Though you have been getting rather risky with your story ideas. Do you have that much of an ego now that you're willing to put Batman into a Marvel movie while WB still owns the rights? Though to be fair this is the eighth movie with Peter Parker in it, and the third in the MCU (Remember that kid with the Iron Man mask in Iron Man 2? Apparently, that was a very young Peter Parker). Anyway, now that Peter is legally back with Marvel (under shared custody for now), it was only a matter of time before he got his own solo movie, and they did not waste the chance, though they did take every chance they could to separate this movie from the last five solo Spider-Man movies. Did it work though? One way to find out.
Excluding time jumps at the start of the movie, the majority of the film is set two months after the events of Civil War. Peter is sick of being a friendly neighborhood Spider-Man, and is trying to become a full-time Avenger. Fortunately, Batman will give him that chance as he adopts the persona of the Vulture, and is using the remains from Superhero battles to create weapons to sell to criminals... in order to provide for his family due to losing a cleanup contract to Tony Stark's Damage Control unit after the battle of New York. As such, due to how dangerous the weapons are, Spider-Man makes it his mission to stop the Vulture, The Shocker and the Tinkerer (Look Sony, a Spider-Man movie with more than one villain that works as a cohesive story! Please tell me you've learned your lesson for Venom!). This is one of the smaller scope Marvel movies, which considering the character, I honestly think is fine, and acts as a nice pace breaker considering the next few movies includes Infinity War.
I also like the fact that its using new villains that we haven't seen brought to the big screen yet. Don't get me wrong, I do want to see some of the A-List villains soon, such as the MCU Green Goblin, Doc Oct and Venom (preferably Agent Venom), but in order to help give this movie a better chance at a unique identity, I do appreciate the use of villains that didn't make it to the big screen when Sony was in complete control. The majority of the focus, in terms of villains, is on The Vulture, as both Shocker and Tinkerer are henchmen for him, its the big thing that Sony didn't learn from Spider-Man 3, and I really hope was intentional for this film, just to add insult to injury. The cast itself is really strong, I do like the way Peter and Ned work off each other in this film and for a Holywood version of a high school, its one of their better attempts as it never feels overdone. It's not on the level of, say, for example, a Disney Channel high school. If anything, I do have my issues with the new MJ (the actual MJ, not Liz, the main female lead of the film), as she kinda feels like a high school girl version of Rocket, just not as much of an asshole about it. I have heard vague comments about her being an "SJW archetype", which I can kind of see as a way of showing the flaws of that kind of mentality, but I can't agree 100% because its not really brought up any further than a Protest joke and a comment about the Washington Monument being built by slaves.
On the subject of "SJW" stuff though, one thing I remember being brought up around the time of production for the film is the mixed-race cast, doing things like not having MJ being a white red-haired girl. I ignored it when I was hearing about it and after seeing the movie, it's not a big deal. This is the kind of stuff I like seeing when it comes to diversifying media. While I'm open to the more blunt, force it down your throat approach if the story is built around it, there was a horror movie that came out either last year or the year before where I think it works, considering as it was a film about a black man being weirded out by an all-white town that still had black slaves (I think, I haven't seen the movie as horror isn't my thing), I prefer movies where the diversification has more of a "so what? Can we tell the story now?" approach. Yes, MJ's not white, so what? To cover Peter himself, I genuinely like this version of him. He's not as goofy as the original trilogy, nor is he as edgy as he is in the Amazing Spider-Man films (their quality isn't amazing though). He's... a teenager. He makes mistakes, he's cocky without being an asshole, he's smart without being a show-off, his silly moments don't come off as being forced, I genuinely have no major faults with him. He's not flawless, but I don't like flawless characters, and seeing as most of his flaws are teenager level flaws, it works. The biggest problem though is going to be if you're onboard with "Tame Millenial Peter Parker", because if you're not, then you are going to hate this film.
In terms of presentation, it's interesting to see how far the team went in order to try and keep this movie feeling unique. "Old movies kept him in the city, so we'll have him in the suburbs/ city outskirts where the buildings are lower, and we'll put him in Washington!" "The old movies spent time explaining what motivates Peter and how he shoots his webs, so we'll have his motivation implied cause a lot of people know what the motivation is, and we'll have his web fluids explained with a quick shot of him making a version 3.1 of the stuff". "Old films never really gave Peter a full movie father figure, so we'll give him a pseudo father-son relationship with Tony Stark". It can't escape everything, I still think some of the tricks are a little stilted (there's one example when he's backflipping over a high fence, and it looks like he puts in too little effort for the jump. I can't help but visualize the cables that were edited out of the film). Soundtrack though is one of the best soundtracks Marvel has done that didn't involve licensing songs. I like the use of the old Spider-Man theme, and the new theme is really nice to listen to.
There are two big hurdles that will determine your views on the film. Can you live with Millenial Parker? And can you accept this not being like the original Spider-Man trilogy? If the answers are yes, you're going to have a good time with this film. If the answers are no, then you're going to struggle, there's no real way around it. Still, though, it puts a lot of pressure onto Into the Spiderverse and Venom, cause if they bomb, then we might see Marvel take their stuff back in a 100% capacity. Do you want that to happen? No? Let me know. Until then, coming up next is the Sanctum Sanctorum Showdown, followed by Thor Ragnarok!
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