Starring Andrew Garfield, Emma Stone, Rhys Ifans, Denis Leary, Campbell Scott, Irrfan Khan, Martin Sheen, Sally Field, Embeth Davditz and Chris Zylka

Directed by Marc Webb

Peter Parker loses his Uncle, discovers his past and embraces his destiny.

The first reboot of the series is almost as big a home run as the Tom Holland years. The pseudo-psycho drama of Raimi’s trilogy is replaced with something far more of its time, a story where Peter dives headlong into the emotions the Maguire incarnation often only paddled in. For many that’s a turn off but this, for me, is one of the strongest entries in the franchise.

An enormous part of that is Garfield, who is charming, brittle, broken open and a ball of rage, often in the same scene. He has the same ‘that is a grown man playing a teenager’ issue we always get but he closes the circuit between Pete’s charm and his awkwardness far more effectively for me. His scenes with Uncle Ben and Aunt May are more raw, and his loss of Ben is a lot more untidy and damaging. This Spider-Man is building something from the wreckage, not reforging himself, and it’s so much more relatable.

Stone too is excellent as a determined, principled and very funny Gwen and their chemistry is off the charts. Outside them, and the reliably excellent Sheen and Field as Ben and May, the other standout is Denis Leary. The movie effectively speed runs Captain Stacy, but t goes to some very interesting places with him. Which is also maybe where the trouble starts.

Ifans, as Curt Connors, is fine but it feels like a cover version of the ‘talks slowly, maniacal’ thing he’s essayed across multiple movies. But he provides a useful thematic mirror to Peter, a man seeking to become physically whole opposed by a boy trying to become emotionally whole. His Lizard form is also the only time the CGI fails a little, often feeling weightless aside from in the early, subtle and disturbing appearances.

Nonetheless the resonance carries the plot over those rough points until an ending which is essentially the ending of the first Maguire movie until, suddenly, it’s not. The same willingness to kick ant hills over as we see with Captain Stacy is used to set up tantalising hints about Oscorp, the origin of the Spider research and Peter’s parents. At he time it looked like something that would pay off. It wouldn’t.

Verdict: That knowledge casts a shadow over this movie a little, but only a little. Aside from that this is a fantastic return for the character and a sign of just what could, and would, be done with him. 9/10

Alasdair Stuart