Not what I wanted from a Spider-Man movie

I thought it was a refreshing change. I especially liked that it wasn't another hero vs. villain battle. In this film, we really saw each villain as an individual, and were given deep insight into who they are, and why they are villainous. The idea of curing them rather than defeating them was refreshing as well. There was something so incredible about seeing Peter Parker bring the Green Goblin, Electro, Doctor Octopus, and Sandman into his apartment as friends, in an attempt to help them, that elevated this movie to a level rarely reached by a superhero film.

The fact that each villain already had been previously introduced in a past film was a huge help, and without those prior films to set them up, this film wouldn't have worked the way it did.

F U

That's okay, literally everyone else really likes it.

I agree with you that the whole idea was a mess, but fairly entertaining. I do applaud the film for trying something different (although it seems the writers were poaching from Into the Spider-Verse). My problems with the movie lied elsewhere. First, I thought the dialog was awful. In the first half every single syllable uttered felt artificial, a continual stream of snarky sass delivered at an unbelievable pace that I quickly found painful. It would've been okay if it had actually been funny, but it wasn't to me and I felt I'd heard all the snappy comebacks and fake meta-observations before. Second, all the blubbering at the end was too much to take. I didn't feel any sadness for the plight of these characters. The melancholy failed because of the phony, snarky tone that dominated everything that preceded the later moments when the writers groped for unearned sympathy. And these weepy scenes just dragged on and on and on. In between the blubbering we got utterly predictable fortune cookie pithiness like "with great power comes great responsibility." Really? That tired cliché is the best they could come up with? Third, the movie was way too long. They should've cut at least a half hour out of the end, most notably the graveyard scene with the ubiquitous comic book mensch Favreau.

There was a good idea buried somewhere in this movie. It's just too bad that the amateurish writing team wasn't up to the task of making the characters sympathetic or believable human beings. MJ was mostly played as the standard teenage girl brat who sorely needed a dressing down from Deadpool. Ned came straight from the Steven Spielberg school of goofy fat kids who could be relied on to belch out dumb observations and make a nuisance of himself the instant there was a flicker of romance. Any dialog that did work was mainly due to the acting chops of Molina, Dafoe, and Garfield (the best actor of the three spidermen).

I agree. The fan service was too much.

but the great thing about this movie is that it wasn't just fan service.

they brought the characters back - indeed a fan-servicey thing to do - but then they gave everyone new motivations and arcs, and redeemed things that perhaps didn't quite work right in the case of garfield.

which was great, and satisfying, and surprisingly emotional!

they didn't just give us a bunch of 'member-berries.' they didn't just trot out a bunch of actors and go 'hey, remember that guy? he's back!'

they gave us a complete story with payoffs, and considering how many people were here, it's actually a remarkable bit of stickhandling.

I don't mind it for what it is and I never cared for these new Tom Holland Spider movies anyhow. It was a lot of fun, and it kind of established that all the Spider-Man movies are canon, so i'm no longer annoyed about Uncle Iron Man. This was definitely more a theme park attraction event movie than a real film with any sort of story. That's fine. I don't mind it for a one off. But it made sooooo much money they're gonna double down big time on fan service and probably produce a whole slate of unwatchable annoying movies. But for once, we got a late sequel to beloved movies before the lead actors were way too old for this shit, so that's a big win in my book. But for sure I see your point. If you loved the last two Spider-Man movies and were looking for something of a trilogy of a character's journey with a nice thematic wrap up, then this is kind of the 3rd Film Curse for you.

This is honestly one of the most original takes on a superhero movie in years IMO. I loved it. Having Kraven in it would've been could though.