This movie is quintessential Spider-Man and I will tell you how. In the comics, Peter/Spider-Man is constantly put upon. Either by choices he made or something happening to him. He gets put through the wringer, but he still does the right thing and saves people. That is the throughline of this entire film and you watch Peter wrestle with his choice from Spider-Man: No Way Home.
He's out there doing Spider-Man things and nothing else. I felt so bad for bro because he is not dealing with all of this well. At all. Tom Holland is so good as an actor that you can feel the pain projected over everything he does.
There were a lot of characters, some are cameos and some are part of the story. When I initially heard about all the people showing up, I was afraid it would be Spidey and friends, with little focus on him and he would be drowned out by everyone else. I was wrong. Most of them are quick shots, but easter eggs for the fellow nerds. Unlike with last year's Captain America: Brave New World, a Hulk is used much more effectively here. Just sayin'.
Thank God that Tom Holland and Jon Berthanal are good friends in real life because that chemistry shows in their Spider-Man/Punisher dynamic, which I didn't know I needed. Their pairing works better than what we saw in Daredevil because Spidey is nowhere near as sanctimonius or as hypocritical as Matt Murdock. There's a grudging respect for each other in this movie that is palpable.
I think the biggest gut punches in this movie really come when Peter directly interacts with MJ and Ned, who don't remember him (due to the aforementioned Spider-Man: No Way Home). Those lost relationships are hard to watch and I found myself getting emotional. When we finally get Peter/MJ truly crossing paths, I'm also glad they don't give us the resolution we so desperately wanted. They have a mature conversation about it and it has real weight to it. However, it still hurts.
The villain was not at all what I expected it to be. For the first thirty minutes of the movie, villain was a mystery to me and I was racking my brain trying to line up the approporiate Spidey villain. When it's revealed to be Jean Grey, I rolled with the punches. They say her name in this movie like it's a big deal, but literally none of the main characters would know her. She is a cadbury easter egg for the nerds. We know Marvel and they can't help but put something in a movie to build on to a future movie.
The villain turns you start to see coming a mile away, but the journey to get there that makes it enjoyable. The cherry on top for me is that for the first time in a Spider-Man movie, the action is top notch. There's some CG Spidey nonsense as always, but that's mixed in with some really good hand to hand fights, courtesy of Jackie Chan's stunt team.
Something I'm going to start doing with these Marvel movies is giving my take on how much homework you have to do in order to enjoy this movie. I would say if you've watched all three previous Spider-Man movies (with Tom Holland), you get the majority of the information you need. Extra credit would just be watching an Avengers movie or two for knowing enough about the Hulk and an episode or two of Daredevil with the Punisher or his own series. Despite what Marvel tries to do with the Punisher, his character is as deep as a kiddie pool.
Highly recommend watching this movie.
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