Good, if not quite amazing

Rating: 7/10 (21 March 2015)

Sam Raimi's genre re-invigorating blockbuster holds up reasonably well. Maguire makes for an earnest and likable Peter Parker. He's not quite as comfortable with the wisecracking stuff as Spidey, but Raimi doesn't really focus on that very much here. Dafoe's a little hammy, but his performance fits in well with the tone of the movie. I found my self swooning over the sweetly vulnerable Kirsten Dunst, so mission accomplished there. And J.K. Simmons... Let me just say 'Whiplash' should've been his second Oscar (mild exaggeration, but he owns).
The action scenes are a bit lacking in the thrills department, but the F/X work holds up pretty well save for a few noticeably dodgy sequences. And Danny Elfman delivers one of his least annoying scores. But what ultimately makes it work is its heart. Raimi gets the crux of Peter's journey--that with great power comes great responsibility--right (it's one of the many things I felt the reboot botched). As a result, the story and the characters all resonate emotionally