10 Trends That Are Killing Movies

5. Reboots

I nearly choked on my drink when I found out that we were getting another Spider-Man film that wasn't called Spider-Man 4. Even when negotiations fell through with Sam Raimi and Tobey Maguire, surely it made sense to quickly cast someone else in the role and just get on with establishing a new performer as Peter Parker? Instead, we're taken back to the drawing board; a mere decade after Raimi's silly vision flashed onto our screens, it has been crassly rebooted as The Amazing Spider-Man, one of the laziest and most infuriating mainstream releases of 2012. Here's a film that is openly mocking its audience, because it doesn't even do the sensible thing and try to take a different angle on Peter Parker's origin, like, say, already have him be Spider-Man and just get on with telling a story. Instead, we have to sit through the same origin story - this time dragged out to an hour of screen time - in the most laborious detail imaginable. What is the point in showing us everything we've already seen? Either change the story - and risk annoying fanboys the world over - or just don't bother and start with him as Spider-Man. It's a terrible trend and suggests that either a) audiences are idiots with short memories or b) studios think we're idiots with short memories.