I really wanted to love The Amazing Spider-Man, I really did but I am in the camp that thinks that it was just too soon to re-boot Spider-Man after it was well-done (at least in my mind) by Sam Raimi 10 years ago in Spider-Man with Tobey Maguire as the webslinger.

This time around we have Andrew Garfield taking over as Peter Parker. I will admit that he did make a nice Peter Parker. He was appropriately geeky and dorky and is better looking than Tobey Maguire.

The origin story remains the same. Peter is bitten by radioactive (or in this case) genetically modified spiders and then becomes Spider-Man. We get a bit more story about Peter’s parents that is absent in the Sam Raimi films but we still get Peter being bullied in high school but then getting one up on the bullies after he gets his powers and having Gwen Stacy (Emma Stone) become attracted to him.

Of course, the spider that bit him comes from Oscorp run by Norman Osborne and Dr. Curt Connors (Rhys Ifans) is doing cross-species breeding that will perhaps be the cure for things like Parkinson disease or limb regeneration. When Connors experiments on himself, he becomes the Lizard and only Spider-Man can stop him.

I am a big fan of Superman, even before Smallville and for me with this Spider-Man, I don’t like how they used Gwen Stacy as Peter’s love interest as I believed that Mary-Jane Watson was the true love of Peter’s life. So like in Smallville, it was hard for me to root for Gwen and Peter to be together when it is inevitable that Mary-Jane will eventually be the love of Peter’s life. And there was no epic upside down kiss that Gwen gives Spider-Man. In fact, there really wasn’t that much kissing despite the fact that Garfield and Stone have good chemistry together.

But I will give one thing that Gwen did over Mary-Jane and that was not be the damsel in distress but she actually helped -SPOILER ALERT – Spider-Man defeat the Lizard by providing him with the antidote. Also, I always liked it when the love interest knows the hero’s secret so having Gwen know that Peter is Spider-Man and finding this out in the middle of the movie was a nice small twist.

I did enjoy the humor in this Spider-Man. It was very sarcastic and that is the humor that I really love and Garfield was really good at that part of Peter.

I did like Sally Field and Martin Sheen as Aunt May and Uncle Ben. They were great parental units for Peter and there was a seen where Peter gives Aunt May eggs that I had a tear in my eye and also teared up a bit hearing Uncle Ben’s voice mail to Peter.

Overall, I felt that Emma Stone was barely there as Gwen Stacy. I sometimes forgot that she was in this film as it seemed to really focus on Peter as Spider-Man

Some things that I missed about Spider-Man and that is the emphasis on Peter’s photography skills. It was emphasized a bit at the beginning of the film then forgotten. We don’t get J. Jonah Jameson or the Daily Bugle (although it was briefly seen) but maybe they will me more prominent in the inevitable sequel.

I thought the CG of Lizard was pretty poor and it is interesting that they had Curt Connors in Raimi’s Spider-Man 2 and 3 and makes me wonder if Connors would have been the main villain for Spider-Man 4 before they decided to do a re-boot. Another thing that bothered me is that Denis Leary as Captain Stacy looks so much like Willem Dafoe that I kept on thinking that the Green Goblin is in this movie.

And some parts of The Amazing Spider-Man was incredibly cheesy especially during the climatic fight scene where we had a whole bunch on construction cranes helping Spider-Man reach Oscorp Tower. Also, I found that the Spider-Man costume here is very similar to Maguire’s Spider-Man outfit with the only difference is that the webslingers are mechanical and not organic.

Sure Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man wasn’t perfect but I really enjoyed it and thought that The Amazing Spider-Man was trying a bit too hard to make us forget it or at least out do it but I will say that this Spider-Man movie was way better than Spider-Man 3.