Going by that rationale, presumably Andrew Garfield will be cast aside like a disused sock when they inevitably choose to 'reboot' the franchise again in ten years or so. But Marvel – in their infinite wisdom – just chose to tell the same story a second time. This movie could easily have been Spider-Man 4 with Andrew Garfield filling in the Spidey spandex instead of Tobey Maguire. There was absolutely no reason to tell it again. So where does it all go wrong? The short answer: it's just that it's so pointless.

The new idea is that Parker can hear the movements of spiders and it's a good addition. Also the police's notion that Spider-Man is a menace to the public is more clearly defined, especially in the scene where he disarms an officer. Parker is more evidently scientific and intelligent here. It's well acted by all the principals, has good effects, a scary and menacing villain, some nice action sequences and web swinging effects that are generally slightly more realistic than the Rami version. First things first: this is not a bad film. Gwen Stacy (Emma Stone) is the damsel in distress/love interest and plays a role in trying to stop the crazed beast. Spider-Man is then forced into action to stop him from spreading this contagion throughout the city of New York. In desperation, he injects himself with an untested self-generating lizard vaccine and becomes a half man/half lizard thing. Meanwhile, a doctor (Rhys Ifans) working at the same facility, is being forced to close down his research into tissue regeneration. He gets super powers and becomes Spider-Man. Peter Parker (Andrew Garfield) sneaks into a research facility and gets bitten by a radioactive/genetically enhanced spider. Which brings us to what we have here: while not a beat for beat remake, you get the same story more or less with a different love interest and villain.

It also lead to a superior sequel and the much maligned, though underrated, third episode. If Singer had paved the way, then Rami provided the icing on the cake: a faithful, smart, well-acted super hero flick that had as much heart and sincerity packed in as it had all those set pieces. That included a certain super hero movie made by Sami Rami in 2002 where a nerdy guy (Tobey Maguire) gets bitten by a radioactive spider and inherits superhuman powers. With the success of the first X-Men movie in 2000, Bryan Singer pretty much paved the way for all the comic book movies we see today.

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