Sally Field Not a Fan of Amazing Spider-Man Films

11 Comments

1. I totally respect Sally Fields as an actress and provided some truly memorable performances in movies not named Amazing Spider-Man. BD is right that her phoning it in is still better than most. However…

   Sally Field was completely miscast as Aunt May. Rosemary Harris provided a much more mature, “frail” yet an inner toughness that is more in line with the iconic character of Aunt May. A better choice for Aunt May in the Amazing series would have been Hellen Mirren, or someone else of that can pull off the combination.

   I am also in the camp that Martin Sheen was miscast as Uncle Ben. Martin portrays a stronger toughness instead of the more grandfatherly “gentle” Uncle Ben.

   Unfortunately the rebooted Spider-Man series is already been relegated as a disaster and piling on by principal actors only adds to that stigma. It is similar to what happened to Batman in the mid 1990’s, and I hope that someone can find the equivalent of Christopher Nolan to revitalize Spidey. I will wait and see if Marvel can help, but the trailer for Civil War has not provided me any confidence that the “new” Spider-Man will be a game changer.

2. She’s not wrong.

3. Why, “Aunt May”!! Such language!

4. Why I love Sally Field and it isn’t like actors won’t come back a few years or even a year later and say: “I did it as a favor.” or “It paid the bills.” However, you can give some actors almost a line written on a napkin and they can still hit it out of the park and be the only bright thing about a film. Field is that good and I say she was one of the better things about the ASM series, but sadly, hugely under utilized.

5. Field was probably one of the few main actors in ASM1 and ASM2 that wasn’t acting against a green screen or a CGI character. From her viewpoint, she was in a film about a woman raising her nephew after his parents had abandoned him, so at least she could act like she was in a straight drama.

6. Ms. Field is right. She’s a terrific actress, and fully deserved her Oscars for “Norma Rae” (against tough competition from Bette Midler in “The Rose) and “Places in the Heart.” Actors will often do films just to work. We all need a paycheck. But they also know when it’s garbage, even if the film has an enormous budget like Amazing Spider-Man 1 and 2.

7. Both Amazing movies would have greatly benefited from smaller, more personal stories that were character driven. Had Sony backed off and let Marc Webb and co. tell their story, their way, it may have been a different landscape for Spidey in film right now. I’m one of the minority that doesn’t think all things MCU are fried gold, not that there aren’t great films (Iron Man 1, both Cap movies, Guardians, etc.) but the fact Marvel has some say in Spidey now doesn’t fill me with total confidence. Iron Man 2, 3, Thor 2… I’m looking at you. Obviously Sony hasn’t made a great Spider-Man movie since Spider-Man 2, so that’s not exactly a confidence builder either. That said, Tom Holland seems like a good choice, I like the new costume well enough, and maybe, just maybe, Spidey’s supporting cast can get some love in the new films. As #3 mentioned, Sally Field phoning it in is still better than most actors.

8. It’s a shame that she was pretty much wasted as Aunt May given how underutilized the character was in the Amazing franchise. I mean, she had some good scenes, and Field knocked it out of the park, but she was still kinda in the background to Peter’s fixation on his parents and Richard Parker.

9. I thought she delivered a great performance especially with her line, “You’re my boy.” Sally Field phoning it in, is better than a lot of actors.

10. Well, she isn’t wrong. There was a lot of stuff crammed into one movie with ASM2, it was so chaotic. ASM1 was just boring, not to mention it wasn’t much of an “untold story” like Sony promised.

11. She still showed up to work and gave one of the better performances in the Amazing series, especially in the second film.