Marc Webb's Spider-Man Duology

We've reached the next step in my Spider-Man review series in the lead-up to the release of No Way Home. Now, I'm going to share my thoughts on the two Marc Webb Spider-Man films that were released over the course of...three years. I find that I am always much more interested to hear people's thoughts on these films since they seem so unique in the scope of the superhero genre. By now, the MCU was widely successful and just finishing its first phase of films, but Spider-Man was still owned by Sony, so that's why the character stayed in his own universe for these two films. I find this interesting because it's clear that Sony believed in the character and they really wanted to have a successful franchise of their own, but something went wrong along the way. Here, I will *attempt* to analyze why this series was so short-lived, but more importantly, why it should have gone on longer.

Let's begin!

Disclaimer: These reviews will have spoilers in them so this will be the only warning if you haven't seen them and don't want anything revealed.

The Amazing Spider-Man (2012)

Watched on November 23, 2021.

Unlike the Sam Raimi Spider-Man movies, I'll be reviewing these two movies a little differently. Instead of separating all of my thoughts into my likes, dislikes, and things I was more mixed on, I'll instead just combine all of my thoughts into one section but I'll try to stick to one topic per paragraph since I had more to say about this movie than I thought I would.

First and foremost, I think I just need to put it out there. I like Andrew Garfield as Spider-Man better than Tobey Maguire. Obviously this sort-of thing is subjective, and I can understand why a lot of people prefer Tobey's interpretation of the character, but I just connected with the character more here. One thing I do typically hear when people talk about Andrew is that they believe that he was a better Spider-Man, but Tobey was a better Peter Parker. While I did love Tobey as Peter, I don't think that Andrew was way worse as Peter in any way (and in some ways, he might be better). One theory that some have is that audiences might have thought that Andrew already seemed cool before he was Spider-Man (whereas Peter Parker is typically portrayed as an outcast), but I didn't really see this. Strangely, I think that it might have something to do with Andrew being taller than Tobey and Tom Holland, but I don't think that 5'10 compared to 5'7 is a significant difference (and it probably wouldn't even look that different if they were standing next to each other on screen). That's just one explanation I could think of though. Regardless, I think that Andrew actually did fill the role of Peter well, he just focused more on being socially introverted rather than being outright bullied by his peers. I've also seen some people point to his stuttering as a little stiff, but I thought it was fine as a character choice and I honestly don't remember him stuttering that much. As for his portrayal of Spider-Man, I vastly prefer it to Tobey's. Again, this comes down to preference, but I always liked when Spider-Man was a little more jokey/quippy when fighting crime because I feel like it gives me a sense that he genuinely enjoys being Spider-Man. It also provides a nice contrast between Peter (who is a little more quiet) versus Spider-Man, so Andrew did a really great job at that.

Another character that I had much stronger feelings about compared to the original trilogy was Gwen Stacy. As I said in the last post, I didn't dislike Gwen Stacy in Spider-Man 3, but she wasn't too important in that movie anyways since it had so much going on. Because of this, I'll mainly be comparing this movie's Gwen Stacy to Mary Jane from the original movies since they are both playing the role of the main love interest for Peter. In this case, I love Emma Stone. Not just in this movie, but in stuff like Easy A and The Favourite she is really charming and she deserves all the praise she has gotten (I've never seen La La Land or Birdman, but she was also acclaimed in those roles). I don't wanna compare Emma Stone to Kirsten Dunst too much though since I liked Dunst in the original movies, and my preference really just comes down to the characters rather than the actresses. In this movie (and the second one, but we'll get to that), I think I just find the relationship between Peter and Gwen and little more charming and relatable. In the first Spider-Man movie specifically, I mentioned that I felt a little confused as to Mary Jane's feelings when it came to her love for Spider-Man compared to Peter since I felt like she cared more about Spider-Man than she did Peter. This was fixed in the later movies though since that issue is only relevant when Mary Jane thinks the characters are two separate people instead of the same person. In this movie, I really like the choice to have Gwen know Spider-Man's identity in the first movie since they don't have to deal with the whole conflict of Peter trying to hide his identity and juggle his relationship. I just like it better when Peter's love interest learns of his double life early on because that allows their relationship to grow quicker and they learn to help each other in more ways. And this comes into play in the film's third act as Gwen actually has her own agency and she helps Peter in the fight against the Lizard and she isn't demoted to the "damsel in distress" trope. That's not to say that their relationship is perfect though. I'll go deeper into this in the next paragraph, but one knock against this movie is that it rehashes a lot of plot points from Spider-Man 2002, and this can be seen with Gwen. Specifically, I don't really like the idea of Peter breaking up with Gwen just because he feels like he has to "protect" her by doing so. I guess it does work a little better in this movie since it's her father who urges him to do this, but it's still not my favorite plot point.

To continue my point from the last paragraph, one thing that a lot of people point to in this movie is that it's pretty similar to Tobey's original outing as the character. I think that the writers might have been in a tight spot with having to reboot the character so soon after Raimi's trilogy ended, but I have to agree with this point at least somewhat. The main thing that I didn't like was the blatant repetition of the Uncle Ben origin story. Obviously, this story was lifted from the comic books, but I do think that the movies don't have to be comic accurate if the writers can come up with a decent alternative. I don't think that the Uncle Ben story is bad per-se, but it does come across as a repeat of the original film and it (again) isn't done in the best way. It just feels a little forced when Peter lets a criminal get away and Ben happens to be walking right outside the store. Like the whole thing happens in a span of maybe 3 minutes. I guess I'm not sure if I could come up with something better, but this movie did have the prologue with Peter's parents, so maybe it could have been something related to them? The second movie did end up including them more anyways, but it's just a thought. The other thing that I didn't love about Uncle Ben was that he almost seemed too harsh with Peter before he died? I think they wanted it to be more of a tough love kinda thing, but he seemed almost too mean at some points. In contrast to Ben, I really enjoyed Aunt May in this movie, and thus leads to my next point.

I didn't really mention Aunt May in my Raimi trilogy reviews, and that's honestly just because I didn't have much to say about her. The character was fine, but she just didn't really stick out in my memories. This wasn't true for Aunt May in The Amazing Spider-Man. In contrast to Uncle Ben, Aunt May in this movie is much more affectionate towards Peter and I really liked their relationship. I do wish that we could have seen a little more of it, but I do like what we got. Most of this probably comes down to Sally Field as she is just so likable in the role. It reminded me a little bit of her performance in Hello, My Name is Doris (which is a great film if you haven't seen it), but just a little more grounded if that makes sense. I guess I don't have a whole lot to add about why I loved May in this film, but it's just worth noting that I remembered her a lot more in this movie than I did in the original movies.

I guess my main focus for this movie has been the characters, so I might as well continue that trend and talk about Curt Connors AKA The Lizard for this section. In terms of villains, I don't have the strongest feelings towards him one way or the other (ex. I don't hate him like Venom in Spider-Man 3, but I don't really *love* him either). One thing that did irk me a little about the character was that it was another instance of Peter being betrayed by a mentor figure in his life, but I guess I can give it a pass since this is technically the first time this situation occurred in this universe. Besides Dr. Connors acting as a mentor to Peter, this villain story also reminds me of Green Goblin just in the creation of the villain himself. That's a strange way to put it, but just think if this sounds familiar: a powerful figure of Oscorp takes part in an experiment that backfires and creates a dangerous alternate personality for the unfortunate participant. I guess in this case the Lizard isn't specifically an alternate personality of Dr. Connors, but it is at least similar since they are almost treated like two different entities. This is especially true for the end of the film, as Connors doesn't die in the fight against Peter, he simply reverts back to the way he was before he became the Lizard. 

There is more to discuss with this movie, but I don't want to start repeating myself so I'll just quickly collect the rest of my thoughts here:

• I do like that Peter's role at the Daily Bugle isn't really emphasized here. I don't know who could have done a better job as J. Jonah Jameson and it's good that they leave some parts out when it comes to repeating plot points.
• The mid-credits scene is just kinda there. By 2012 it wasn't uncommon for comic books films to have mid-credits scenes but in this case I don't think it was needed since the main thing it teases is a secret of Peter's father but that was already set-up in the movie itself.
• This is just a fun fact, but people might recognize Irrfan Khan in this movie from Life of Pi. I just thought this was interesting since hearing him say "Richard Parker" (which was the tiger's name in Life of Pi) in this context is interesting considering that I immediately associate that name with a tiger rather than a human.

Those are the main points I wanted to bring up for The Amazing Spider-Man. Overall, even though this movie did get positive reviews, I actually enjoyed it more than I was expecting to. If I were to choose between this movie and the original Spider-Man, I would likely choose this one, and my final rating was an 8/10.

The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2014)

Watched on November 24, 2021.

Now for the second—and final— movie in this franchise. In a lot of ways, this film is similar to Raimi's Spider-Man 3 (not supposed to be the final movie, worse reviews from critics and fans, more storylines than the previous films), but in some ways it's very different. I was almost nervous to watch the film after I enjoyed the first one so much because I knew that many people thought it was worse (and some people *really* don't like this movie), but I was still interested to see it regardless. One thing I will note is that this is the only modern Spider-Man film to have a negative score on Rotten Tomatoes, although a 52% isn't too far from a fresh rating. This didn't weigh too heavily on my feelings on the film, especially since the majority of those reviews were written in 2014 and I'm watching the film from a 2021 perspective, but I thought it was important to note either way. Anyways, I will be focusing a lot on the characters in this film as I did for the first, but I'll also compare the two films and see if this movie managed to improve on some of the lesser aspects of the first one.


Instead of starting with Spider-Man this time, let's first focus on the villains. Just like Spider-Man 3, this movie has *three* main villains for a standalone superhero movie. The one who gets the most focus though is Jamie Foxx's Electro, so let's start with him (the film is even subtitled "Rise of Electro" in other countries outside the US so it makes sense to me that he was the focus). As far as Max Dillon goes before he becomes Electro, it's just a little meh. I should emphasize that I am in no way familiar with the comic origins of basically all of these characters so I don't know how accurate these plots turned out, but I'm just basing all of this off of what the movie shows me. So for Max, I found it a little strange that Spider-Man saves his life once and this is what spurs on a full-on obsession with Spider-Man. I think it is understandable, especially if what they were going for was to portray a lonely and possibly mentally ill man, because then it would make sense to me why he latches onto Spider-Man so quickly and strongly. The thing is that I don't think the movie emphasizes this enough for it to be fully believable, my memory is faulty but as I'm looking back on it it just seems like Spider-Man saved Max and then the next time we see him he's just in the throes of obsession so there's no buildup. Like basically every Spider-Man villain we've seen, Max's transformation into Electro makes for a pretty entertaining scene. But then we have to discuss the elephant in the room: why is he blue. (That's a statement, not a question). Supposedly, the filmmakers wanted to portray Electro in a more grounded way compared to the comics, so that's how they came up with his look for the movie, but on-screen it just looks so cartoonish. And you can tell that Jamie Foxx wasn't the biggest fan of his look in the movie because he's stated in interviews for No Way Home that he's a bigger fan of the redesigned look (shown below). Of all the villains in the movie, I think that Electro had the most potential to be compelling and memorable, but he was just trapped in a movie that had too much going on. If Electro was the only villain of the movie, had more backstory and character work, and wasn't forced to team up with another Green Goblin, I think that he would've been fine at the very least for this movie's villain.

**Here is The Amazing Spider-Man 2 version of Electro (bottom photo) compared to his look in Spider-Man: No Way Home. I think I can see what they were trying to go for with the first attempt, but I have to prefer the new version. To be fair, this screencap was taken from a trailer and I haven't got to see how he looks in the full movie yet, but I think it already looks more promising.** 

The villain that has the least overall impact in this movie is definitely Rhino. Played by Paul Giamatti, Rhino is basically only in the film for the beginning and ending sequences. I guess I don't hate that Rhino is in his movie, but there just isn't really any point to it. The first scene with him is fine as an opener, so I can live with it, but the ending really didn't need to be there. The only thematic purpose it has is to show Peter taking up the mantle of Spider-Man again after giving up because of Gwen's death. But in practice, all it really does is add to the movie's runtime and make the ending feel stretched out when it didn't need to be. Also, if we're going outside the realm of the movie, it's clear that Rhino was included so that he could be used to setup a future Sinister Six movie. I do give the filmmakers credit for at the very least having big ambitions, but I don't think that they needed to set up the Sinister Six in only the second movie.

If Electro was just mediocre, and Rhino was unneeded, then Green Goblin's inclusion is a travesty. Dane DeHaan is fine as Harry Osborn (if a little bland), but the character just has no business being in this movie. The majority of the issues I have boil down to Green Goblin's presence. First of all, the main thing that bothers me about Green Goblin is that the character just makes the film way too overstuffed. There were already a lot of plotlines and characters in the movie, and Green Goblin just heightens this issue. The worst part is that it's so similar to Spider-Man 3 and it feels like the producers learned nothing from that movie and just did the same thing again. I don't know as much about the director's intentions compared to the producer's but I would be more willing to assume that the inclusion of multiple villains was again an attempt by Sony to set up movies that never happened. Besides the fact that Green Goblin contributes to the movie's overstuffed narrative, I also just don't really like the look and motivation for the character. The look isn't a big thing, but I definitely prefer Willem Dafoe's mask instead of the weird makeup and green hair that they gave Dane DeHaan, but it also would've been a little boring if they just went with the exact same look, so it's not that big of a deal. As for the motivation, it all just seems a little bit muddled. This is because the reason that Green Goblin is because Spider-Man refuses a blood transfusion. Not the worst logic, but the movie makes it clear that Harry cannot know for sure that Spider-Man's blood would magically cure his disease, so it's not like Spider-Man damned him to a slow death. Either way, I just prefer the familial themes of Green Goblin in the original trilogy and I think that it makes more sense for Harry to hate Spider-Man 3 compared to this movie. But now let me explain why I loathe Green Goblin in this movie: the final fight scene. Oh. My. God. The Electro fight scene at the end of the movie wasn't spectacular, but I would have been perfectly satisfied with the movie. Spider-Man finds a creative way to defeat Electro, and you even get another moment of Gwen helping Peter in his fight just like she did with Lizard. But then, Green Goblin swoops in to quite literally ruin the moment. Basically, he takes Gwen up to the top of a random clock tower, fights Peter, and Gwen inadvertently falls to her death even though Peter tries to save her. As a standalone, this scene actually isn't too bad. Gwen's death is heavily foreshadowed throughout the movie (especially with her graduation speech), the clock tower (while it comes out of nowhere) does serve as a decent metaphor as to how Peter and Gwen didn't have enough time together (haha get it), and it definitely is emotional. The CGI web hand that deploys as Peter tries to catch Gwen was a little sappy though. The main thing that I hate about this scene is that it feels like it goes against the whole point of Peter and Gwen's relationship. Throughout this entire movie, Peter and Gwen conflict with each other because Peter still feels guilty for her father's death and he keeps telling her that they can't date because she might get put in danger, and she keeps saying that she can handle herself. And the funny thing is that this would've been a great conflict if the movie ended with the Electro fight since it shows that Gwen was right and that Peter doesn't need to blame himself for indirectly leading her to danger. The Green Goblin scene just ruins this though because it basically tells us that Gwen should have listened to Peter and just stayed out of the way because it led to her downfall. What kind of a message is that?? I don't even know at this point, and it still doesn't make sense even 7 years after the film premiered. I'll stop my rant here, but this part of the movie is honestly the main thing that lowered my score (which I will get to soon enough). If you do like Gwen's death scene, I definitely understand your perspective, and I'd love to hear any counter arguments against mine in the comments if anyone feels so inclined.

 

I feel like I've said enough about The Amazing Spider-Man 2 itself, but I also want to briefly discuss the production and aftermath of the movie's release. I don't think that these aspects hinder my rating of the movie at all, but I feel like it's important to note for this movie specifically. One thing that always kind of disappointed me about both of these movies is that Andrew Garfield didn't have the best experience making them. I don't want to just repeat what he said, but if you're interested in his thoughts, I thought that this interview summed them up pretty great (he mainly alludes to things instead of being specific, but stuff like prioritizng story over character can definitely be seen in the second film). I have heard that Andrew has some great material in the deleted scenes for both of the movies, so if I ever buy them on Blu-Ray I'll have to watch them if only just to see more of his character. That's especially important since I'm fairly sure that Andrew isn't present in any of the surrounding media for these movies (I know for a fact that he doesn't even voice the character in the video games). Similarly, I remember reading that Sally Field felt disappointed with her role in the movies since she ended up having not a lot of stuff to do. While I do love her as the character, I have to agree that she ended up not being too important in the grand scheme of things. The sad thing about both Sally and Andrew having regrets with these movies is that you can tell that they were really trying their best, but there's only so much an actor can do with writing that doesn't always suit them. I alluded to this earlier, but it's also interesting to look at the planned future that Sony had for Andrew's Spider-Man before the plans fell apart. Seriously, there are 3 subheadings under the "Future" section of the second movie's Wikipedia page. A lot of it is common knowledge like how Spider-Man was rebooted again as an MCU character and how Sony created a new Spider-verse with the Venom movies and animated Spider-Man movies. The more interesting thing was how many movies that Sony was going to make after this one. Not only was there supposed to be a third Amazing Spider-Man movie, but there was also two Sinister Six movies, a Spider-Man 2099 movie, a Venom and Carnage movie (thank god that one eventually did happen and it turned out good), and a Black Cat movie. This is something I don't know much about, but I also learned that Sony Pictures was hacked in late 2014, and this revealed that Emma Stone was going to be resurrected in a future movie, which would've been an absolutely wild choice. As I said, I don't think any of this changes my opinions on the two films that we did get, but it was just interesting to do some research about them while writing this.

Overall, The Amazing Spider-Man 2 is a seriously flawed film, but it's also one that I can't help but enjoy on some level. Some things about it annoy me to no end, but I can see the potential that it had and it still has some saving graces. Notably, Garfield is still great, the relationship between Peter and Gwen is great up until the end, and some of the plotlines are interesting to follow. I wish Andrew got a better ending for his short-lived time as Spider-Man, but I guess if the No Way Home rumors are to be believed, he may have a chance at a good ending. My final rating for The Amazing Spider-Man 2 was a 6/10. 

That's all for these movies, so my last post about Spider-Man (for a short time) will be about the two MCU movies that precede No Way Home. Until then!