My Spidey senses were tingling, but this film was surprisingly good

Rating: 7/10 (1 January 2015)

Okay, no one was more cynical than me when I heard the news that Hollywood was 'rebooting' Spiderman only a couple of years after Spiderman 3 was released. I thought it was a complete pointless waste of time. Tobey Maguire's version was so popular, I didn't see how it could be repeated.
Yes, The Amazing Spiderman is a repeat, but, amazingly, it's not as bad as I thought. In fact, I almost enjoyed it more than the original.
I read a lot of internet message boards which criticise BOTH versions from not staying truthful to the source material, i.e. the comics. But, seeing as I've never read any of those, I can't tell which one sticks closer. One of my main gripes with Tobey Maguire's version was that it felt a little too 'cartoony' with its bad computer-generated special effects and teen-choice feel.
The Amazing Spiderman is also centred around high school kids (from what I knew of the comic, Peter Parker was a MAN, not a boy, but anyway...). However, the whole affair seems a lot darker. The Lizard is a good baddie to start off with. It would have been nice to see the (proper) Green Goblin (i.e. not just a man in a green suit of armour), but I'm guessing he'll crop up later on in the franchise.
Andrew Garfield is a better hero than Maguire. Despite both playing teenagers, Garfield is also moody and darker, revelling in his newfound powers and even taunting his (lesser) enemies. It seems that the makers of this film looked at Christopher Nolan's Batman franchise with its 'flawed hero' mould and decided to borrow that style to make Peter Parker a little less 'squeaky clean.' My opinion: it was all the better for it.
Yes, you cannot escape the fact that this film is basically the same one you probably watched ten years ago, but with a different cast. However, if you can get over that and accept that that's just how Hollywood rolls these days, you should enjoy it as a decent entry into the superhero genre.