The origin of Spiderman again.

Rating: 5/10 (6 April 2015)

Marvel wipe the slate clean to reboot their Spiderman franchise after the dreadful mess that was Sam Raimi's Spiderman 3. This time around, it is Andrew Garfield playing teenager Peter Parker, who develops incredible spider powers—super strength, acrobatic skills and the ability to climb sheer walls—after being bitten by a genetically modified arachnid. When his Uncle Ben is shot and killed by a convenience store thief, Parker builds himself a pair of neat-o web-slinging devices, makes a natty outfit, and goes looking for the murderer. Meanwhile, one-armed scientific genius Dr. Curt Connors (Rhys Ifans) creates a serum designed to regrow his missing limb, but which accidentally turns him into a hulking great CGI lizard in the process.
While this reboot isn't quite as terrible as the third Raimi film, neither is it good enough to warrant starting things all over again. The script fumbles the origins of Spidey and feels utterly contrived (Parker being able to build web-shooters thanks to a handy synthetic material invented by Oscorp, student Gwen Stacey working part-time at Oscorp, those crane drivers helping Spidey to swing across town, Gwen rustling up an antidote to Connor's serum in a matter of minutes), Andrew Garfield proves nowhere near as likable as Tobey Maguire in the role, and Mark Webb's direction leaves a lot to be desired: I didn't care about any of his characters and his forgettable action scenes are over-reliant on unconvincing CGI.
I have yet to see The Amazing Spiderman 2, but the fact that the character is getting yet another reboot in 2017 just goes to show that this particular incarnation isn't doing the trick.