The Amazing Spider-Man Duology
With Spider-Man: No Way Home being released this week, I decided to take a look back at the live-action Spider-Man movies we have seen thus far. This upcoming entry into the franchise is slated to be something HUGE as it will have characters from different film universes crossing over to interact with each other. So why not take a look at each of those franchises and discuss what made them good and bad? So this week for three days I will look at the individual franchises and review them as a whole and give individual rankings for each film. Today we will slog our way through the worst of the three Spider-Man franchises. starring the adorkable couple of Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone! The Amazing Spider-Man and The Amazing Spider-Man 2. Let’s take a look at them!
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Director: Marc Webb
Writer: Alvin Sargent, Steve Kloves, Alex Kurtzman, Roberto Orci, Jeff Pinkner, James Vanderbilt, Stan Lee (original author), Steve Ditko (original author)
Starring: Andrew Garfield, Emma Stone, Sally Field, Jamie Foxx, Dane DeHaan, Rhys Ifans, Martin Sheen, Irrfan Khan, Dennis Leary, Campbell Scott, Embeth Davidtz, Paul Giamatti, Felicity Jones
Reason for watching: Rewatching all the Spider-Man franchises before Spider-Man: No Way Home comes out this week
Number of times I’ve watched it: I don’t think I have seen either of these movies since their release
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The first things anyone needs to know when discussing these two Spider-Man movies is how they came into being. After the success of his trilogy, director Sam Raimi was trying to come up with a good script for a fourth Spider-Man film, but he was not able to come up with a great script in time to meet the deadline. So along comes a Spider-Man reboot! And not too long after its predecessor either as The Amazing Spider-Man was released in 2012.. Honestly, how quickly this entire franchise came into existence after the last one was cut off really speaks to the quality that was put out here in my opinion, but we will get to that later. I have to be honest, guys. I have very little positive to say about these two movies. Less so the first entry than the second, but I cannot get fired up talking about these as much as I do the Raimi trilogy. But I am going to try.
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First things first when it comes to a Spider-Man movie, we have got to ask ourselves, how good is the actor playing Spider-Man himself? Sadly, the answer here is not that good. From the moment Andrew Garfield shows up on screen as Peter Parker he starts overdoing everything. Parker is supposed to be a nervous guy, so he immediately starts twitching and stuttering up a storm. Later when he is actually in the Spider-Man suit, he tries to come across as confident and playful but just sounds like a jackass when he is talking smack to thugs and criminals. The physical acting here really does not help either as the constant twitching and moving that Garfield does really distracts us from watching the movie.
The story itself is fairly interesting as it centers around Peter’s growth into taking responsibility for the duties he has as someone with great power. Spider-Man grows and becomes a better person as the story goes on, eventually taking down a threatening villain in the Lizard. But where the story succeeds with our titular hero, it fails with our villain. Dr. Curt Conners/ Lizard (Rhys Ifans) within minutes goes from a motivated scientist to a nut job who only wants to turn NYC into a city of lizards. He has some stereotypical reasoning like wanting to prevent others from feeling the pain he felt of living life without an arm, but we barely get any more development from him.
The rest of the cast is alright. I enjoy the chemistry between Gwen Stacy (Emma Stone) and Peter, as their dialogue and scenes together give us more opportunity to be endeared to Spider-Man himself. Plus, Stone can make any character fun. Sally Field and Martin Sheen do well as Aunt May and Uncle Ben, but their screen time is limited. Finally, Dennis Leary adds some weight as Gwen’s protective father, captain Stacy; and his final scene with Peter before he dies is touching. Garfield’s poor performance is definitely helped by his supporting team.
I cannot speak highly of the fight scenes particularly near the end of the movie when the darkness of night distracts us from actually seeing what’s going on some of the time. But the school fight between Spidey and the Lizard is exciting enough. The new costume for the wall crawler looks a bit off to me, but I appreciate the design team trying something new.
Another part of this movie that merits discussion is the world building. The movie introduces us to Peter Parker’s parents in the prologue and throughout the story, we get hints to their ongoing influence in Peter’s life. Plus this movie is just lousy with references to other important Spider-Man foes like the Green Goblin. For a first movie, it is interesting and not too overwhelming. But by the second movie, things will have changed a bit.
The Amazing Spider-Man tries hard to create its own world and the supporting cast succeeds quite a bit in keeping us going. But in the end, none of it is done well enough for me to really enjoy it.
5/10 for The Amazing Spider-Man. Onto the next one.
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Man, this one is a stinker! Keep in mind, I am trying to write these reviews close to after I’ve watched the movie to keep it fresh in mind. I went into this viewing hoping to be pleasantly surprised by The Amazing Spider-Man 2 more than my first viewing a couple years ago, but the movie just tries to do way too much for me to be invested in any of the plots.
First of all, I could not care less about whether or not Peter and Gwen are together. They were at the end of the last movie even though her dead dad wished they stayed apart, but only NOW is Peter starting to feel guilty about breaking his promise to dead Captain Stacy. So Petey ends things with Gwen. Fine. Seems mature enough. But then he feels sick without her so he follows her around, and she is not immediately turned off by this when he confesses to the stalking. Probably a bad decision by her, but you know, to each their own. Young love does things to you. Then he almost screws up her college scholarship to Oxford by begging her to stay in New York even though he has not talked to her since he admitted to the stalking. And then by the end of the movie, Peter decides he is going with Gwen to England and she is psyched about this!!! What??!! Who thought this would make Peter Parker endearing? It makes him seem obsessive and controlling. That’s not my friendly neighborhood Spidey!
Plus on top of this, we have to deal with the origin story of Electro (Jamie Foxx), who goes from an over-the-top nerd who loves Spidey to a revenge-centered villain who is hell-bent on Spidey’s destruction. And then we have Dane Dehaan as Harry Osborn as just the pettiest man in the world who becomes some bizarre version of the Green Goblin. By the way, the design for this version of Gobby just makes him look like a crack head who got into some green spray paint. The action sequences have some nice longer takes, but when it gets into slow-mo mode it feels like we are watching a Zach Snyder movie, and I cannot handle that much slow-mo.
AND THEN THEY HAD THE AUDACITY TO KILL OFF GWEN STACY!!! THESE ABSOLUTE IDIOTS!!
I understand that Gwen Stacy actually dies in the comic books at the hands of the Green Goblin and partially because of Spider-Man and that racks him with guilt and motivates him, but that is not the point. These lunatic writers thought it would be a good idea to boot one of the most charismatic young actresses in Emma Stone off of their movies. Her chemistry with Garfield is one of the few saving graces of this duology. It is an abominable decision, and hilariously stupid in retrospect for the bafoons behind this movie to think they were going to get a sequel after they tried something like that.
3/10. Just terrible, man.
It felt like such a chore to watch these two movies. Sitting through Andrew Garfield’s sputtering and stuttering and that ridiculous sequel just drove me crazy.
Until I watch another Spider-Man Series.