The Amazing Spider-Man (Marc Webb, 2012)

Studios continue to reboot their lucrative superhero franchises at a increasing rate safe in the knowledge that their target demographic is adolescents who will always adopt the new version as being made just for them and consider an exponential increase in action and angst as justification on quality grounds. Hence it comes as no wonder that the hero is still at school in this version, allowing for further identification with his teenage emoness.
The first hour drags somewhat through a checklist of standard high school outsider status investigating what happened to his parents, the 'science' moment when he gains his powers and the death of his uncle which makes him don the costume at last. Then he acquires a bland but spunky girlfriend, the police chase him and the villain is created indirectly through his own doing, which gives him further cause for hand-wringing.
It has to be admitted that Andrew Garfield does vulnerable and sullen very well, with an emotional credibility way beyond that of Tobey Maguire in the laughable Spider-Man 3. And there are other merits: the film does come alive in zippy variations on the youth's discoveries of what he can do and moments of invention in the fight scenes, and Rhys Ifans is great as the good scientist gone mad. Nevertheless, the base level is too Twilight to give grounds for any optimism for the impending sequels.

5/10