Along comes a new spider

Rating: 6/10 (17 April 2017)

There really should be a time-limit on re-boots, in my opinion. I get that Spider Man is probably the best known Marvel Comics character and that this was their own reclaiming of him under their own banner, but I enjoyed the Raimi and McGuire tilt at old Spidey and didn't think that this re-make, despite some obvious changes, completely wiped away its too recent predecessors.
I'm no expert on the comics front but the main changes I saw here were a different girl-friend for Peter Parker in the form of Gwen Stacey, played by Emma Stone, a different villain in The Lizard (Rhys Ifans) and no J Jonah Jameson or anything to do with the Daily Bugle. Otherwise it's the same old same old with another origin sequence, bullying scenes with Flash, the noble death of old Uncle Ben and another metamorphosing super-villain imperilling New York City.
I did like Andrew Garfield, incidentally a double for tennis player Andy Murray, who plays a different kind of geek in Peter Parker than Tobey McGuire. He convincingly looks young enough in the part and I enjoyed the repartee his Spidey has with the villains he battles and the familiar wall-hanging poses he adopts throughout, just like the comics I remember. Gwen Stacey dresses a little oddly for a trainee scientist in knee-high socks and boots but Emma Stone acquits herself well as the hero's girlfriend who coincidentally is the daughter of the police chief (Denis Leary), who wouldn't you know it, despite the evidence of his own eyes and countless witnesses still can't differentiate do-gooder Spider Man from the evil Lizard.
The SFX were excellent, especially all the web-slinging and web-swinging, with the big fight sequence at the end taking us all the way back to "King Kong" as a reference point. But was it better than the first Sam Raimi take on the character? The box-office returns would suggest not. I'll look out for the sequel from 2014, but wouldn't you know it, there's another re-boot around the corner later this year in "Spider Man Homecoming".
Careful you don't squash this particular spider with your (re)boot Marvel.