We live in an age of speed-up, which may explain why the Spider-Man franchise feels the need for a reboot only 10 years after its first film, and five years after the most recent one. In its broad strokes, The Amazing Spider-Man is a remake of Sam Raimi s Spider-Man (2002), but it s not the broad strokes we care about. This is a more thoughtful film, and its action scenes are easier to follow in space and time. If we didn t really need to be told Spidey s origin story again, at least it s done with more detail and provides better reasons for why Peter Parker throws himself into his superhero role.