The Amazing Spider-Man is the story of Peter Parker (Garfield), an outcast high schooler who was abandoned by his parents as a boy, leaving him to be raised by his Uncle Ben (Sheen) and Aunt May (Field). Like most teenagers, Peter is trying to figure out who he is and how he got to be the person he is today. Peter is also finding his way with his first high school crush, Gwen Stacy (Stone), and together, they struggle with love, commitment, and secrets. As Peter discovers a mysterious briefcase that belonged to his father, he begins a quest to understand his parents' disappearance, leading him directly to Oscorp and the lab of Dr. Curt Connors (Ifans), his father's former partner. As Spider-Man is set on a collision course with Connors' alter-ego, The Lizard, Peter will make life-altering choices to use his powers and shape his destiny to become a hero.
I have to put it out there that the reboot of this franchise is way too soon. When they rebooted Batman - more than enough time had gone by and they were doing it in a VERY different and darker way. This reboot is coming out ten years after the original one with two sequels to the original one having been made in the last decade. Granted, I thought Spider-Man 3 was very disappointing and would ultimately lead to them rebooting as opposed to just throwing Spider-Man 4 out there but not this soon. And they only made minor tweaks to the story. Just needed to state that for the record before going on about the movie.
The movie was awesome. The cast was great. Andrew Garfield was great for Spidey. I liked him a million times more than Tobey Maguire. And Emma Stone is just awesome. She might be my favorite actress at this point. She's just entertaining no matter what she does. The effects were pretty cool and the story developed well. Unfortunately, due to the closeness to the original Spider-Man I can't help but compare the two. I feel that the development story and tightness of it was better with the original but the cast of this one was a thousand times better. It's not that the story wasn't good in this one. It just wasn't as good as the original.
All of this ranting aside - I still absolutely loved this movie. It's a great "alternate" telling/reboot even if it was too soon. And in a year overly crowded by subpar movies or ones that are just there, this movie is easily second only to The Avengers in 2012 so far.