In our humble opinion, Andrew Garfield is a better Spider-Man than Tobey Maguire in both writing and performance. Though we could probably come up with numerous reasons to support our argument, here are some of the most important.
Don’t get us wrong. Tobey Maguire was a good Spider-Man. A solid Spider-Man. However, Andrew Garfield has proven himself to be a better Spider-Man and The Amazing Spider-Man 2 hasn’t even premiered in the states yet.
We’re not saying that Tobey Maguire has only himself to blame for being an inferior Spider-Man or that Andrew Garfield should take all of the credit for being a better Spider-Man. What we’re saying is, in general, Andrew Garfield’s portrayal of Spider-Man is more compelling and entertaining than Tobey Maguire’s.
Taking into account both of the actors’ talents, the quality of the scripts, and the strength of the storytelling, here’s why Andrew Garfield comes up on top.
Andrew Garfield has an understated charisma.
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Andrew Garfield is charismatic, there’s no doubt about it. There’s an invisible quality or energy about him that we can sense but not necessarily define. All we know is that he makes us feel all of the right emotions at all of the right times, but also adds emotional depth to each moment. His performances are natural and never feel like they’re over-the-top. He has a certain quality to him that makes him exude confidence while still allowing him to be dorky and adorable. We know we’re doing a poor job of trying to describe Garfield’s charisma, but the best way to understand what we’re saying is to simply watch him on screen (which is why this is our only point that has a gif instead of just an image).
Maguire’s performances, on the other hand, lack that air of charisma. They sometimes come off as less than genuine and, many times, can feel forced. During parts of the first two movies, Maguire almost seems like a toned down version of the emo Peter Parker that we see in Spider-Man 3 (or, well, he does to us). Again, we can’t really describe Maguire’s slight lack of charisma but we trust that you understand what we’re trying to convey.
He has incredible chemistry with his female co-star.
Yes, it definitely helps that the fantastically awesome Emma Stone is the Gwen Stacy to Andrew Garfield’s Spider-Man (both on screen and in real life) and that she’s an amazing person to begin with. But, it takes two to tango and these two certainly do tango well on screen. (Ok, we’ll drop the metaphor now.) The leading couple in The Amazing Spider-Man just feels so much more compatible and natural together than the couple in the previous Spider-Man series. Tobey Maguire and Kirsten Dunst just never seemed to mesh all the way like Garfield and Stone do.
Honestly, it’s almost impossible to fake chemistry. Actors either have it or they don’t. It may have been the luck of the draw or the two actors’ laid-back personality types that really make the couple work, but all we know is that we prefer the Amazing Spider-Man couple to the alternative. However, it can’t be a coincidence that he embodies a ton of other wonderful traits that we’re outlining in this article as well as a tendency towards chemistry (which is not exclusive to this film series, but other films he has been in as well). Just sayin’.
He matches comic book Peter Parker’s sassiness perfectly. To put it simply, he’s hilarious.
The Amazing Spider-Man series has more sassy humor than its predecessor, and we’re only on the second movie. Sure, Tobey Maguire gets some quips in the Sam Raimi series, but he conveys nowhere near the amount of sass that Spider-Man should. Yes, some of that can be blamed on the writing, but a lot of it comes from the actor’s portrayal. Garfield, on the other hand, is as sassy as can be. More than that, he pulls it off. For instance, the scene in the first Amazing Spider-Man where Spidey is threatened with a knife is so absurd and hilarious that it’s hard not to laugh. Garfield’s Spider-Man intimidates with more than his abilities. He intimidates with his sass.
Andrew Garfield portrays Spider-Man offscreen by surprising and entertaining kids.
One of the most amazing things a star can do is use his (or her) talents to entertain sick or underprivileged kids. In the months leading up to The Amazing Spider-Man 2, we saw Andrew Garfield wear the uniform in public possibly more than we saw him wear it in the entire first movie. We’d be naive if we didn’t think that a fair amount of Garfield’s outings weren’t planned media stunts. Yet, Garfield does them with such enthusiasm and pride that he makes our hearts melt.
However, our favorite Garfield Spider-Man story is that of his relationship with Batkid. After the Spider-Man/Batkid segment was cut from the Oscars, Garfield not only skipped the Oscars to accompany the boy to Disneyland but also invited the boy to the New York premiere of The Amazing Spider-Man 2. Now, we may be wrong about this, but we don’t remember Tobey Maguire ever doing as much as Spider-Man as Garfield does.
Andrew Garfield’s Peter Parker flexes his intelligence and is a believable nerd.
We’ll admit that, even though it’s not at all canon, we really liked and bought into the fact that Tobey Maguire’s spider bite caused him to form web shooters on his wrists. It makes sense to us. After all, he has all of these other abilities that spiders have, so why not web-creating abilities too? However, Andrew Garfield’s Spider-Man really shows us how intelligent Peter Parker can be. It’s a classic case of “show, don’t tell,” really. We’re repeatedly told in Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man franchise that Peter Parker is smart. Yet, we don’t have much visual evidence or physical application of his brainpower. Maguire ends up portraying (and looking like) more of a geek than a nerd. In fact, we kind of think he looks like someone who’s trying too hard to look like a nerd.
Garfield, on the other hand, plays more of a sassy intellectual. He builds his own web shooters. He attends Midtown Science High School. He understands and utilizes the information in his father’s research which is definitely not high school reading material, for heaven’s sake. With Garfield’s Spider-Man, we get both brains and brawn. Plus, in our opinion, Garfield looks the part of a smarty pants much more than Maguire. In The Amazing Spider-Man, Garfield’s Parker always looks like he was up late reading or researching and didn’t really care about making himself look put-together for school. Case in point: That hair.
Garfield’s build is better-suited for the character.
Not that Maguire could do anything about it, his build was simply a bit shorter and less agile than what the Spider-Man character deserves. No, film adaptations of comic books, novels, or other mediums do not have to be entirely faithful to their source material (see: Movie Tris not being blonde). We’re totally open-minded about these things. However, in comparison, Garfield’s body matches comic book Spider-Man’s a lot better. For a guy who’s trying to be as aerodynamic as possible while he’s flying through the air, a taller, more streamlined body would definitely be helpful (or so we’d imagine). Andrew Garfield just does a better job of filling out the uniform.
He doesn’t make the worst faces imaginable while acting.
Unlike some of our points, this is definitely something that Maguire could have helped. His facial expressions were forced at best. At worst? Well we’d rather not say. But what we will say is that there have been quite a few memes inspired by them and none of them are pleasant to look at (even for short amounts of time). Honestly, we don’t even understand how some of them could even be possible without being forced. Needless to say, we feel that Garfield has much more control over his facial expressions while acting. None of his faces ever look out of place or strange within the context of scenes. Plus, we’ve never seen collections of memes dedicated to photos of his acting expressions. So there’s that.
The Amazing Spider-Man 2 hits theaters tomorrow (or tonight, depending on where you live and how your movie theaters work), so be prepared for more Andrew Garfield Spider-Man awesomeness!
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