Written by James Vanderbilt And Alvin Sargent And Steve Kloves
Directed by Marc Webb
Peter: "We all have our secrets: the ones we keep and the ones that are kept from us."
With this movie hitting it's tenth anniversary later this year and Andrew Garfield's tenure as the web slinger getting a certain appraisal from audiences, I thought now was the perfect time to take a look back at this movie.
Sandwiched between Tobey Maguire's trilogy and Tom Holland's dominance in the MCU, Garfield's movies have definitely had their fair share of scrutiny in the past. It's a shame really because this first movie alone while not quite as strong as Spider-Man (2002), I feel definitely was a bit stronger than Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017).
Andrew Garfield to me might be the best actor to ever play Peter Parker and likewise, Spider-Man himself The movie embarked on a straightforward origin story of the high schooler becoming the masked hero of the piece, learning more about the burden of responsibility, falling in love and battling his first major enemy.
The major enemy of the piece being Dr Curt Connors (Rhys Ifans) whose own experiments not entirely of his volition resulted in him mutating into the dangerous Lizard and Peter along with some help from Gwen Stacy (Emma Stone) and her cop father, played by Denis Leary have to work together in order to prevent the city from suffering the same fate as Connors.
For a first villain threat, the use of Lizard felt like a nice call back to the 1990's animated series and outside a few petty criminals here and there along with a wider conspiracy regarding Oscorp and Peter's parents (played by Campbell Scott and Embeth Davitz), just focusing on one major threat managed to keep things reasonably contained. The CGI for Lizard also looked pretty decent as well.
As for the more personal side of things, the flashbacks to Peter's parents helped to set up an ongoing mystery while both Sally Field and Martin Sheen did an excellent job as Aunt May and Uncle Ben respectively. Of course the start of Peter getting powers inevitably resulted in the latter's death and his determination to be a hero.
As for Gwen Stacy, it was a departure after Mary Jane Watson being used in both the 1990's animated series and Tobey Maguire's movies. I really do like Emma Stone as an actor and there's no doubt that she had fantastic chemistry with Garfield's Peter Parker and Spider-Man alike. It also helped that throughout the movie Gwen was written as both a sympathetic and competent character. Of course this would a romance very much destined to be doomed though.
- Mid credit sequence saw Connors taking to a mysterious gentleman in prison. A gentleman who also seemed to have a rather keen interest in Peter.
- Flash Thompson (Chris Zylka) quickly went from being openly antagonistic towards Peter to being friendly to him, following Ben's death.
- Apparently both Big Wheel and Proto Goblin were considered for the movie. The latter would've been played by Irrfan Khan who played Dr Rajit Ratha here.
- Chronology: The movie came out in 2012, so I'm assuming that time as well.
The Amazing Spider-Man definitely has it's moments as a movie. For an origin story, it dies a good job in setting up this Spider-Man, has an engaging central romance and a pretty solid main antagonist in Lizard. I'm glad this duology has gotten a renewed sense of enthusiasm from fans and critics and I'll be holding on to that energy when I review this sequel for this one. Overall, a very enjoyable first outing for Andrew Garfield.
Rating: 8 out of 10
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