Why?

Rating: 3/10 (22 November 2012)

Let me get this out of the way right now: I have been a longtime Spider-man fan reading the comic books from the late 80s.
That being said, I think the reboot has re-imagined Spider-man for the 2010s. I thought it was very well-acted and was very character-driven. I thought Andrew Garfield was cast perfectly as Peter Parker and that he and Emma Stone had excellent on-screen chemistry. I thought they had great supporting performances from Martin Sheen, Sally Field and Rhys Ifans. I liked the details that the 2002 movie didn't pick up, like Peter Parker being a science whiz kid and that Spider-man started out when he was still in High School. I thought that Curt Connor's motivation was fleshed out with the screen time given him. And the old 'turning the city into lizards' plot made me smile, because it was the old standby plot for the Lizard in the comic books. It was what I would expect from a summer blockbuster movie.
But as you can tell, there's a 'but' coming somewhere...
As a "fanboy", I couldn't help but feel that this movie was trying to capture the Batman:Year One/Batman Begins feel and I think that is where it fails. There were so many ways they could have gone about doing this, whether that would be a continuation from the Spiderman3 storyline, or a reboot that didn't involve re-introducing us to characters we were fairly familiar with. Sadly, the producers felt the need to press the 'reset' button on the strength of the Chris Nolan Batman franchise; that people would like to see their superhero fumble and stumble his way into becoming the ass-kicker that he would ultimately become. Now, don't get me wrong, that is a wonderful premise. Unfortunately, we have seen this story before. and just recently too. While you can appreciate the fresh take it had on the origin story, there's only so many ways you can peel an onion. Which meant the first 45 minutes could have been dealt away with and we still would have ended up with an entertaining movie without taking a dump on the sensibilities of anybody who has a.)seen the first series of movies or b.)followed the comic books.
Overall, it was an entertaining summer movie, but I wouldn't rank it as my favorite among the four. And truth be told, it was exactly what I expected it to be, despite giving it every chance in the world to redeem itself.