Spider-Man always has been the brooding teenager among superheroes, at least in his movies. Ever since the Peter Parker kind of nerd reached mainstream and is basically a cool kid now, some of the fascination for his character has disappeared. What remains are family issues, girlfriend issues, money issues, plus a new villain emerging for each film and then getting nicely defeated by the end. A bit too formulaic, I say. The problem is: with the two latest film and counting Raimi's trilogy, because it's actually less than ten years old, you've now already seen Spidey do pretty much everything.

That being said, the film is really entertaining, sometimes silly, sometimes sad, but never too awfully exciting. It does a lot of things right in the last twenty minutes when our hero has to cope with one of his most iconic tragedies and still returns for more.

After the messy third Spider-Man film people were concerned having three villains could again turn out to be a problem for the new movie. Yes and no. The number isn't the issue here, it's that one of them has no real motive to attack the good guy in the first place and therefore remains shockingly flat. Having left out that story line would have made for a much leaner, more interesting film, because the other bad guy works great.

Having complained so much I should mention that I enjoyed the result at any time. It just neither lingers with you as long as Marvel Studios' recent winning streak, nor does it feel as if it makes the most of the character and especially his bad guys. But maybe they're about to change that. The ending gives me hope. All of a sudden, the outlook of a "Sinister Six" film dealing with a band of Spidey's most well known villains sounds like a good idea to bring in some fresh air.

7 out of 10 web shooters.

PS: there is no post-credits scene, just a short preview for the next X-Men film.