Is Andrew Garfield's Spider-Man Run Underrated?

When it comes to the character of Spider-Man, we’ve seen it all. From Raimi’s iconic trilogy to the MCU’s more tech-heavy and modern trilogy, there have been some stunning animated films and even a catalogue of disappointing spin-offs which follow characters like Venom, Morbius, and the Craven. We even have the upcoming Madame Web, which promises to deliver yet another mediocre spin-off in Sony’s ongoing attempts to give us Spider-Man movies that don’t feature Spider-Man. But tucked away in the depths of the Spider-Verse is Mark Webb’s 2012 reboot, “The Amazing Spider-Man,” a film that was released just five years after Raimi’s disappointing third installment of the Tobey Maguire era and was marketed to be the untold story of Peter Parker and capture the darker elements of the character and his origins. This, of course, is hot off the success of Christopher Nolan’s “Batman Begins” and “The Dark Knight” films, which added a prestigious touch to the comic book genre and pushed studios to make darker fare out of their own IPs. Now the topic of Andrew Garfield as Spider-Man is one that in recent years has seen somewhat of a resurgence, as Garfield’s appearance in “No Way Home” gave audiences a chance to see him finish his character arc and swing into the sunset one last time. Or was it?

With recent talks online of superhero fatigue and cameo-driven muck, it gets easier and easier to believe that the once-anticipated “Amazing Spider-Man 3” may still be in the cards for fans of Garfield’s take on the web head. But for me, I’m holding out any hype until I’ve gone back into the Marvel vault and taken a proper retrospective look at Mark Webb’s original installments and see how they stack up against the iconic and not-so-iconic films in this ever-expanding library of wall-crawling cinema. “The Amazing Spider-Man” was directed by “500 Days of Summer” director Mark Webb and stars Andrew Garfield as Peter Parker, a teenage orphan living with his aunt and uncle after the death of his parents who gets bitten by a radioactive spider and gains extraordinary superpowers that he’ll use to protect New York from a grave threat. The movie also stars Emma Stone as Gwen Stacy, Martin Sheen and Sally Field as Ben and May, Dennis Leary as Captain Stacy, and of course Rhys Ifans as The Lizard. Now, the plot of this movie is basically a spin on the classic Spider-Man origin but made to be a little more modern and slightly more confusing. See, we’re going to get more into this when the time comes to review the sequel in this series.

But the seed is planted in this movie for Peter’s mom and dad to be much more pivotal in his story, which honestly isn’t really worth talking about because it sucks and it has nothing to do with the rest of the plot, so I don’t know. I’m going to move on from it. So when we’re introduced to Peter, we’re automatically blasted in the face with the idea that this movie is not the same as the previous ones. The character of Peter Parker was mostly faithful in the Raimi films. Tobey Maguire was meek and dorky and had a charming quality of being oddly outdated in tone. I like that, actually. It’s kind of how I imagined Peter Parker would be, but what I wasn’t ready for at the time was a new and cool Peter Parker, who rode a skateboard and had edgy clothes and a chiselled jaw. Andrew Garfield’s take on Peter is not so much a bullied loser, but more of an antisocial sort of too-cool-for-school kind of kid, which rewatching this now feels a little outdated in its own way. For example, both Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield will occasionally mumble lines of dialogue that are difficult to hear, but whereas Tobey’s Peter sounded shy and insecure, Garfield’s Peter sounds more like he’s going for sex.

I’m like kissing you, and the result is that we have a Peter Parker who doesn’t really feel like the one that the masses were familiar with. Now, do I dislike it? No. I think after seeing all three Spider-Man together in “No Way Home,” I have a new appreciation for the differences between each one. A pretty big change is that this movie has Gwen Stacy being Pete’s love interest and there was no MJ to be found. There are plenty of instances in the comics where this is the case, so honestly, not that big of a deal, and even if it was whatever, it’s a welcome change. Emma Stone and Andrew Garfield famously dated between these two movies, and their on-screen chemistry has been widely praised by many who have seen the film. It’s cute for sure, but this movie spends a little too much time getting to the good stuff. There are some pretty good moments in here before Peter gets his powers, but it feels like it takes forever to get to the Spidey stuff. In fact, it’s about an hour into the movie that we finally see the suit, but it’s not until close to the end of the movie that we see Peter really being Spider-Man. See, here’s the thing about Spider-Man. When we think of Peter Parker, we usually picture him being sarcastic, snarky, quippy, and whatever other words go with that attitude, but he’s also usually a good person at heart. Peter’s origin always has the initial anger that comes from Uncle Ben’s death.

I mean, it’s a classic tale, but I think that with this movie, they take the anger a little too far into unlikable territory. Even when Spider-Man is in his early stages, he goofs around with criminals that he takes down and he makes his little jokes and he keeps it lighthearted in tone. But Garfield in this movie really seems more like Flash Thompson than Peter Parker. When he finally goes on his first patrol as Spider-Man, he kind of comes off as mean-spirited and a little bit too much of a dick. Also, his quips aren’t that funny in this scene, which I’ve almost gotten used to after so many cheap MCU jokes in the new trilogy. And while I do like Andrew Garfield as the character much more than I used to, this kind of punk-ass version just, I don’t know, it rubs me the wrong way. You know what I’m saying? However, at about an hour and 15 minutes into the movie when Peter finally gets to display some of the heroics we’ve been desperately waiting for, it is so worth it. So the real antagonistic force in this movie is Doctor Kurt Connors, an Oscorp scientist who specializes in cross-species genetics and uses a serum he developed to grow back his lost arm. Of course, we know the rest, don’t we?

Well, in this untold version, after the serum transforms Connors into a full-blown humanoid reptile, he dons the name The Lizard and plans to administer a serum to everybody in the city that’ll turn New York into giant reptilian monsters. And when Peter has his first showdown with the Lizard on the bridge, we finally get to witness what made Andrew Garfield a good Spider-Man. There

‘s a moment when Spidey either has to pursue the Lizard and stop him or double back and save a little boy who’s stuck in a car. Garfield gives this moment the tenderness that we want from Peter Parker, and the magic of this character is finally restored after over an hour of thinking that our friendly neighbourhood Spider-Man was gone forever. We all know that Garfield’s suit from “The Amazing Spider-Man 2” is one of the best and most iconic suits that the webhead has ever worn. We all love the giant eyes, the classic colors and textures, and the homemade look of it all. But the costume in this movie, that’s a different story. OK, look, we’ve all heard the jokes. Yeah, it looks like a basketball. The yellow-tinted eyes look stupid. The shoes are really weird. The whole thing just does not look like Spider-Man. So with the ugly costume out of the way, let’s talk about the controversial design of the villain. See, I don’t think this movie is as bad as the people who hate it say, and I don’t think that it’s quite the masterpiece that others think it is. But one thing that I’m quite firm on is that the character design in these movies does not help.

Of course, the designs in the next installment would improve on Spidey, but we also got the odd choice to make Electro look like Mr. Freeze and the Rhino look like this. I just die. You want to come down there? You can kill me. Yes, and Mark Webb is a good director, but one thing that requires a lot of care and attention when you make a Spider-Man film is the look of Spider-Man, and that includes his villains. The design of the Lizard isn’t completely hopeless, but the round head and face kind of make him look more cute than scary. The scene where Lizard tracks Peter down and has a massive destructive battle in the school with Spider-Man might be my favorite scene in the movie aside from the bridge scene. I love the combat, I love the movements, the chaos, The performance from Garfield as he kind of quips around all of this shit is awesome, but it takes way too long to be in the movie. In fact, the final battle of this movie is also pretty good and while the story only gets worse, the CGI and special effects are very impressive. Sony special effects in Spider-Man films have always been hit or miss depending on the budget and scope of the film, but when they nail it, they really nail it and they deliver on good-looking images. That feeling is as real as they possibly can.

So Spidey takes down the Lizard after Captain Stacy dies on the job and Peter swears to break things off with Gwen Stacy to protect her from his new life as a super-powered vigilante, which lasts for about 5 minutes until he changes his mind and then the movie ends. But then we get a post-credit scene that teases Peter’s father as a more important element in the story. Oh, at the end of the day, this movie is a mixed bag for me. But I must say that knowing what we know now and after all the later Spider-Man films we’ve gotten, this movie is more than a forgotten reboot. It’s a modern spin on a classic character and it speaks to the Spidey lovers of the ultimate Spider-Man era and gives a bold new design to the rogues and villains in this beloved universe. If you’re in the mood for a throwback that has some good and some bad and some ugly, this is ultimately a good time. So watch 2012’s “The Amazing Spider-Man.”