The Amazing Spider-Man (2012)

When this movie hit the theatres, I wasn't that excited about it. I like the Sam Raimi Spider-Man movies. Sure, the third one was not the movie it could (should) have been, but I don't hold that against Raimi, I know that at the last minute his script was changed on him and he was forced to add a whole bunch of crap to make the producers happy. I liked the complete geekiness of Tobey Maguire's Peter Parker. I loved the interaction between Parker and Watson and Osborn. I did not think this needed a reboot, just a rework, going back to the original idea that Raimi had. I was looking forward to going farther along the Spider-Man timeline and discovering what his life was like after high school and college. I had hoped that it would involve Dr. Connors and the Lizard.
Instead I got a reboot that didn't have Mary Jane Watson or J. Jonah Jamison. I got a new cast, a new director and new producers. I got some British kid playing a beloved American icon. I got a revamp of the origin story with definite nods to the original version but not following it. And you know what else I got? A totally enjoyable movie.
Before the X-Men, before Batman and Superman, I was a fan of Spider-Man. I have distinct memories from when I was four years old and having a Spider-Man web shooter toy. I vaguely recall watching a Spider-Man cartoon. I would be older before I would see the 1970s live action films and the Saturday morning cartoon that teamed Spider-Man up with Iceman and Firestar. It would be late grade school before I started collecting the comic books and wearing the red knit cap with the Spider-Man suit design - the hat that covered your whole face except for your eyes and that I would wear and run around the neighborhood pretending to shoot webbing from my hands, though I don't recall ever battling any of his super foes. But then I was the only kid that would pretend to be Han Solo or Luke Skywalker. If someone else who'd have been willing to be the "good guy" I would have gladly portrayed the villain (especially Boba Fett as I recall). But the neighborhood kids were only interested in playing with the toys. That's fine, because I had the books to read and my imagination was more fertile than all of their's combined then and now.
While I was a true collector and kept all of my new comics bagged on boards, I also had a huge collection of less than new comics garnered from garage sales and flea markets. In a couple of years I was able to put together hundreds of issues of the various Spider-Man titles which I read several times. It's because of this that I can handle a reboot of the movie series and not get too upset about it. The run of the comics has seen the origin story told and retold a number of times. Peter Parker ages and matures and then is snapped back to that moment of beginning. Would it have been nice to get more than a trilogy out of the Raimi version of Spider-Man? Hell ya. But, this new kid, Andrew Garfield, did a pretty spectacular job. It was refreshing to see Gwen Stacey be the focus of his affections. And I really like the playing up of the mysterious nature of the disappearance of Richard and Mary Parker.

The Amazing Spider-Man at IMDb