The Amazing Spider-Man

I suppose the Spider-Man reboot, coming so soon after the Ramini movies had to walk a fine line between pleasing the old fans who loved Ramini's game changing Spider-Man and the new comers, who thanks to the likes of Christopher Nolan's Batman movies and the recent Avengers have come to expect big things from superhero movies. Neither party should be too disappointed.

 I went along to see the movie with my two young daughters and I must say I enjoyed every moment of it and in my opinion Andrew Garfield is a far better Peter Parker than Toby McGuire ever was. As for the CGI Spidey - well the technology has moved on but the 2012 version doesn't look that much better than the 2002 version, but then both are great so that's not a criticism. It is worth pointing out that  Martin Sheen is absolutely brilliant as Uncle Ben and even if he doesn't get to say the, "with great power comes great responsibility" line he does get some other snippets of home spun philosophy that sets Peter Parker off in his duty to help mankind.

The Amazing Spider-Man, coming post Dark Knight, is also a far darker movie than any of Ramini's Spider-Man movies which made it feel far more substantial.Of course it's an origin movie and treads the same ground as Ramini's original Spidey movie, but there are some differences that doesn't make it too much of a retread.

My audition piece for Amazing Spidey 2

There's no J Jonah Jameson in this one and I did miss the comedy the character usually provides, but then the tone of the film was much bleaker and maybe too much character comedy would have been out of place. Another point worth mentioning is that this movie features, without a doubt, Stan Lee's best ever cameo appearance. In short I think this is better than 2002's Spider-Man as well as Spider-Man 3, but that Spider-Man 2 is still the benchmark for Spidey movies.

It's been a massive hit taking a record $35m (£22.5m) on its opening day - US filmgoers flocked to see it on the eve of the Independence Day holiday. The film has also benefited from good reviews and looks likely to be one of the year's highest grossing films despite predictions in some quarters that it might struggle to compete with  rival superhero flicks such as The Avengers and the forthcoming The Dark Knight Rises.  And Sony Pictures have just announced that there will be two more Amazing Spider-Man movies, so maybe these will end up being the definitive Spidey movies after all.