spidey villains as diverse as Electro (flashes of lighting? check) and Mysterio (abrupt appearance and disappearance? check).

Maybe we’ll find out in a sequel.