Can Spiderman change my mind about reboots?

First things first.  Garfield is a great Peter Parker.  His cool edge gives him a more modern, up to date, geek factor.  The scene where Peter stands up to Flash is particularly important when it comes to highlighting this new side of Peter Parker.  Although the dynamic between the students is altogether different, as a later scene with Flash underlines shortly after the death of Uncle Ben.  Also Garfield embodies the wittier side of Peter that Maguire never really brought to the screen, the scene with the car thief the most notable example.  One thing that Garfield was behind the curve on was the 'Hero's Struggle'.  The inner turmoil was ever present throughout the first Spiderman films.  And even though you get a healthy slice of 'with great power comes great responsibility' from Martin Sheen's Uncle Ben, you don't really connect with Peter's turmoil through Garfield until the end scenes with Gwen after Peter has made his promise to her father.

There is an undeniable chemistry between Stone and Garfield.  Whilst they leave it open for the addition of MJ in future films (although that would make a mess of the Spiderman timeline, though we'll ignore that for now), I'm at this point more interested in seeing Gwen and Peter reunited.

I found it a bit too much towards the end of the film, the injection of patriotism when the workers align the cranes for Spiderman.  The camera pans over the worker's shoulder and the shot settles on the image of an American Flag against the side of a building.  The sentimentality of the scene was almost too much to bear.  The father of a boy saved earlier, just happening to be a crane operator who can repay Spiderman's kind act in his hour of need.  On it's own, I could have dealt with it, with the forced inclusion of the flag shot, too much.

Overall Spiderman was a thoroughly enjoyable film.  What started as cynicism, gradually gave way to mild excitement as the film got closer to release.  Now having watched the film, I eagerly await to see where this franchise will go.

Let the rumours about Spiderman's next adversary begin...