FOUR-STAR REVIEW: 'Amazing Spider-Man' spins a fine tale - New York Daily News

“The Amazing Spider-Man” is dark and mysterious, but doesn’t skimp on fun.

With all due respect to the earlier films, the web-slinging reboot “The Amazing Spider-Man,” opening Tuesday, should have come first.

Director Marc Webb’s action-adventure is grounded in a recognizable reality, but is also full of thrills. It’s dark and mysterious, but doesn’t skimp on fun.

And, in star Andrew Garfield, there’s actual power to Peter Parker, usually seen as comicdom’s superdork. The 28-year-old British actor brings to the role something like a 1970s-style grit. Back then, actors including Al Pacino and Jon Voight were contenders to play Superman; in Garfield, we see a bit of what that may have been like.

The new tone is set early. When his scientist father suspects nefarious forces are nearby, 7-year-old Peter is brought to his Aunt May (Sally Field) and Uncle Ben (Martin Sheen) for safety.

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Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone get cozy atop the Empire State Building. (Bryan Smith for New York Daily News)

Jaimie Trueblood/Columbia Pictures

Andrew Garfield stars as Spider-Man/Peter Parker in Columbia Pictures' "The Amazing Spider-Man," also starring Emma Stone.

Mom and dad never return.

Now a teen, Peter’s a smart kid more into books than Facebook. He learns Oscorp Labs hired his dad’s former associate, Dr. Curt Connors, whom Peter hopes has knowledge about his parents. But Connors (Rhys Ifans) is doing strange things with science, developing a reptile serum to regrow his missing arm, and one of his steroidal spiders bites Peter.

Columbia Pictures' "The Amazing Spider-Man," starring Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone. (Courtesy of CTMG./ImageMagick)

We know the result, and the transformation from man to Spider-Man is refreshingly free from the giddiness of previous versions. After Uncle Ben is shot during a robbery, Peter turns masked vigilante. (The costume he creates looks handmade, and stays that way, while his webbing comes from wrist devices, not his veins.)

Yet Connors has changed, too â€" into a giant lizard with a human mind and voice (more about that later). He has used his serum on himself, and as his reptilian side takes over, he hatches a plan to turn all of N.Y.C. into scaly iguana-folk.

Emma Stone and Andrew Garfield attend the 66th Annual Tony Awards at The Beacon Theatre on June 10, 2012 in New York City. (Kevin Mazur/WireImage)

No word on whether Jersey would be safe, but police Capt. Stacy (Denis Leary) is more intent on catching Spider-Man, while Stacy’s daughter Gwen (Emma Stone) attracts her classmate Peter’s attention, and vice-versa. Their love story is sweet and mature, and Stone’s smart, self-possessed Gwen is a far cry from Kirsten Dunst’s pouty Mary Jane in the earlier films.

In fact, so much of “The Amazing Spider-Man” is finely tuned â€" including the trippy special effects, nighttime atmosphere and full-throated emotions â€" that the villain’s plot seems secondary.

That has been a problem before, even in the earlier series’ high point “Spider-Man 2,” and this isn’t the first comic-book film to suffer from a villain problem. For as good as Ifans is, his CGI alter-ego feels like a “Jurassic Park” reject filled with “I’ll prove to them I’m a genius!”-style taunts.

It’s in these areas where the movie stumbles, and despite the cool web-swinging and 3D-enhanced powers, it’s almost unfortunate Webb has to build such Spider-Man stuff into his “Spider-Man” movie. So many things click â€" including a great midfilm save of a car dangling off a bridge â€" that the creature-feature fights seem like filler.

Happily, the missteps aren’t strong enough to kill this sharp reimagining. Ultimately, the amazingly gripping parts of “The Amazing Spider-Man” are what stick.

jneumaier@nydailynews.com