The Amazing Spider-Man (2012)

What is interesting to me is how little time passed between franchises. The Amazing Spider-Man came out in 2012, just five years after Spider-Man 3. (Even less time would pass between The Amazing Spider-Man 2 and Spider-Man Homecoming -- 3 years). My impression is that it would make sense to allow more time to pass between franchises, or as a viewer, I'm naturally going to compare one franchise with the other. Now, since I'm watching them on DVD, I'm basically watching all the Spider-Man franchises back-to-back-to-back, but still...

This franchise does a few things differently. We have the backstory of Petere's parents, which is nice. Peter himself still comes off as pretty nerdy, but Andrew Garfield isn't quite as geeky as Tobey Maguire. You can at least imagine that he has a chance with Gwen (Emma Stone).

Since it's the first movie in the series, we go through the origin story (again). We watch him make his first suit (again) and learn how to shoot his webs and fly (again, again). He also gets the lecture from Uncle Ben (again). But all in all, I liked how this part is handled.

The villain: The Lizard. Seemed weird that he doesn't have a better villain name. The villain, like a lot Spider-Man villains, doesn't seem to be a bad guy. He has a reason for doing what he does... but he does lose sight on what it's going to cost. I guess villains just have a different point of view when it comes to cost-benefit analysis.

As I went into the re-watch, my expectations were low, and it seemed like maybe this was the least-liked Spider-Man franchise. Granted, I don't like it as much as the Tom Holland Spider-Man, i think it's probably as good (or better) than the Tobey Maguire Spider-Man.

Rating: 3.5/5 stars

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The Writer's Poke

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