Spider-Man was an angsty teen that Stan Lee and Steve Ditko created in “Amazing Fantasy” comics in August 1962 – a character that’s apparently a perfect fit for Andrew Garfield in “The Amazing Spider-Man.”

Garfield sweeps aside memories of Tobey Maguire as the web-spinner. He captures the personality split – incipient do-gooder trapped in the body of a nerd – playing Peter Parker in Marc Webb’s reboot of the comic-book franchise.

After three films about Spider-Man guided by Sam Raimi, Webb takes over and takes off. The director of “(500) Days of Summer” uses all the visual and digital tools at his disposal, just as Raimi did – except the tools are slicker, glossier, more digitally seamless than those long ago days of 2002. (More…)