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Director Marc Webb (500 Days of Summer) takes on the web-slinging superhero in this hasty reboot of the franchise (just five years after Sam Raimi finished his trilogy). Andrew Garfield (The Social Network, Never Let Me Go) stars as Peter Parker, a high schooler who gets bitten by a radioactive spider and... you know the rest. The approach here is more realistic than Raimi's, which provides Garfield (one of the finest actors of his generation) the opportunity to sink his teeth into a surprisingly angsty role. I can't think of another time when a superhero role provided an actor more dramatic range. Emma Stone (Easy A, Zombieland) is given far less to do as Parker's love interest, Gwen Stacy, but she makes the most of it. Martin Sheen and Sally Field bring gravitas in the roles of Parker's Uncle Ben and Aunt May, while Denis Leary plays the police chief who doesn't appreciate Spider-Man's vigilante antics. Rhys Ifans (Notting Hill) picks up the mantle of super-villain, playing Curt Connors, a sympathetic scientist who's desire to rid the world of disease leads to risky, gene-splicing self-experimentation. He becomes Parker's third-act adversary -- a raging Lizard monster.

I never especially cared for any of Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man movies, so consider it faint praise when I say I like this new incarnation slightly better. The difference is entirely in the leading men. Nothing against Tobey Maguire (from the first trilogy), but I like Garfield better in this role. I also enjoyed the production design by the late J. Michael Riva, and James Horner’s first decent score in years.

The grittier, more realistic approach may be responsible for a character with more depth, but it also taxes my suspension of disbelief. I had a hard time buying that Peter and Gwen would both end up working at a world-class scientific research institute, or that Peter would adapt to his new-found superpowers so immediately. And I could do without the cheesy stint where the city’s crane operators conspire to lend Spidey a hand.