That Andrew Garfield is the greatest ever Spiderman shouldn't be a controversial point to sell, but I can understand why it is. Even the biggest Garfieldians in the world would concede that he drew something of a short straw when it came to his Spidey movie entries. The Amazing Spider-Man, released in place of a touted fourth entry in the Sam Raimi series, had one hell of an act to follow: along with Bryan Singer's early-noughts X-Men trilogy, the preceding Raimiverse effectively resuscitated the comic book genre in Hollywood, paving the way for the global dominance of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
As a result, director Marc Webb and his writing team stuck close to what audiences knew, largely replaying the origin story of the 2002 Maguire-starrer. Peter Parker, a high school outcast, gets bitten by a spider, is gifted with these crazy abilities to climb on walls and hoist up cars, and chooses the wield his great power with great responsibility, donning a mask and moniker to save New York City from a familiar foe (here, Rhys Ifans' Lizard). It was fine in and of itself, but Garfield was the lynchpin, portraying Parker not as an unlikeable nerd but a does-his-own-thing renegade, evoking more than a little James Dean.
That, after all, is what puts Garfield in a league of his own, his ability to elevate material way off the page. You see it time and time again across his filmography: putting his obvious hits (The Social Network, Silence, Tick, Tick… Boom!) to one side, even in the movies that got a little more critical stick than they deserved (Under the Silver Lake, Mainstream) he grabs your attention like a hyper-charged electromagnet. It's a true marker of generational talent, the sort boasted by De Niro, Brando, Pacino.
Tobey Maguire will be the favourite of the nostalgiaphiles in the room, no doubt: for the lion's share of audiences, he was the guy who brought Spiderman to the silver screen, and you never get over your first love. Tom Holland, too, has done eminently tremendous work making Spidey his own in the MCU, coming of age with the role in real time. Their distinct interpretations of the character, coming together in one big hefty Spidey sandwich, is exactly what made 2022's Spider-Man: No Way Home such a treat for comic book enthusiasts to watch, after all — Maguire, the grizzled vet, complimented the boyish Holland, and Garfield bounced off both of them with such enthusiastic playfulness.
But Garfield is the only Spidey who always feels, in every scene you watch, excited to be him. It's as if you're witnessing his boyhood dream playing out in real-time: indeed, in an interview back in 2016, he spoke to how he's dressed up as the superhero since he was three years old. And that should be a prerequisite, really, of a teenage crusader who embodies, more than anything, the pure fun and enjoyment of slinging around the New York skyline. The Amazing Spider-Man 2 might've been a critical dud, but there's no one Spiderman sequence that screams “excelsior!” more than its prologue, Garfield dipping-and-diving, hitting bad guys with webs, fists and biting rejoinders, just quaking with comic book pizzazz.
It was in the same interview that Garfield spoke to how difficult his Spiderman experience was, being just 27 when he was cast. “I was still young enough to struggle with the value system, I suppose, of corporate America. It's a corporate enterprise, mostly. I found that really, really tricky,” he said, ever the artist. So how moving, then, was his big return? He's only in No Way Home for fifteen minutes of screentime, tops, and yet he steals the show, embodying the charm and inviting vulnerability that bowled us over in the first place. Not many actors can do that. Garfield, most certainly, is one of them.
