I can understand films from the ‘80s, and to a lesser extent the ‘90s, being prepped for remake treatment but one from 2002? Now you’re pushing it.  Despite the original ‘Spider-Man’ film only being 10 years old, Hollywood thought it was worth rebooting with an entire new team, forgoing a continuation from the abysmal part 3 and revamping the origin story.  Sure there’s a little re-tread going on as we all know our athletically challenged highschooler Peter Parker will become the agile Spider-Man thanks to a bite from an enhanced spider. He’ll have his own love story as the newly confident Parker, and fight off a big baddie of some sort when he’s slinging around town, but a fresher take on the material means we don’t mind seeing it happen again.

This time around Peter Parker (Andrew Garfield) isn’t quite as geeky as he was when he was portrayed by Tobey Maguire. He’s still bullied by the school’s biggest jock, but he doesn’t appear to be as big a social outcast and the love story formed between him and Gwen Stacy (the always engaging Emma Stone) feels more organic as she clearly notices Parker before he is blessed with superhuman abilities.  Everything about this film is a vast improvement over the former series, and that’s not to take anything away from the work Sam Raimi did, but with comic book films becoming more than just light action fluff for the fanboys (see ‘Batman Begins’ or ‘The Avengers’), the cheesy nature of which the trilogy was handled with makes them appear massively dated.  The inclusion of Spider-Man’s web being a device created from the scientific mind of Parker rather than a substance ejected from his body helps ground the film slightly, and Rhys Ifans as the villainous Dr Curt Connors (who uses genetic regrowth to become the Lizard) manages to downplay the crazy and thankfully leaves scenery chewing at the door.

The advertising for the film has boasted that this is the untold story of Spider-Man, and there’s clearly a deeper background to touch upon regarding Parker’s parents, but it appears as if we’ll have to wait for the sequel for that statement to be more true to form.  Untold, perhaps not but well told all the same.