it's okay, no more no less (depending on your point of view)

Rating: 6/10 (9 July 2017)

Once again we get the origin story of Peter Parker becoming the Spider-Man. Once again we get Gwen Stacy, though this time its a substantial character (something that even I'll say, as one of a handful of big fans, was a problem in Spider-Man 3). Once again we get a scientist who meddles too much into his own business and finds that what it changes him into is a living nightmare. And once again we have a teenager who can throw out the occasional quip - though Garfield's Parker is more jerkish in some of his comments than Maguire ever was - while taking out the bad guys, whomever they are. Oh, and of course we get to see (spoiler? no, not a spoiler, screw you, this is 50+ years old now) Uncle Ben dies. Derp.
As I recall from watching this movie, the (must qualify here) first 'reboot/remake' of the Spider-Man franchise from Sony, on DVD right after it came out - I skipped it in theaters, probably I was too busy working that summer or something, I can't remember - is that this wasn't any crime against humanity, and it was probably more watchable and understood its world a little better than, say, Trank's Fantastic Four or the majority of something like Batman v Superman). Webb, pun intended, does a competent job with the character stuff involving Garfield and Stone, albeit I'd rather see them as a couple in a totally different film, so that one can excuse the action from being rote.
At the same time, this also solidified my belief that, if movies last this long, we can go another, oh, 55/60 years before needing another Uncle Ben death scene again. Or, for that matter, Peter Parker in a skateboarding slo-mo shot. It's too same-old to stand-out from the pack, but full of too much personality to be a train-wreck or a fun disaster. It's a perfectly eh-OK-ish blockbuster, and despite this rating and a lot of game supporting players (Sally Field, Irfan Khan, Rhys Ifans... got paid I guess). I'll never see it again intentionally.