Mr. DuLac’s review published on Letterboxd:
Your father was a very secretive man, Peter.
-May Parker
I am in shock at how good this film was and at the decisions that were made in doing the reboot. Those decisions are what makes the film so good. I have to say that I think this film is better then the first Spider-Man. Was a reboot necessary? No, but who cares. I don't watch films because they are necessary, I watch them to be entertained.
The decisions made that surprised me is that the film probably has less action, less villains and less characters in general then Spider-Man 3. So obviously if all you want is more action and villains you're not going to like this much.
What you do end up with though is a film filled with characters I actually give a damn about compared to the 2002 Spider-Man. Now I want to say I actually quite enjoy Sam Raimi's take on the Wall Crawler, might even love those films, ok the first two anyways. One thing though, remember how the movie lit up when Peter Parker and Mary Jane Watson were together on the screen? If you say "yes" you're a liar. Here though Peter Parker and Gwen Stacy are actually fun to watch together on the screen. There's a chemistry there that was totally missing from all the previous films and actually makes you think these two are excited to be together.
The rest of the cast is pretty fantastic too. Rhys Ifans plays a villain that is the most sympathetic since Doc Ock. Sally Field and Martin Sheen play Aunt May and Uncle Ben as real people as opposed to the ideal grand-parent caricatures from the first film. Denis Leary is Denis Leary, and I love him for it.
So the reason I think this is so great is because I feel the characters and acting are superior then all three previous films, with Alfred Molina being the exception. It just feels like a more personal film with much more heart then the original trilogy. I know that's not what people want to hear... they want to hear that it's better because there's more action and special FXs, but just remember the last time we got that we ended up with Spider-Man 3.