so first and foremost let me just say upfront that i am, like, the BIGGEST mark for nostalgia bait. i love it. i eat it up. i fully admit i am Part Of The Problem. will i apologize for this? absolutely not. let's talk spider-man.
I have, over the last week of so, been chipping away at the webhead's 20+ years now of cinematic history. "Why?" you may ask. Well the reason is because I really wanted to watch the Spider-Verse movies again but then had the thought of "What if I watched every Spider-Man movie, including spinoffs?" and once that took hold, well, it was all over for me. I just barely managed to convince myself to leave Civil War, Infinity War, and Endgame off the list for the sake of my own sanity.
It's been a bit of a rollercoaster, quality-wise. I actually made the conscious decision this time to watch the Editor's Cut of Spider-Man 3 (instead of accidentally watching it like I did last time) and quite liked it. Honestly recommend giving it a try, it moves a little quick in the final act but there's a fair bit of unnecessary chaff that gets cut out and gives the characters a bit more personal agency.
But mostly I'm here to talk about what I think I'm coming around on as my favorite live-action version of Spider-Man: Andrew Garfield's Amazing Spider-Man.
Okay look just-- jsut hear me out okay
On "The Amazing Spider-Man"
Something that gets thrown around a lot is that Tobey Maguire was a great Peter Parker but that Andrew Garfield was a better Spider-Man, and vice versa. And it's honestly true; Maguire definitely embodied the sort of dork nerd that Peter Parker is supposed to be, but snarky wisecracking sounds a bit more natural coming from Andrew Garfield's version of the character. This ends up sort of affecting each character's alter ego as well, where Tobey's Spider-Man sounds like a dork nerd when he makes jokes (which is honestly fine, it's charming) and Andrew's Peter Parker is a bit less believable as some sort of social outcast (he's "cooler," i guess would be the best way to put it).
The director, Mark Webb (who i have to believe was at least PARTIALLY hired because of his name), was mostly a music video director prior to this, with his first film credit being the considerable lower-budget romantic comedy-drama sleeper hit 500 Days of Summer. This experience shows, with a number of licensed music sequences breaking up the super-heroics and Peter and Gwen's budding relationship. There's also a focus on drama in the first film, casting the life of the wallcrawler in a more serious light with aspects like its portrayal of Uncle Ben's death, the conflict with Captain Stacey that ultimately leads to his death as well, and the "regular citizens coming together to help Spider-Man win the day" moment that's supposed to be, like, uplifting and heartwarming, but never quite hits the same emotional high as the bridge scene in Raimi Spider-Man 1 or the train scene in its sequel.
That being said, even if the tonal shift from the charmingly goofy nature of the Raimi movies isn't your thing, there's a fair bit to like here. Emma Stone's Gwen Stacey is great and her chemistry with Garfield's Peter Parker is really well done! The webshooters flashing red when they're activated is a neat little visual and kind of fun to notice when you're looking for it! Spider-Man and Lizard's battle through the halls of the school is great! It also establishes this Peter's mechanical knowhow by showing us the process of him developing the webshooters, which is honestly one of my favorite aspects of this version of Spider-Man.
Honestly, it's a serviceable film. Not great, but not awful or anything.
Oh, as an aside: I tend to see a lot of people talk about the fact that Peter never finds Uncle Ben's killer as if it's a plot hole or something that was going to be picked up later, but I feel like that's shortsighted. Like one of the biggest aspects of Spider-Man's story is learning that he has a responsibility to use his powers for more than personal gain; it's by design that he starts off on a revenge quest and by the time of the bridge scene he realizes that he needs to be more than a vengeance-fueled vigilante. Like that's clearly a conscious decision. But hey, if you're that bummed by it you could always go play the Amazing Spider-Man 2 tie-in game where Uncle Ben's killer gets murdered by Cletus Kasady.
On "The Amazing Spider-Man 2"
Non-controversial take: ASM2 is not the best Spider-Man movie.
Possibly controversial take: ASM2 is probably the most fun.
Amazing Spider-Man 2 is kind of a wild movie. The MCU had only just recently begun its dive into Phase 2, so ASM2 was really our earliest example of how bad it can go when you try to force a cinematic universe (BvS is about 2 years out at this point). Part of me wonders if maybe a second pass in editing could help sort it out, similar to what they did with Spider-Man 3, but who can really say at this point? Maybe give it to Topher Grace to work on in his downtime.
I'd say that, beyond the cinematic universe shoehorning, one of the big things that holds the movie back is its inconsistent tone. Like you pingpong between some of the best live-action Spider-Man scenes we've gotten to the drama of Peter torn between wanting to be with Gwen and wanting to respect her father's last wishes to Electro's whole deal being that he's a dude with a parasocial relationship with Spider-Man to Harry Osborne is DYING you guys!! and it's just all over the place. Not to mention Gwen going to London, Peter's investigation into what happened to his parents, Aunt May's feelings of inadequacy, etc etc. There is just Way Too Much.
Even still, there's a lot to like. The film feels brighter and more colorful than its predecessor. I genuinely kind of like this characterization of Electro! The music is really good, I genuinely love Electro's theme sort of representing his own intrusive thoughts. As goofy as the Harry Osborne plot thread gets, Dane DeHaan and Andrew Garfield do seem to play off each other like really good friends in their scenes together. And of course Gwen and Peter still have great chemistry, making Gwen's foreshadowed death still feel incredibly tragic, even if we knew it was coming. Oh, and more garage scientist Peter as well as he tried to figure out how to Electro-proof his web shooters.
Unfortunately, the aforementioned issues kept ASM2 from doing well critically. Combined with leaked emails from Sony implying they were going to move ahead with their Spidey cinematic universe but somehow find a way to cut Andrew Garfield out completely, general opinion of the Amazing Spider-Man duology was not great. So we end on Peter finding his resolve to move on in the wake of Gwen's death and a boatload of Sinister Six sequel hooks we'll probably never see resolved.
On "Spider-Man: No Way Home"
Alright so when they revealed that Jamie Foxx's Electro was coming back along with a slew of other previous Spidey film villains, it was clear we were basically getting a live-action Spider-Verse and I was really, REALLY hoping we'd get Andrew Garfield back for some much-needed closure.
And let me just say, AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA.
Re-composing myself, there's a boatload of criticisms you could make about the MCU Spidey movies. Most of them are criticisms you could make of the MCU in general, really. Over-reliance on CG to an almost comical degree, constant self-referential wink-at-the-audience moments, I could go on. Like, nothing that Spider-Man 3 or Amazing Spider-Man 2 could have done is worse than MCU Spider-Man inventing the phrase "Peter tingle." I promise you won't be uncool for just fucking calling it spider-sense.
With that in mind, I genuinely find No Way Home to be the strongest of the MCU Spider-Man films. I think the drama is really well done, the stakes of Spider-Man refusing to send the villains back to their home dimensions to die is great, and I think it's probably Tom Hollands best performance as Spider-Man, probably because it started moving away from the "Iron Man Jr." plot elements.
But what really pleased me was how it handled bringing Andrew Garfield back. I was never really super invested in Maguire's return; like, it's good to see him, don't get me wrong, but he didn't really have any remaining threads to tie up (and no, the will-they-won't-they nature of he and MJ's relationship isn't a loose thread, it's practically a feature in those films). But when Amazing!Peter started talking about the third movie we never got, about not pulling his punches and getting bitter and how he never found time for romance again, it was all the shit I wanted to hear when he showed up again. And it definitely felt like Garfield was glad to be back in the suit because the movie nails his version of Spidey's characterization, from the way he talks during battle to how he very comfortably works in a lab environment, with the movie going out of its way to highlight him specifically getting all suited up to begin work on the Lizard cure.
And like... does it get everything right? Not really, no. Amazing!Uncle Ben never outright said the "with great power" line in that film, opting instead for something just kind of similar. Amazing!Peter saying Max used to be "the sweetest guy" is a little weird considering Electro's whole thing in that movie was that he had a parasocial relationship with Spider-Man. On a less focused note, there's no way Doc Ock and Sandman could have known Norman Osborne was Green Goblin or that he got impaled on his own glider.
But really, I can forgive all that because honestly it's not that big of a deal, like I don't think it improves the story if these errors are fixed, and also because then they had Amazing!Peter save a falling MJ in a clear parallel to the death of Gwen and I got emotional over it, okay? My man gets CLOSURE.
I know that in the wake of No Way Home there were calls to make Spider-Man 4 or Amazing Spider-Man 3 and while personally I don't think I'd say no to either of those, I think I might be good, honestly. I think No Way Home wrapped up Amazing Spider-Man's story as best it could and we don't necessarily need a return to it. Mostly because I think it'd just be a hype train hopping cash grab.
...though if they want to reveal that any of these spinoffs they're making just happen to take place in the Amazing universe, I wouldn't say no. Maybe not Morbius. Wouldn't mind Venom. I'd accept Madame Web. Kraven'd be tricky since you've already got the Rhino but I'm willing to accept a little fudging.