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Movie Review Comic book remake is a crowd pleaser

Maybe a Spider-Man reboot wasn't exactly screaming to be made, coming just a half-decade after Tobey Maguire ditched the bodysuit for good.

But The Amazing Spider-Man is a sweeter, quirkier spin than Sam Raimi's blockbuster action franchise trilogy. The dazzling newcomer swings decidedly on its own terms.

Director Marc Webb (was Spider-Man his destiny?) laces the skyscraper-scaling crime-busting with a fetching, awkward romanticism that made his (500) Days of Summer such a low- key charmer.

Not that Spider-Man skimps on battle time and CGI heroics (though the 3-D seems rote). And to cut to the chase: Andrew Garfield is terrific in the lead role as a younger, more self-effacing superhero than the Maguire version.