Damn, I feel so mixed on this movie! I definitely liked it overall but some things kind of held it back for me. What I liked: -Tom Holland was absolutely amazing as Spider-Man and Peter Parker, Hands down. I thought he was perfect and captured the character really well -Spidey's Humor for the most part was spot on -The Vulture was a great villan that you can sympathize with. Although his actions were wrong, you can see where hes coming from. -Although some people didn't like him, I thought Ned was a pretty cool side character
What I didn't like: - Still not a big fan of character changes. Although flash was still a asshole, I didn't like him being a Geek-asshole rather than a Jock-asshole. It felt like it totally changed the character we know him as. I also still am really not liking Aunt May. The whole hotness thing seems so forced now, like they always have to bring up that shes attractive. I think it's weird to change such a pivotal character in Parker's life so drastically. I've always known her as the selfless and kindhearted yet frail Aunt that was always struggling to make ends meet after Uncle Ben died. She was almost like a grandma who was doing what she could for her family, and I'd really like that sort of struggle to be present in Parker's life. -MJ, Holy Shit. This could go both ways. If it was just a joke and shes not actually taking the place of Mary Jane Watson, then It's whatever. But if they're actually trying to substitute Michelle in for MJW, then im going to be really put off by any further movies with her. Not only does she not look or act anything like her, but I thought her character was pretty annoying to be honest. She'd just show up in random scenes and offer a little bit of comic relief, but her jokes just seemed so trendy and forced to me personally, but I know others didnt mind her. We'll have to see on that one.. -Shocker, what a wasted opportunity. I thought it was stupid how the vulture just accidentally killed off the real shocker for a joke. I was actually really excited when they introduced him and then they killed him and give his powers to a random dude next to him like he didn't matter whatsoever. -The Action Scenes. While alot of the animation looked cool, I was really dissapointed in the lack of brutal hand to hand combat. Some of my favorite moments in the Raimi films were when Spiderman and the Goblin or Spiderman and Doc Ock were clobbering the Shit out of eachother. It made it seem like much more of a fight which brings me to one of my biggest points -I thought they downplayed Spiderman's abilities wayyy too much. Almost all of his major fights were extremely one sided and each ended up with Spider-Man causing more destruction than good. I get that this was the whole point of Spider-Man learning how to become a hero, but even in the last fight he makes the exact same mistakes!! Look at the different encounters: At the bank he rushes in, cant handle himself, a bunch of stuff gets destroyed. First fight with Vultures goons, he rushes in, destruction, loses, has to get saved by Iron Man's Technology (which I also didn't like). The Washington monument, he carelessly gave his random high school friend a piece of advanced alien technology that turned out to be a bomb, caused the elevator to malfunction, Arguably his fault. The Boat scene, he rushes in, Gun goes haywire, he cant save the people, Iron Man saves the day. So by this point I was like, "Ok, Im fine with him screwing up all of this if he can show me some progression at the end". But then the last fight happens: He rushes in to fight the vulture, their fight causes a whole fucking plane to explode, and then he gets his ass kicked by vulture?? I was so dissapointed, It felt like Spider-Man wasnt doing anything right, which is just not true to his character. The Spider-Man we know and love definitely messes up, but he has the strength and wit to pull it back together and I was hoping that at least by the last fight they would show him growing as a super hero. Unfortunately, the Vulture pretty much defeated himself. -Minor stuff: Still don't think Stark needs to be in the movie and would have rather just seen Spider-Man growing and learning on his own, but it wasn't as big of a deal as I thought it would be.
Overall, I thought it was very enjoyable, but I couldn't help but feel a sour taste leaving the theater. I felt like the only thing I was really digging in this movie was Tom Holland to be honest. The vulture was cool too but as far as the plot and how it was executed, I wasn't a fan. That being said, the way Tom Holland played Peter was enough to keep me interested as he acted it out in a way I've never seen before which was awesome. So yeah, I'd say 7.5-8 for me. I know it's supposed to be a different take on the hero but I'd really wish they'd honor the source material a little better.