Originally Posted by
Revolutionary_Jack
I think Garfield is a terrific actor. I just don't think he was right to play a superhero, and certainly not Spider-Man. He was passionate about the project and so on...and it's a good example of someone being talented, capable, and passionate (i.e. a "true fan") and still not being right for the part. But given the nature of the Marc Webb project and so on, I don't think anyone else could have done good there. Mind you I don't think Tom Holland is right either. I think he's worked so far mainly as a supporting character to Iron Man and that's how the movies made him work with the character.
Peter Parker is a hard character to get right because he is so dynamic with so many changes to him. You need an actor who can grow and take different aspects which is hard. Someone like Al Pacino in the first Godfather movies where we see him be a romantic hero, the "kid" brother of the family, and then have him become husband, father, patriarch. We see someone go from being naive to being totally ruthless and cold-blooded. There Pacino plays a character with a lot of different states and facets and each one works and is consistent to what came before. A more heroic example is Harry Potter, where we see the actors as kids and then teenagers and end with them as adults. Although personally I think the actor who played the Neville kid is what you want in a Peter Parker. Total dork to total badass and it's convincing and earned.
Peter starts from the Ditko era as a specky teenage loner without friends who somehow over issues becomes a handsome hunk that Gwen Stacy and Betty Brant, and Liz Allan pine for. As Spider-Man he's supposed to be an awkward underdog hero but also someone that both Mary Jane Watson and Felicia Hardy finds sexy and irresistible and basically a romantic glamorous figure for some people. Tobey Maguire for instance visibly looked like the Ditko Peter but he was then brought into a Romita world and he remained this quiet, lonely, sad guy. Garfield visually looks like the Romita Peter more than any other actor but he's also not quiet at all, and basically comes off as an ******* and not in a flawed-but-good way but as a regular prick. Holland's Peter again looks like Ditko Peter but with a certain blandness and niceness that does nothing for the character. His main emotional range is bug-eyed shock and talking enthusiastically.
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