It’s impossible to avoid the comparisons, so we may as well just get them out of the way early so we can move on.

“The Amazing Spider-Man” – a reboot? Prequel? New chapter? It’s hard to decide what to call it – is pretty much different in every way from the staggeringly successful Marvel Comics-inspired trilogy that preceded it.

The basics are the same: A high school kid gets bitten by a scientifically modified spider, discovers he has newfound super powers, decides to use them as a vigilante crime fighter and takes to the streets of New York in an unforgivingly tight red-and-blue suit.