Good point about Peter's superpowers not really having a role in Uncle Ben's death. Something bothered me about that scene, but I was unable to pinpoint it until you verbalized the thought.
"Heroes don't get anything but dead." ~ The lovely Laurell K. Hamilton (I guess that explains why Anita Blake is still alive).
I think this way is better. The old way always bothered me, because the message was, whenever Peter Parker isn't Spiderman, he's responsible for everyone who dies that night. Whenever he's ill, whenever he decides to watch a DVD, he's not out their making money. By the same logic, every intelligent person should be a doctor, every strong man a policeman or fireman.
Instead the message is, if you have the opportunity to help people then you have the responsibility to do it too. And this applies to everyone, Uncle Ben had the opportunity to help and he took it. Peter had and didn't
The original philosophy is also like that. The original versions had him letting a thief get by when he obviously had the power to stop him. In fact, the reason why the thief was put into his path was because he was now superpowered.
This movie still had him letting a thief get by but he was not there because he had powers. He was there because he was an angry teenager.
I just want to point out: It (at least partly) was Pete's fault Uncle Ben was killed, since the only reason Ben was out there at that time of the night was because he went looking for Peter. More than enough for Spiderman, as per his character, to take himself on a guilt-trip.
Tyler Durden is my bitch.
And moreover, he totally could've taken that robber. And he didn't, just because the shopkeeper was a prick.
Maybe you'd be less disappointed if you stopped expecting things to be Carmen Sandiego movies.
The former was more on having the power to do something and this one is more on responsibility. Just because one focuses on the other aspect doesn't make it inferior.
Regarding the "talking to himself," the mid-credits teaser hints that he might not have actually been having a conversation with himself earlier, but rather may have been egged on by the man in the shadows.
All in all, I would say that this film is actually "been there, and now doing it better." A better setting, a better tone, a better Spiderman, better action, better dialogue. All around improvement from the Raimi trilogy.
^ Wow, I had no idea botching Spidey's origin, pissing on the whole point of the character, and straying so heavily from the Spider-Man created by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko was considered "doing it better." Spidey fanboys can say whatever they want, but the first Raimi film is a classic and the origin of Spider-Man did not need to be revisited after it.
So yeah, I'm defenitely in agreement with this review.
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Had potential but ended up lacking
It's no secret that Sony rushed this film into production to meet its copyright deadline, using an inexperienced director and making it a reboot of a franchise that was very popular and still recent enough to be in the collective minds of the audience. It was a reciepe for disaster.
What follows is a "been there, done that" rehash of the first films. Similarities were inevitable since they come from the same source material but this movie still followed the same beats as the first movie to the letter and even included aspects that only existed in Raimi's films. For instance, Curt Conners talks to himself a la Willem DaFoe in the first movie, a trait that neither of the villains had in the comics. At the end, Peter has to make a promise to a dying man and push his love interest away after a tragic funeral. If they took a cue from the original comics, they could have easily avoided this but they seemed afraid to stray too far form the "Raimi-formula". There's also the very tired supervillain plot of the bad guy wanting to use a gas/energy/whatever to turn the population of a city crazy/monstrous/whatever.
There are differences, however. While Uncle Ben's death in the comics and the first movie was a direct result result of Peter Parker's hubris and newfound powers, in this movie, Ben dies because Peter was simply being selfish while buying chocolate milk. One gets the impression that events would have transpired exactly whether or not Peter had powers, completely destroying the "Great power comes great responsibility" aesop. Peter then becomes your typical hero driven by revenge as opposed to a hero driven by guilt (something that is still original to this day). The fun and classic feel of the original movie has also been replaced by an uneven tone that did not know if it wanted to be lighthearted or dark, grounded or epic.
That said, there are great performances by Garfield, Sheen, and Leary. Leary is a good replacement for the loudmouthed J. Johnah Jameson (even though Captain Stacey never acted that way). Garfield is charming and likeable as Peter Parker and Sheen is a wise, fatherly, and very enjoyable Uncle Ben. It's a shame this movie could not have been better.