The Untold Story? Not really. Better than Spider-Man 2002? Not in the slightest.

Rating: 4/10 (6 January 2015)

I've been a Spidey fan since I saw the 2002 film, and I wasn't really onboard with the idea of rebooting the franchise so soon after Spider-Man 3. I gave it a chance though, and while I did really like it the first time I saw it, it wasn't until about a year later and after watching it on DVD that I wasn't really impressed. If anyone watched the advertisements for this, they keep teasing about the untold story and that Peter's parents disappearance is somehow connected to the spider that bites him. But you watch the movie, they don't give you an answer. This movie is practically a remake of the 2002 film, and in a lot of ways it comes off as a cheap imitation.
A lot of people practically worship Andrew Garfield's portrayal of the character, and truth be told I've grown sick of it at this point. Garfield was really good in Social Network, but his performance never convinced me that this was the Peter from the comics. In comparison to the sequel though, it seems like in this film that he's at least making an effort in playing Peter but he comes off as some edgy, rule breaking hipster "Johnny Cool Guy" type of character. And the script doesn't really help either considering his character is very uneven going back and forth from liking him to not liking him. And the romance between Gwen and Peter, which is another thing that people annoyingly worship about these movies is boring and not really interesting to watch because they literally have a total of 2 minutes of screen time before they start making out. They do play off each other nicely and Emma Stone is a great actress, but before and after they got together, all they really seemed to do was just flirt and stare at each other the entire time. And just when Peter is starting to come off as selfless when he initially breaks up with Gwen at the end as a promise to her Dad, he decides to go back with her anyway. Which makes him completely selfish and unlikeable.
And by the way for those who complained about Tobey crying in his movies, Garfield cries a LOT more than Tobey did. In ASM 2 he cried 4 times, and here he cries 6 times (yes I counted). Maguire didn't even cry THAT much.
Dr. Connors is just some clichéd villain who has some stupid plan to turn every New Yorker into a reptile which that plan by the way comes completely out of nowhere, and the Uncle Ben storyline is not really that impactful because not only does he die over chocolate milk, he goes after the gun when the thief wasn't really threatening anyone essentially absolving Peter of the guilt he's supposed to feel. And he's forgotten about by a certain point and Peter's reason for becoming Spider-Man isn't really clear.
The pacing is off, the writing is uneven and really lazy, the tone doesn't feel right considering that Spider-Man is a color character and not a brooding figure like Batman, and I don't see how the webshooters and Spidey joking every 4 seconds makes this movie and Andrew Garfield's portrayal of the character "amazing". This movie just feels hollow and a wasted opportunity, but the swinging scenes were cool to look at and in comparison to its sequel it feels like Marc Webb and the rest of the team had a bit more freedom to do what they wanted despite the studio interference being too obvious. And I know about the deleted scenes, but if they were taken out the final cut they don't count as being part of the movie.
I don't hate this movie, but I wouldn't exactly call it a good movie either. It's bad considering this is supposed to be a Spidey flick, but there far worse movies out there. And it's unfortunate that it turned out the way it did because had Sony just kept their hands off, it could have been something special.