Spidey's Big Comeback!

Rating: 9/10 (3 July 2012)

Okay, so as a kid/teen I loved the original Spiderman movies, as did most of my generation. But the third film, with a dancing, half hipster/half emo Tobey MacGuire left me damn near in tears because of my dashed hopes and dreams of Spidey facing off against Venom (Not Eric Forman in a black suit.)
This film, to me, has definitely rebooted a dying franchise and I, for one, look forward to more of Garfield's wise-cracking Spidey in the future. The movie had the perfect comic book feel to it and I love that they stuck fairly close to the original story regarding Gwen, Peter and Capt. Stacey.
The Lizard wasn't a home run, but the way has story line got a little twist from misguided scientist to full-blown genocidal mad man was a good little kick. (pretty sure that won't spoil anything.)
The movie starts out kind of slow, but the crescendo it builds into gives the story a little bit more realism. Half the movie is devoted to setting up the characters and their relationship while giving a few not so subtle foreshadowing hints of things to come.
To me the only things missing were J. Jonah Jameson and the direct quote of "With Great Power, Comes Great Responsibility." but I guess the last three movies beat those to death. Besides, if there's one thing Marvel knows, it's how to leave some juicy stuff for the Sequel...
~James