I recently re-watched The Tobey Maguire Spider-man trilogy and Andrew Garfiled movies as a warm up for Spider-Man No Way home. Movies I have just watched might be a stretch, yet here are my thoughts on the film as a hole.
Spider-man (2002) is a enjoyable movie. It’s a solid start for the web crawler on the silver screen. Some of the effects looks a bit dated by todays standard, but nothing that takes away from the overall film. Maguire is great as Peter Parker, plays him very awkwardly, bit flat as a wisecracking superhero. William Dafoe is great as The Green Goblin, even if he looks like a rejected Power Ranger villain. His overall relationship with Harry, sets Harry eventual fall from grace up nicely. 7/10
Spider-Man 2 (2004) has a lot of great things going on. I love how it portrays New York and it’s citizens relationship with Spider-Man. Peter Parker trying to balance a school life, work life, relationships and being a superhero. Here Peter is the greatest element of the film. The villain Doc Ock, well. Last time I re-watched it I found his motivations lacking and overall him to be a let down. I still do 5 years later. He just turns evil, there is no drive behind him other then power. It doesn’t dwell over the lose of his wife. I know his neural chip is fried and the arms take over. It still seems like lazy writing and a co-out for not actually developing him as a character. I give Doc Ock a 4/10 and the movie a 7/10.
Spider-Man 3 (2007) Oh well. The dance sense is hard to watch. It plays with some cool themes, but there is to much going on. Thomas Harden Church’s Sandman is great, Harry Osborn development over the last 3 films pays off. Eddie Brock/Venom looks cool and there isn’t much else to say about him. It’s an alright conclusion 6/10.
The Amazing Spider-Man (2012) underrated. Andrew Garfield is great as Spider-man, a bit too cool for Parker. Emma Stone is lovely and extremely likeable. The Lizard design is controversial, I don’t hate it far from. 8/10
The Amazing Spider-Man 2 is also underrated. It got a banger soundtrack. Spidey’s suit is the best live action rendition. Electro much like The Lizard is also controversial in terms of design, it doesn’t bother me. Emma Stone is once again even more charming and it makes the end hurt so much more. 8/10
Personally I just prefer the Andrew Garfield movies and I’m forever sadden we didn’t get a conclusion to the trilogy. Are they perfect? no, but they always resonated well with me.
Spider-Man No way home (2021) It’s one of the better MCU movies and newer Spider-man films.Sadly I don’t think the classical enemies are used to their full potential expect the Green Goblin. Many of them are played for laughs, never really seeming threatening. It amazes me that the Lizard looks worse then he did 9 years ago, same with the Sandman. Electro looks very hip, we never really get’s an explanation for why he looks drastically different. Other then a throwaway joke about him not being nerdy.
Doctor Strange is extremely careless, I found it a bit out of character. He’s a proud and egotistical, like Stark. But I never took him for being outright foolish and careless.
Tom Holland is a great both as Peter and Spider-man he balanced both aspect of the character better then his two predecessors. I’m glad that the Iron-Spider suit plays little to no role in the movie, I hate that suit. I’m glad to see a more low-tech suit towards the end and not just Iron-man suit jr. size.
The best part of the movie is hands down, when Tobey and Andrew Garfield shows up. They really elevate the film and their life lessons helps this Peter Parker move forward both as himself and as Spider-Man. 7/10
I also quickly re-watched Into the Spider-verse and it’s the superior Spider-man film. Except for Spider-Pig, I don’t enjoy him. That said he wasn’t aimed towards my demographic. 9/10.