A reboot too soon but still good

Rating: 7/10 (2 August 2014)

This review may seem a little paradoxical, but basically, here's the gist for me: the first half was messy, the second half was rushed, and it did not significantly add or achieve anything over and above Sam Raimi's original movie to necessarily warrant a full reboot like this. That being said, the whole thing kind of came together in a way that was fun, and decent overall. As a whole, I liked the movie in and of itself, but it left a whole lot to be desired.
First, the overall plot and pacing. The first half, as I've already set, is just a mess. It is a mish-mash of scenes trying to establish the angst and character of Peter Parker while trying to lay some backstory suggesting a conspiracy involving Peter's parents. The problem with the conspiracy backstory is that it was never really fleshed out, and just seemed to be something tossed in to try to add some intrigue to the movie. Considering Dr. Connors' background with Richard Parker, I am surprised there wasn't a whole lot more of Peter trying to learn about his dad from him. I would have expected more bonding between them, or something, so it just didn't feel real to me.
Many of the scenes in that first half of the film are just alternative takes on similar scenes in Sam Raimi's original Spider-Man film. We've got to have the shots of Flash picking on Peter, we've got to have the big argument with Uncle Ben to set up the big guilt trip later, we've got to have the Oscorp lab with the creepy experiments, the cute girl that is interested in Peter even though he's a dork, etc., etc. The scenes that were truly original to this version mostly dealt with a little prologue showing the Parkers, which seemed like it was setting up a payoff later in the film, which, sadly, never materialized.
Then, after limping along for an hour, it was if the filmmakers decided to change gears, and we get about ten minutes of transition time where EVERYTHING seemingly happens all at once: the spiderbite, the costume, the webbing, the murder of you-know-who, the guilt trip, etc. - In particular, the webbing and the costume kind of came out of nowhere. One minute, nothing, the next second, he's full blown Spider-Man, and it felt very rushed.
Then, the second half was a rehash of the trite old plot line - "Hey, I'll experiment on myself. Hey, I'm a monster now!" Because the movie limped along for that first hour, the second hour has a lot of ground to cover, in order to establish the Lizard as a baddie, and consequently it felt very rushed. Three separate battles with the Lizard, with only mere minutes of screen time between each one, setting up the next battle, kind of became tedious for me.
The acting was good. All of the cast members did their jobs very well. Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone, as Peter and Gwen, really clicked on screen. Martin Sheen did a good job as Uncle Ben, but I really wish that relationship would have been developed a little more. As it was, I never really felt any fondness or closeness between Peter and Uncle Ben, as they were always bickering with each other. Raimi did a much better job with that relationship in the first Spider-Man movie.
The action sequences were really cool. Although, by now, all these big budget action sequences are becoming the same. If you don't mind watching two CGI characters have CGI battles, it's fun. The web swinging sequences were effectively rendered too.
So, overall, I would say, fun movie, though it didn't contribute meaningfully enough to the lore to warrant the reboot. We saw all of this just a few years ago when Raimi released the first "Spider-Man." And since the trend now seems to be to make three movies and reboot, I'm sure we'll be getting a new origin story in just a few years. After all, look no further than the fact that they're already rebooting Batman again. That's the SECOND reboot in just the past handful of years. It's starting to become a bit tedious, you know.