I am an avid fan of the Sam Raimi/Tobey Maguire Spider-Man film series. The way it portrayed Peter Parker as an adult with relationships and problems with his aunt and uncle, crush/girlfriend, and best friend are genius. “The Amazing Spider-Man” has its own relationship focus points, with high-flying action to boot. It is a great film with intense action, very well- developed characters, and top-class acting and writing.

If you look at the action in the Sam Raimi/Tobey Maguire Spider-Man series, you will find impressive visual effects, heart-pounding destruction, and perfectly executed fight scenes. In “The Amazing Spider-Man”, you will find all this and more. Spidey’s acrobatic web-shooting (now done by artificial web-shooters attached to Spider-Man’s wrist) is more fast-paced and “amazing” than ever. The hand-to-hand fights with thugs, cops (a new, helping “wanted vigilante” twist), and the Lizard are just as good as the older series, if not better. Overall, the film’s action is perfectly choreographed and extremely intense.

In the Sam Raimi/Tobey Maguire Spider-Man series, Peter’s relationships with the ones he loves are precise plot points for all three films. In “The Amazing Spider-Man,” Peter has different relationships with the same scrutiny. Similar to the other series, Peter becomes Spider-Man after his uncle is murdered by a criminal. This has always been a key point in Spider-Man stories, and portrayed perfectly here. Pete and Aunt May struggle to find the secrets each one is guarding, and Peter has a smart, beautiful girlfriend named Gwen Stacy (who appeared as a supporting character in Spider-Man 3). Harry Osborne does not appear, but I hope he will in future sequels. The relationships and characters are rock-solid and well developed.

Tobey Maguire was a good fit for a geeky, nice Peter Parker, while Andrew Garfield is a curious, only slightly mature teenager who is still inexperienced. Garfield plays the part of a younger, more realistic teenager. He is not fully mature yet, smart but still getting into trouble, and is more curious about his parents’ disappearance. Garfield and Emma Stone form an awkward but lovable couple as Peter and Gwen. Their acting couldn’t be better. Martin Sheen, Sally Field, Dennis Leary, and Rhys Ifans are great as Uncle Ben, Aunt May, Police Captain George Stacy, and the Curt Connors/The Lizard, respectively. These characters are well thought-out and portrayed perfectly.

All in all, “The Amazing Spider-Man” is one of the best reboots I have ever seen. While I enjoyed both Spider-Man series equally, this film has potential to be at least what that series was. Maybe Norman Osborne/The Green Goblin in the sequel? We’ll see.