Rank This Matchup

For the many elements "Spider-Man" executes well, "The Amazing Spider-Man" takes those elements and manages to make them a weakness, and vice versa. 2002's "Spider-Man" feels more complete in that it ends in a similar way as "Batman Begins": there could be a sequel, but the story in the first film is mostly solved. Apart from the funeral scene at the end where Harry Osborn vows to avenge his father, "Spider-Man" ends without the need for a sequel in my opinion. "The Amazing Spider-Man" leaves out Richard Parker's past for Peter to discover in later installments. This worries me because it might include too little to be a legitamate part of the universe, and the first film should have included as much about Peter's father as possible, in order to establish Peter's connection with his father. Richard Parker could still be Peter's father figure, despite not physically showing up, allowing Peter to help Dr.Connors try get rid of the Lizard instead of regarding him as a father figure. The trouble with "The Amazing Spider-Man" now is its being a story unfinished, we don't know where its going because important facts about Peter's father have yet to be revealed. Because information about Richard Parker's experiments have yet to be revealed, "The Amazing Spider-Man" is a film that does not create enough of a fully formed world, making this film's weakest element, someting 2002's "Spider-Man" does not suffer from. The visual effects in both versions are not drastically different from each other. I prefer the "final swing" sequence in "Spider-Man" over the one in "The Amazing Spider-Man" because it is set in daylight and the focus is on Spider-Man. The clothes hanging on clothes lines in the latter film I feel distract the viewer from Spider-Man. The visuals in "Amazing" feel more fluid, but there is not a classic moment in terms of web-slinging. For example, in "Spider-Man" my favorite moment is the bit where the camera is toward the ground looking up as Spider-Man swings from one building to another, having just saved Mary Jane from falling to her death at the World Unity Day Festival. The crane scene in "Amazing" tries to do this, but it is not the same in that it tries to hard, the James Horner theme trying to be too super-heroic. The effects for the spiders in the lab feel and look the same in both films. The detail on the Lizard is fantastic, despite the filmmakers opting not to have it look more repitilian in the face. In terms of acting, the 2002 original is not as genuine as is the 2012 reboot. Emma Stone as Gwen Stacy felt much for effortless than Kirsten Dunst did as Mary Jane. The scene at the end of "Amazing" where Gwen asks Peter why he was not at her father's funeral is absolutely heart-wrenching, and it is the best scene overall in the entire film. The funeral scene at the end of "Spider-Man" does not work in that I did not believe Mary Jane truly did wish to see Peter Parker once more. Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone had a chemistry to was palpable in that the acting felt balanced and seemed to mesh, and Dunst and Maguire felt separate overall. Thus, the "love relationship" in "Amazing" felt more real and genuine that in "Spider-Man." Willem Dafoe's Green Goblin is a much more threatening villian than Rhys Ifans' Lizard. It's true the Green Goblin suit looks nothing like armor and the helmet conceals his acting, but the "mirror scene" more than makes up for those shortcomings. At first, Norman himself is terrified of the Goblin, showing the initial disconnect between the characters. Dr. Connors talks to the Lizard voice inside his head as if it were following him around, waiting to say something. There is no distinction between the voices overall, but worst of all, Connors is not scared of his Lizard alter ego. In fact, Dennis Leary's Captain Stacy felt much more threatening, especially in the "dinner table" scene. Personally, I left the Lizard should have been a truly terrifying horror villian similiar to the xenomorph in "Alien," hiding in shadows, and not having the ability to talk. There should have been a clear separation between the personalities of Dr. Connors and the Lizard (the scene in which Connors is "talking" to the Lizard right before the school fight feels like an add-on, and a much less convincing version of the "mirror scene" in "Spider-Man" 2002). Also, the goal to turn all of New York's citizens into lizard people felt forced, and I was not sure if it was what Connors wanted or the Lizard wanted. Instead of a city-wide agenda, I felt the Lizard could have been more terrifying if it sought to kill Connors' wife and son out of hatred for Connors. The Lizard is the second weakest element in "The Amazing Spider-Man," because to me, his goals were not personal or knowingly evil. For some reason, I felt Aunt May in "Amazing" was under-utilizied, something I don't think when watching "Spider-Man." I understand Garfield's take on Peter is more rebellious, but Sally Field simply did not possess that ability to comfort Peter like she did in "Spider-Man," nor did I feel as sorry for her in "Amazing" when Uncle Ben was shot. Speaking of Uncle Ben, both Cliff Robertson and Michael Sheen portray the character in a fantastic way. Unlike Field's Aunt May, I felt Sheen's Uncle Ben in "Amazing" knew how to talk to the Garfield's rebellious Peter. Because of this, the scene where Peter and Uncle Ben exchange "how dare you's" (the second best scene in "Amazing") lands on the audience much more because in that moment they truly do not see eye-to-eye. However, Uncle Ben's death scene was handled much better emotionally in "Spider-Man" because when Robertson utters "Peter...," you feel Uncle Ben's wish to tell Peter to become a good person. With the exception of Dr. Ratha, who is written and acted blandly, the acting in "The Amazing Spider-Man" is better overall, but not by a huge margin. The margin is much wider, however, in terms of the musical score in both films. I prefer Danny Elfman's score for "Spider-Man" much more to James Horner's music for the 2012 reboot. Whereas Elfman's confidently and accurately conveyed the inner heroic spirit and the need to help others found in Maguire's Peter Parker/Spider-Man, the orchestral feel of Horner's score blares out the character's identity in a super-heroic way in the crane scene, diregarding the fact that the story views Peter as still growing into his Spider-Man persona. Also, though I truly enjoy the use of the piano in the score, did does not help that I hear "Titanic" music in a Spider-Man film. In my opinion, both films suffer from not only having Peter Parker reveal his identity too many times in front of too many people, but also from their depiction of New York City as supporting Spider-Man. The climactic "bridge scene" and the "crane scene" take away much of the heat off of Spider-Man. Why can't the people believe The Daily Bugle for a change? Are the filmmakers afraid that the audience will forget or won't want to cheer for Spider-Man? Stan Lee and Steve Ditko gave the wall-crawler as many problems as they could when they were first writing for the character. In "The Amazing Spider-Man," for example, it should be enough that Captain Stacy sees Spider-Man as a force for good before he dies becuase the audience will have experienced his change away from his initial opinion of Spider-Man as an "outlaw." Both films feature fantastic looking Spider-Man costumes. The vertical lines pressed into the suit featured in "The Amazing Spider-Man" compliment to much less muscular, more flexible-looking build of the character, while the raised webbing streched across the red-colored parts of the suit and the big white eyepieces on the mask in Sam Raimi's film actually make the character feel more bigger-than-life. The Stan Lee cameos are also more than welcome. Though I find both films to be great fun watching, (particularly "Spider-Man" for the sense of nostalgia) I guess neither is the definitive Spider-Man film because both films focus on a different version of the character. "Spider-Man" clearly loves the bright look and fantastic feel of the Stan Lee/Steve Ditko run in the 1960's, while Marc Webb looked to translate the "Ultimate Spider-Man" comics to the screen. Though "Spider-Man" gets much of its vitality from the fact that it knows and treats its story as an "event film," "The Amazing Spider-Man" strives to take us on a similar journey more slowly, focusing aspects not yet cinematically explored (web shooters THWIP! THWIP!) and hopefully making the characters feel even more true to life than they did in the Sam Raimi trilogy. I try to think of all comic book movies based on decades of stories as comic book stories that just so happens to make it too the screen instead of the page.