10 Criticisms Of The Amazing Spider-Man Films That Are Completely Unfair

Another criticism about Peter's characterisation in the first of Garfield's films is that he is presented as having a skateboard. Supposedly, that makes him a 'cool' guy, completely unlike Peter from the comics. We have already seen that the film goes out of its way to show us that Peter is definitely not cool or popular. But what about his skateboarding? Is this something that does make him cool?

The fact is, none of the things which make skateboarding cool are present in The Amazing Spider-Man. Peter isn't shown hanging out with a bunch of fellow skateboarders, and he isn't shown pulling off all sorts of amazing tricks in front of other people. The only time we actually see him skateboarding (apart from for a few seconds down the school corridors), he isn't showing off in front of a crowd of people or anything like that. He is just privately having some fun. And this happens after he gets his spider powers, not before.

So while it's true that he performs some very impressive tricks, the whole point of this sequence is to show how Peter is having fun with his new powers. It's not showing Peter's pre-existing skateboarding ability (if we were to understand it that way, that would completely defeat the entire purpose of the scene).