Amazing Spider-Man
I really loved this. I wish they hadn't done the origin story again (I think I'd have gone with a Tim Burton's Batman approach, where Batman was already Batman when the movie started, and we got little flashbacks of the origin). That being said, if they were going to do the whole origin again, I'm glad they did it this well, as I really enjoyed it. I loved Garfield's Peter Parker and Emma Stone is awesome, as always, and they have very good chemistry. I'll take them over Maguire and Dunst any day. Leary was good as Capt. Stacy, though I felt he needed to get his priorities straight. Him being obsessed with catching Spider-Man early in the film, when Spidey is just catching random thugs, makes sense. Not so much when there's a giant mutant lizard rampaging through NY and he's still shouting about wanting Spider-Man off the streets.
PS:I'm really glad that Peter tells Gwen he's Spider-Man almost right away, so we didn't have to deal with any of the angst of Peter blowing off the love interest to go Spider-Man-ing and then not having any way to explain it later. I got so tired of that shit in the first two Raimi films.
APGIL and I went to see Spider-Man on opening night. I agree with everything you said; the fact that they delved into the origin story is what has set many movie critics against this movie ("We've seen all of this before!"). Frankly, I didn't mind that, although we all already know the story and the movie ran a little too long for my tastes. I did like the whole "what happened to his parents" thing, because they didn't really address that in the Raimi movies, I don't think.
Andrew Garfield was just wonderful -- sweet and funny and snarky and nicely nerdy. A smile he gave Aunt May when he came home was the thing that really sold me on him. Emma Stone was great, too; she gave life to a role that, for most of the movie, basically requires the female lead to sit on her hands while Spider-Man has all the fun.
I loved the spider abilities they gave Peter -- the vibrations he picked up from his webbing, his ability to spin a cocoon around his enemies, his body language when he was leaping off of the bridge. Those were amazing and even now I'm getting all misty because it was just so awesome to see brought to life.
The only thing that bothered me about the film was the melodrama. I think Peter Parker cried like five or six times and there was too much romance. Not nearly enough ass-kicking for my tastes. They could have cut out a few tear-filled scenes as far as I was concerned.