The Amazing Spider-Man Review

The Amazing Spider-Man

Spoiler Warning

The Amazing Spider-Man is, in my opinion, one of the most unfairly hated superhero films ever made. There are undoubtedly some flaws with the film, but overall, I think it’s a solid entry into the Spider-Man series. Before the film was even released, it received an undue amount of criticism for rebooting the series ‘already’. It’d already been a decade since the release of the original Spider-Man film at this point, and five years since the release of the finale to that trilogy the much-maligned Spider-Man 3. No one complained (at least to my knowledge) when Batman Begins rebooted the franchise sixteen years after the original Batman movie, or just eight years after the previous installment. That is, obviously, more time in between, but as an avid Spider-Man fan, I felt that waiting five years in between movies was already too much. Secondly, I don’t think Spider-Man 3 was the conclusion anyone was hoping for, meaning there hadn’t been any good content in the franchise for eight years.

Finally, there was clearly a lot left to do with the Spider-Man franchise in terms of films. There have been four live action Spider-Man movies since Spider-Man 3 was released, and none of those four reused any villains from the original three films, except for Harry Osborn as the Goblin in TASM 2 (very briefly). That’s a grand total of six villains that they adapted who were not included in the original movies. Obviously, there’s more to the universe than just villains, but just looking at from the most basic comic book movie fan perspective, these films haven’t just been rehashing the same old ideas over and over again, as we’ve gotten to see Spider-Man take on a variety of threats, all of which are distinct from the previous films (also note that these villains are all completely different from the original ones; it’s not as though they’ve adapted any of the other ten or so Goblin-themed villains and tried to pass them off as unique enemies).

There’s a lot of other unwarranted criticisms in my opinion, as people seem to ignore most of the good parts of the movie, but all of these are actually tied into the plot itself.

The movie begins in a way that immediately distinguishes itself from the previous installments, as we see Peter Parker’s parents, who were never referenced in any of the first three movies. They don’t always play a huge role in the comics, but their abrupt disappearance (as shown in this movie) does have a profound impact on Peter Parker in other comics. It leaves Peter with a feeling of isolation and a longing to reconnect with them, and this is one of the big reasons that he eventually becomes Spider-Man. To those who are familiar with the comics, the 2002 Spider-Man film was based off the 1962 origin story, whereas TASM is based off the reboot origin story from Ultimate Spider-Man in 2001. So, while the first half of both movies are telling very similar stories, they’re both told from such different perspectives that it feels like an entirely new movie, not just a rehash.

Once Peter’s parents leave, it jumps ahead to his life in high school, in which he is (as usual) the social outcast of the school. It’s not the same style as we saw in 2002’s Spider-Man, where he’s the typical, nerdy kid with glasses who gets bullied by the jocks in school. Some people have argued that Andrew Garfield’s Peter Parker is ‘too cool’ but I think that’s slightly unfair. He’s different, for sure. In this version, he’s more of the awkward kid that keeps to himself (as we’ll see throughout the movie, his social skills are severely lacking), but he does have a bit more of a ‘cool streak’ than Tobey Maguire did (the skateboard riding, for instance).

However, I feel like this is more of the film trying to distinguish itself from the previous installments by altering the way that Peter is a social outcast. And, though this film does this differently, it still has the desired effect. Peter feels like a relatable character because things don’t go his way and his life is generally hard; he’s not some perfect character who has his life together, but someone who’s just doing his best to balance all the craziness happening in his life.

After getting into an altercation with bully (later turned friend) Flash Thompson, Peter Parker gets a chance to speak with his crush, Gwen Stacy. Gwen, and her relationship with Peter, is about the only part of this movie that wasn’t criticized. Their romance feels far more believable than the one between Peter and MJ in the previous three movies. Admittedly, the fact that Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone were a couple in real life probably helped their onscreen chemistry greatly, but how well they work together still makes their relationship all the more compelling.

There aren’t any cheesy speeches made about how in love they are with each other in this film, because there was no need for the writers to beat the audience over the head with it. Watching any scene between the two of them clearly communicates their feelings for each other, just because of the believability of their performances.

Also, Gwen Stacy, even outside of her relationship with Peter, makes for a far more interesting character than Mary Jane from the original Spider-Man films.

Throughout the original films, Mary Jane seemed to serve (mostly) as the damsel in distress. Every film ended with the main villain kidnapping her and using her as bait to lure Spider-Man into a trap for a final confrontation. Gwen feels like a capable person in her own right, but the movie does this in a way that feels believable. Gwen isn’t constantly in danger and in need of rescuing, but she’s also not randomly involved in the action for no reason. She contributes to Spider-Man’s efforts, because she’s also a scientific genius. She’s later able to help him synthesize a cure for the Lizard serum, and tries to prevent the Lizard from completing his master plan.

Point being, they make Gwen capable and have her contribute to the plot in a way that feels organic to her character. They don’t overreact to the criticisms against Mary Jane’s character to the point that they create a host of new problems with Gwen. There’s no point in the movie where Gwen’s independence or capability felt forced.

After his altercation with Flash and his conversation with Gwen, Peter Parker returns home where Aunt May and Uncle Ben are introduced.

Martin Sheen as Uncle Ben is a clear and marked improvement over Cliff Robertson in the original films. This time, Uncle Ben has a lot more personality and we get to see more of the relationship between him and Peter. Cliff Robertson wasn’t bad as Uncle Ben, of course, but he mostly served just to deliver the ‘With great power comes great responsibility’ line and to serve as a motivation for Peter’s transformation into Spider-Man. Martin Sheen’s in a lot more of the movie, and seeing more of his relationship with Peter makes his death all the more impactful.

On the other hand, Sally Field doesn’t really stand out as Aunt May. From interviews, it’s been well established that Field only took the role as a favor to a friend and that she had no interest in the character or the movies. Her performance is still okay (at least in this film) and she has some good scenes (at least in this film), but she isn’t really that interesting. The relationship between Peter and Ben was far more interesting than theirs was. This may be intentional, because there are comics in which Peter was clearly supposed to be closer with Ben than he was with May before his death, but either way Sally Field isn’t a great Aunt May. Perhaps I’m being a little too harsh just because of what they do with her character in the next installment, but I can’t really make much of a case for her being underrated or a good character.

During this segment of the film, Peter stumbles across a briefcase that belonged to his father, one which he had left at May and Ben’s house for safe-keeping. Peter scours the contents of the case, trying to find any clue that could explain his parents’ disappearance and eventual death in a plane crash. While Ben is initially hesitant to help Peter, he does end up pointing him towards the man who could provide him with some explanations. That’s Richard Parker’s former partner at Oscorp, Curt Connors.

Now, I know some of the Spider-Man movies got criticisms for shoe-horning in reasons why the villains have some kind of personal significance to Peter Parker (his civilian identity), and not just his alter ego as Spider-Man. While there may be some basis for these complaints, I don’t think it’s a problem here. It makes sense that Richard Parker would have a scientific partner as he worked on ground-breaking genetics research. Considering that involved human-animal hybrids (like the spider that ends up biting Peter), it makes sense to introduce Connors (who wants to use Lizard DNA to regrow his arm) here, as that will be the cause of his transformation into the Lizard. I felt like this was a pretty organic way to introduce his character.

Now, admittedly, having Connors also serve as Gwen’s mentor, as she is interning with him at Oscorp, might be a bit more forced. However, this helped bring Gwen into the plot, while also showing us that she’s highly intelligent (but not simply telling the audience that). In fact, that’s another point about this film (and even the sequel) that doesn’t get enough credit. The script constantly shows the audience how intelligent Peter and Gwen are, without simply telling the audience this. No one needs to be informed that Peter is a scientific genius when we see him create his own web-shooters, create a make-shift police radio or successfully run experiments with Connors later in the film. A lot of things about Peter’s character seemed to be explored more organically in these films than in the previous ones, and I don’t think they get enough credit for that.

Upon going to Oscorp to meet Dr. Connors, Peter Parker begins to explore the area to try to find any clues about his father. This (conveniently) leads him into a room where Oscorp is trying to perfect Richard Parker’s spider experiment. One of these spiders bites Peter, and this will eventually transform him into Spider-Man. If you’re wondering why Oscorp has the ability to create Spider-Man, and yet doesn’t create any Spider-Men of their own, this will be explained in the next film. So, while it does seem pretty convenient, it’s not really a plot hole because it does receive some explanation.

This leads into a sequence that, once again, seems to parallel the original movie pretty closely, as we see Peter Parker begin to discover the existence of his spider powers and experiment with them to uncover the full potential. Like in 2002’s Spider-Man, this will mostly be played for laughs.

However, the big difference comes into play once Peter realizes what’s happening to him. Whereas Tobey Maguire Spider-Man just seemed to accept the existence of his powers and go about his life, Andrew Garfield Peter Parker takes the time to question why this is happening. This makes sense, as his iteration of the character is far more interested in uncovering the truth about his past, and this also leads Peter Parker to continue to try to go closer to his late father. He examines his research and reaches out to his partner, Curt Connors.

While Curt Connors isn’t one of the greatest Spider-Man villains in the movies, there is some pretty solid setup for his character. We see him and Peter bonding in a way that feels organic (as both of them were, in a sense, abandoned by Richard Parker) and he’s the only person Peter can go to that might be able to help him make sense of what’s going on in his life. As such, he clues him into as much of what’s going on as he can, as he tries to figure out if a formula he found in his father’s briefcase was the key to cracking the walls Connors had been running into in his research.

As such, Peter and Connors begin running trials of the genetic splicing technology that Curt Connors wants to use to cure disease, specifically by grafting lizard DNA onto (eventually) humans. While the bond set up here is strong, it isn’t utilized to its full extent in the second half of the film, but I’ll touch on that later. The other part of Connors’ character that’s handled well here is that it’s Peter who helps him create the serum that will later turn him into the Lizard. This sense of responsibility that he feels over this will be very important later, and it ties into one of the things that I think this movie did so well.

However, Peter’s focus on his work with Dr. Connors causes some problems for him at home.

Earlier in the day, Uncle Ben had called off work to speak with Peter’s principal, after Peter and Flash had gotten into yet another altercation (this one being blamed on Peter). As such, Ben would be busy later and he needed Peter to pick up Aunt May. This incident also leads to Peter and Gwen getting another chance to speak, in which Peter finally works up the courage to ask Gwen out (sort of), and she agrees.

At first, one would think that things are going well for Peter. This is a very good tone to take for this portion of the movie, as it illustrates how things seem better for Peter when he has all of his powers as Spider-Man, without having any of the responsibility. However, his lack of responsibility leads to him not picking up Aunt May, and thus leading to an argument between him and Uncle Ben.

Ben tries to get through to him by speaking of his late father’s views on responsibility and obligation, but invoking his name sets Peter off, as he feels that his father shirked his own responsibilities by abandoning Peter. Peter storms out and ends up witnessing a burglary at a local convenience store. However, Peter does not intervene because the owner had been rude to him just moments earlier, and he allows the robber to escape.

Ben, however, left home to look for Peter, and stumbles across the robber. A brief struggle ensues, and Ben is shot.

The scene of Ben dying in the street with Peter kneeling over his body is extremely emotional and harrowing, with Andrew Garfield really giving his all into the performance. While there are fair complaints to be made against portions of the movie, I don’t think anyone can fault Andrew Garfield for his performance and the passion he put into it (even if they don’t necessarily like the directions the writers went with his character). Andrew Garfield continues to give a strong performance throughout the following sequence, as he realizes who killed Ben, and that Peter had the opportunity to stop his killer mere minutes earlier.

This leads into yet another large departure from the original film and even, to my knowledge, every other iteration of Spider-Man’s origin. Namely, Peter Parker does not immediately find the man responsible. He goes on a manhunt throughout the entire city, finding anyone who could possibly match the description of Ben’s killer, and checking to see if they have the star tattoo on their forearm that the killer did. Not only does his hunt last far longer, it ultimately ends in failure, as Peter never finds the man who killed his uncle.

Now, I will acknowledge this is slightly problematic as we never get any resolution to this character arc. I don’t mean that it was a bad idea to have Peter never find the killer, but I think glossing over this failure was a bit of a mistake. Strangely enough, even the massive amounts of scenes that were cut from the film don’t seem to address this.

However, the rest of this sequence holds up really well.

The evolution of Peter’s character is handled excellently, as we see him slowly turn into Spider-Man. He doesn’t go through a one-time, life-changing experience that forever alters his identity. His sense of responsibility is shaped over numerous events (not just Ben’s death), but it’s not just the mental changes he experiences that are handed so deftly. All of the physical changes that involve him becoming Spider-Man are stretched across a lengthy montage.

This includes him developing and testing his web-shooters, him realizing that he needs a mask to conceal his identity after a gang he attacks sees his face, him tapping into police radio frequencies so that he can find crimes as they happen, and him realizing that he needs a full suit to cut down on wind resistance while swinging. As such, we get to see his costume and fighting style slowly evolve over this montage, so that he doesn’t just immediately become Spider-Man after the death of his uncle. While there was certainly nothing wrong with the approach they took for Spider-Man’s origin in the first film, I really liked the in-depth look into Peter’s character that they took in this film.

Speaking of which, the true highlight of this approach is Peter’s evolving sense of responsibility.

At first, Peter is lashing out in an effort to get revenge for his uncle’s death, motivated primarily out of guilt and anger. This leads to the aforementioned sequence, in which we see Spider-Man fighting crime, but we don’t get much of a sense that he’s become more responsible. We don’t see him saving any people, and he doesn’t seem to show much concern over hurting any of his targets (so long as he doesn’t kill them).

Then, whilst having dinner with Gwen and her family, he and Captain Stacy (her father) get into an argument about Spider-Man. When Captain Stacy tells him of the unintended consequences that Spider-Man’s vigilantism have had (namely, the foiling of a months-long drug bust set up by the police because Spider-Man took on one of the criminals involved), we can see Peter start to second guess himself, despite the fact that this is never explicitly stated in dialogue. I love how so much of this sequence and these changes aren’t spelled out for the audience, because the subtlety of it just adds to the realism and depth of Peter’s character.

Following the dinner scene, Peter finds himself confronting the Lizard for the first-time. Their brief altercation on a bridge full of cars leads to many of them being thrown over the side. Spider-Man snags all of them with his web and prepares to take his opponent on, only to find out that one of those cars still has a child inside. This scene marks the first time that Spider-Man rescues someone in this film, and the sequence works really well. Andrew Garfield manages to show a lot of emotion in this tense scene as he tries to save this child, even as the car starts falling and even catches on fire.

Once again, no words are spoken to convey the impact this had on his character, but his facial expressions and the tone with which he says the simple line “I’m Spider-Man” tells us everything we need to know. It’s at this point that Peter truly becomes Spider-Man, as we’ll see a few scenes later when he finds out that Curt Connors is the Lizard, and that he helped create him. He tells Gwen that he has to stop the Lizard not only because he created him, but also because he doesn’t think anyone else can. This is a great way to tie Spider-Man’s origin story into a seemingly unrelated conflict with the main villain and make two different stories meld together in a way that feels organic. Both Uncle Ben’s death and his battle with the Lizard shape Peter’s feelings of responsibility, so that both stories are fused together to tell his origin story.

Unfortunately, there are a lot of parts of the film that don’t mesh together quite so well. I’m going to touch on those a bit later, because I have jumped over a few portions of the movie. Before I backtrack to those, I do want to make a few last points about Andrew Garfield’s portrayal of Peter Parker/Spider-Man.

Andrew Garfield remains one of my favorite versions of the character, but I know a lot of people disagree. First of all, as I said earlier, Andrew Garfield brings a lot of genuine, raw emotion to the role. Peter Parker has always been a very dynamic, emotional character; unlike say, Batman or Superman, he doesn’t go out of his way to hide his emotions and isn’t so disciplined (in a lot of ways). Andrew Garfield really captures that headstrong personality, and his responses to a lot of the events of the movie, such as Ben’s death, convey the depths of his true feelings. This level of emotion, and how genuine it feels, is something we didn’t get as much of in the original films.

In terms of his portrayals of Peter Parker and Spider-Man, I think his take on Spider-Man received less criticisms, so I’ll quickly touch on that before discussing how he plays Peter. It was almost universally agreed upon this movie’s release that Andrew Garfield captured the jokey, sarcastic nature of Spider-Man far better than Tobey Maguire did. The original films are severely lacking in the jokes and wisecracks that mark one of the most recognizable traits of Spider-Man, and this movie has Andrew Garfield make numerous jokes throughout the movie, all of which feel like things Spider-Man would say. It just makes his Spider-Man not only feel more authentic to the comics, but also just more entertaining to watch in action.

I think his take on Peter Parker is the part that has received more justifiable criticisms, but I personally still like it. As I mentioned earlier, a lot of people said Andrew Garfield’s Peter Parker was ‘too cool’, but in some ways I think that worked for this film. Sometimes (and I think this could be argued is true of the first three films) making Peter Parker the science geek is handled in a way point that it makes his character less relatable because it not only feels overdone to the point of becoming unrealistic, but it also becomes his only defining character trait. This Peter Parker is still a science nerd, but there’s more to him. It’s also worth noting once again that we get a lot more sense of this version’s intelligence, as we see him developing his own web-shooters, working with Dr. Connors, and even able to keep up with his father’s research, despite Peter only being a high school senior (or possibly junior?) and his father having doctorate. Andrew Garfield’s take on

Spider-Man is still socially awkward, but again, that isn’t all there is to his character.

Seeing these different characteristics (his intelligence, his awkwardness, his humor and the semi-confidence he develops as Spider-Man) make Peter’s character feel more deftly handled and therefore more real. In fact, it’s this handling of Peter’s character that makes me have such a high view of this film. The plot itself is fine, but the obvious care they took to develop Peter makes the movie feel more impactful and resonant and it gives us an iteration of Spider-Man that still holds up nearly a decade later.

After spending his time trying to hunt down the man responsible for his uncle’s death, Peter finds a bright spot in life as Gwen Stacy reaches out to him and invites him to dinner with her family. The romance that quickly develops between them is, as mentioned before, another of the film’s high points as it feels completely genuine and helps to flesh out both of their characters.

It also leads into another good decision of the movie, which is Peter Parker telling Gwen that he’s Spider-Man immediately after the dinner with her family. Circumventing the familiar (some might say cliched) storyline of the hero hiding his identity from his love interest only for it to cause problems in their relationship was a great decision that kept the story feeling fresh. Even more than that, however, it makes their relationship feel even more genuine, as they get to have a lot of real conversations (about their personal lives, and his time as Spider-Man) that we hadn’t seen explored in this franchise before. It also gives us a chance to see more of Peter’s motivations explored, as we get to see him explaining why he’s doing what he’s doing to someone. It gives us more of an inside look at his character without having a lot of forced exposition or narration.

However, mere seconds after he tells her his secret, his spider sense detects the Lizard’s attack on the bridge as mentioned earlier.

To backtrack a bit, after Curt Connors and Peter had their breakthrough in the research for what would become the Lizard serum, an Oscorp executive, Rajit Ratha confiscates the serum. As we find out, Norman Osborn is dying and this serum may be his last hope. Curt insists it isn’t ready, but Ratha takes it with the intent to start human trials, cutting Curt out of the process.

Curt decides this may be his last chance to regrow his missing arm, so he takes the serum and transforms into the Lizard, tracking down Ratha for revenge. Because of some scenes that were both important but also slightly bizarre, we never learn of Ratha’s fate. The vast swaths of scenes that were deleted from this movie are slightly frustrating, but this is the only point where their omission feels especially glaring. Anyway, Spider-Man foils the Lizard’s attack before he has to save the child trapped in the car as mentioned earlier.

After explaining to Gwen why he has to be the one to stop the Lizard, Peter consults with Dr. Connors (who has reverted back to human form now that the serum has worn off) about how to stop the Lizard. However, upon entering his lab, he sees the transformation that’s taken place in the lab rat they injected the Lizard serum with. This, coupled with Dr. Connors’ unusual responses to his questions (including thinly veiled threats about the Lizard’s power), Peter realizes Connors is the Lizard. His attempts to warn Captain Stacy are wasted, so he tracks the Lizard down to the sewer where he suspects him of hiding.

While trying to track down the Lizard’s lair, Peter is ambushed and the two have their first proper battle. While it’s short-lived, this confrontation packs a lot of good action and visuals. Peter barely escapes alive and returns to Gwen’s apartment where she treats his injuries. The Lizard, meanwhile, finds the camera Spider-Man left behind which he is able to tie back to Peter Parker.

This leads to the Lizard attacking Midtown High School, where he and Spider-Man have their second (and best) battle.

Seeing Spider-Man up against someone who can match his speed, strength and even wall-crawling abilities but who is at least twice his size makes for a really good battle. All his advantages have seemingly been neutralized, and the Lizard feels like a legitimately dangerous opponent for him. This battle ranks as one of the best action scenes in the Spider-Man franchise (but still not quite on par with the Doctor Octopus battles from Spider-Man 2).

Now, all of these scenes on their own hold up really well and make for good action sequences. The plot is fairly thin (as it’s mostly just the hero and villain trying to hunt the other one down until Lizard launches his master plan of transforming the city into lizards), but other than that it seems like a good second half of the movie.

And, to be honest, it is a good stretch, but it doesn’t work quite as well as it could have.

The main problem with this film lies in the pacing. The first hour of the film is where virtually all of the character development takes place. Not only that, that’s also where most of the interactions between the core characters take place. Once the Lizard shows up, the vast majority of the runtime is devoted to the action and there’s not a lot of room for dialogue or character development.

Obviously, the second act (and especially the third act) of a superhero film will have more action than the previous act, but this movie doesn’t seem to strike the right balance. Admittedly, it kind of makes sense that Peter and the Lizard would keep battling over and over again while the other one keeps getting in the way, but I feel like there needed to be a bit more plot in between their second and third battles.

Also, once Curt Connors becomes the Lizard, we don’t see much of the inner conflict that his character had in the comics (such as him being a devoted father and husband and his family working with Spider-Man to try to cure him), and the film barely touches on the connection he and Peter had. Peter’s obviously trying to cure him and not just throw him in jail, but whenever they’re on screen together, the Lizard feels just like any other villain Spider-Man fights in the other movies. Having that aspect of the Lizard’s character be missing makes the second half feel lacking in terms of character and plot. As much as I like this film, the poor pacing and balancing between the two halves of the film (because this movie has a pretty jarring shift into the second half and barely follows the traditional three act structure) hold it back from being as good of a movie as it could otherwise be.

After their fight at the school, Spider-Man and the Lizard are separated, before both become targets for a city-wide manhunt. Lizard eludes the police by exposing a SWAT team to the Lizard serum and releasing them to spread mayhem while he heads to Oscorp tower to use an invention stored there that could release the serum across the entire city. The Lizard cops are a weird inclusion in the film as they’re barely seen doing anything, but they serve as a reminder of what the stakes in the film are, so it still kind of works.

My only main complaint here is Peter conveniently finding the video Lizard made detailing his master plan, which he set to loop endlessly in his hideout in the sewers. I feel like it would’ve worked a lot better had Peter just found the hideout and seen the blueprints to figure out what was going on. Since he explains the whole thing to Gwen mere seconds later in movie time, the audience still would’ve been clued in and we wouldn’t have had such an obvious convenience to propel the plot forward.

Once Peter tells Gwen about the Lizard’s plan, she heads to Oscorp to create a cure for the serum, while Spider-Man tries to track him down. However, Spider-Man runs into the police, led by Captain Stacy, who manage to down him with an electrified dart. He is hand-cuffed and unmasked, before he immediately comes to and throws the police off, managing to keep his face hidden.

However, he’s unable to escape before Stacy sees his face and gets him at gunpoint. Up to this point, Stacy has been decidedly anti Spider-Man (who he describes as an anarchist and an outlaw) and hasn’t been too crazy about Peter Parker, either. However, this scene serves to add depth to his character, as he’s still a reasonable person. He doesn’t like Spider-Man, but he realizes he’s trying to stop the Lizard and that he needs Peter to win, as well as to protect Gwen from Connors. He doesn’t like Peter Parker, but he knows his beloved daughter does, so he goes out of his way to protect him. It’s a nice bit of depth to make his character feel more real and make the movie feel more three-dimensional (in terms of characters, not effects) than a lot of other films in this genre.

While Stacy is won over by Peter’s arguments and returns his mask so that he can pursue the Lizard, a police sniper isn’t aware of these developments and shoots Spider-Man in the leg as he flees. Badly injured, Peter stumbles across rooftops to try to reach Oscorp Tower before we get one of the film’s worst scenes.

A construction worker who is the father of the kid Peter rescued from the bridge earlier in the film sees Spider-Man’s predicament on the news, and rounds up a bunch of his friends to get up on rooftops in the area and turn a seemingly endless number of cranes out so that Spider-Man has an easy swinging path to get to the tower. It’s a cheesy moment and one that feels overly forced (I’ve never been to New York, but I don’t think any road has dozens of cranes perfectly lined up for Spider-Man to swing across), especially since Peter seems to be completely uninjured in the next scene. I know he webs up the wound so that it stops bleeding, but why couldn’t he have done that before? It’s not like a scene that ruins the third act of course, it just feels unnecessary and forced.

However, Peter reaches Oscorp tower shortly after the Lizard ascends to the roof to launch the Lizard serum over the city. Gwen escaped from the tower, unharmed by the Lizard, and gets to the street to give her father the cure when he arrives. He tells her that he knows who Spider-Man is, and goes up to the roof to help him.

Spider-Man and Lizard have another good fight (strangely, the final battles in other Spider-Man films are usually pretty disappointing so this one stands out all the more), but the Lizard has grown far more powerful by this point, as a result of repeated infusions of the Lizard serum to keep him in this form, and Peter is quickly outmatched. Captain Stacy’s timely arrival with a shotgun, and the presence of pipes filled with liquid nitrogen that they use to slow the Lizard down, seemingly turn the tide of the battle.

Stacy keeps the Lizard busy while Peter ascends to the top of the tower that the Lizard is using to launch his serum. However, the Lizard scores a mortal wound on Stacy and charges up the tower after Peter, cornering him at the top. Just before the Lizard can reach him, Peter switches the Lizard serum out with the cure, so that instead of a cloud of Lizard serum spread over the city, it’s a cloud filled with the cure, restoring Connors and the Lizard cops to their normal state.

The tower collapses however, and Peter is nearly thrown from the roof, before being rescued by Curt Connors, whose humanity has been restored (again, I wish his humanity had been explored a bit more earlier, but at least they do remind us at the end that Curt Connors himself wasn’t evil). Unfortunately, this comes too late to save Captain Stacy. With his dying breaths, he admits that he was wrong about Peter, before forcing him to promise that he’ll keep Gwen out of what he’s doing for her own safety.

Andrew Garfield’s performance here is, once again, fantastic. The conflict on his face at this charge, as he hates the idea of leaving Gwen but doesn’t wish to dishonor her father’s memory, or bring her into danger the way her father was, feels so real. He conveys so many emotions without saying anything, and the scream he lets out when Stacy dies feels truly harrowing, as Peter is faced with yet another death.

Connors is incarcerated, and Peter begins to avoid Gwen, not even attending her father’s funeral. She goes to his house to confront him, and this leads into another really well-acted scene. There’s no pointless yelling or overly dramatic dialogue; it just feels like two real people who are hurting and have been forced into an impossible situation. By the end of the film, Peter will break his promise to Captain Stacy and renew his relationship with Gwen, thankfully not setting up the familiar pattern of having relationship troubles between the lead pair for the sequel (though the sequel decided not to follow through with that).

These last few scenes serve to illustrate what I’ve been citing as the movie’s strengths all along: the realism of it. That sounds weird when it’s a movie about Spider-Man fighting a twelve-foot-tall Lizard that wants to turn all of New York into creatures just like him, but it doesn’t focus on realism in the sense of a gritty, down-to-earth story without any fantastical elements to it. It’s realistic in the sense that the characters feel like real people who are just in a world that has a lot of fantastical elements to it, and they have to deal with the fallout from things they can’t control and from the choices they make.

That’s what Spider-Man has been about from the very beginning, focusing on making Peter the most relatable protagonist he can be with his abilities. Even if this movie doesn’t have the best pacing (or even overall plot), it fully captures the essence of Spider-Man’s character and for that reason I still hold this up as being a great entry into the Spider-Man franchise.