Retrospective Look At ‘The Amazing Spider-Man’
Image Source: IGN
The Amazing Spider-Man was released July 3, 2012 by Sony Pictures. It stars Andrew Garfield as Peter Parker/Spider-Man as well as Emma Stone as Gwen Stacy, Rhys Ifans as Lizard/Dr. Curt Connors, Martin Sheen as Uncle Ben, Sally Field as Aunt May, and Denis Leary as Captain Stacy. It was directed by Marc Webb. The movie grossed $262 million in North America and $495.9 million in the rest of the world for a total of $757.9 million, making it the highest-grossing reboot in history. The Amazing Spider-Man was generally well received; it is “certified fresh” on Rotten Tomatoes and got a 66 out of 100 on Metacritic.
The one thing many critics complained about was a sense of “déjà vu” referring to Sam Raimi’s 2002 Spider-Man starring Toby Maguire. Both movies portray Spider-Man’s origin story, being bitten by a spider that had undergone experiments in a laboratory. However, that’s where the similarities end. After the origin story, the films have different love interests, different antagonists, and different plots.
RELATED:
In The Amazing Spider-Man, Gwen Stacy is the love interest instead of the far more famous Mary Jane. This adds a new wrinkle to the story. Gwen’s father is police captain George Stacy. Being the police captain, he is simultaneously trying to capture Lizard and Spider-Man. Aside from the obvious complications for Spider-Man, it also causes problems for Gwen as she knows that Peter is Spider-Man. Also, at the end of the movie, a dying Captain Stacy learns that Peter Parker, the boy dating his daughter, is Spider-Man. His dying wish is that Peter stays away from Gwen for her safety. Although it breaks his heart, Peter promises. (He ultimately breaks that promise, but that’s another movie.)
The antagonist in The Amazing Spider-Man is Dr. Curt Connors, or, more precisely, his alter-ego, Lizard. He is a one-armed scientist at Oscorp working on a serum to regrow limbs. He thinks he has made a breakthrough, but he lacks test subjects. So, he injects himself with the serum. It does regrow his arm, but also turns him into a human/lizard hybrid. At that point, his goal twists into turning the rest of the city into human/lizard hybrids, too, and Spider-Man has to stop him.
Image Source: HDQWalls.com
The Amazing Spider-Man’s legacy is complicated. Several outlets like Newsarama and Forbes listed the movie as a top ten superhero film. The costume that Garfield wore, the “Amazing Suit”, found its way into Marvel’s Spider-Man, a game for PlayStation 5. And a team of scientists referenced the movie to describe their work with spider silks and regrowth of limbs.
Sony was happy with the film and the box office totals. They planned on doing three or four movies total with Andrew Garfield, but ultimately, there was only one sequel; the problem was that Sony only owned the rights to Spider-Man, while Disney owned the rights to the greater Marvel Cinematic Universe. Disney had been wanting Spider-Man in the MCU for a while, and when they finally agreed to a deal with Sony, it scuttled the third and fourth Andrew Garfield films.
The 2021 film, Spider-Man: No Way Home, has Andrew Garfield reprising his role from the two Amazing Spider-Man movies. No Way Home is a multiverse movie and confirms that the 2002 Spider-Man and 2012’s The Amazing Spider-Man are canon. They just take place in different universes than the MCU.
In a lot of ways, The Amazing Spider-Man got shortchanged. Both Toby Maguire’s Spider-Man and Tom Holland’s MCU adaptation were wildly popular, and Andrew Garfield got squeezed in the middle. The Amazing Spider-Man is a quality superhero movie and deserves another look. It’s too bad we never got the third and fourth installments.
READ NEXT:
Sources: Fandom, Wikipedia, IMDb, Rotten Tomatoes
Latest News
Featured
