This title is epically ironic to me, because I saw it the day after I saw "The Odyssey" and came back to the theater for a second straight day, to see an inaccurate adaptation featuring Tom Holland, Jon Bernthal in an avuncular role toward his character and Zendaya as an object of worship by the protagonist. More Groundhog than Brand New.

Anyway. It's a Marvel movie, and these days, that means crap. But it's better crap than most. It's too long, there is too much extraneous crap, and the movie seems to be hoping you forget everything once the scene changes, but it's entertaining?

My understanding of print Spider-Man, from my mom, and a novel I read and another one I started, by Jim Butcher, but gave up real fast, because it read just like the least interesting stuff in The Dresden Files, and various meta media about the IP, is that Spider-Man is a relatable hard-luck superhero with everyday problems. In the previous movie, at Peter's behest, Dr Strange decided to stop being himself and cast a spell that made everyone forget Peter Parker was Spider-Man (relatable solutions to problems, amiright? ), but monkey paw bullshit, plus sheer idiocy ensued and the spell almost destroyed reality, so Strange had to alter the spell so the effect was the same sans the "was Spider-Man" bit. His high school supporting cast and the Avengers characters all forgot Peter and we saw him moving into a shitty apartment in NYC. It looked like they were casting off all the origin elements intrinsic to the MCU in order to get Spider-Man back to his more grounded (the franchise's term for "grounded" is "friendly neighborhood" ), relatable adventures and life struggles.

But that's not actually what they were doing. The same writing team is on this, so they either changed their minds, or never intended to do that, and it was just the equivalent of a static network TV show, where there is a big dramatic, game-changing season finale and by episode 3 of the next season, the status quo is restored.

That's an exaggeration, but not by much. Anyway, Peter is dealing with the rest of the MCU just enough to remind you that there is a whole other MCU out there, but not enough to justify the lack of involvement of most of the characters, to rather serious problems. Basically, we get a couple of completely superfluous scenes of Yelena Romanov, the Temu Black Widow, with heavier Russian accent than ever, comrade. Florence Pugh might be pregnant (or was at the time of filming), because they mostly show her submerged to her neck in a swimming pool. Bruce Banner is teaching physics at Empire State University, with a Chekov's power-inhibitor on his wrist to prevent him from being Hulk, because that's a bad thing again, after 14 years. His teaching scene is basically a rip-off of the late Sam Neill's lecture in Jurassic Park 3.

And there is the Punisher. As the main supporting character, he is at once one of the best things about the movie, and also one of the worst things about the writing, that really emphasizes that this franchise should be called "Spider-Boy". Spider-Man's behavior and attitudes have always been juvenile, his morality is childish and his "relatable" problems are just self-imposed with ridiculous strictures and a quitter attitude. The best part of the Punisher in a superhero universe (I have seen both solo movies, his Netflix show and his appearance in Daredevil, except for the last season on Disney+, because the prior one sucked) is the clash of values and morality. The peak of screen Punisher was his rooftop argument scene with Daredevil. This movie mostly doesn't engage with that, while pretending to, but accidentally making Frank right and Spider-Man wrong.

The grotesque waste of a character aside, he and Peter bicker amusingly and Bernthal & Holland have good chemistry.

Anyway, the main story is that Peter is throwing himself entirely into the Spider-Man job without the burden of an actual life, and we get a montage covering the time in which Ned & MJ are attending MIT, where Peter fights crime, builds a high tech lab in his apartment, with an AI assistant voiced once more by a gorgeous aging actress, whom Zendaya's contract probably stipulates is not allowed to appear on screen (Naomi Watts, this time). It is not established how he pays for this, or his extensive floral bouquet budget, since he never spends a single frame doing anything that might be perceived as remunerative. The montage includes poses that are among the more famous images of Spider-Man, so the comic fanboys are probably already won over (and there is no one in the movie named Paul, whom I am informed most REAL comic fans hate), and has him interacting with a NYPD detective who is an unabashed fan, and walking around openly at crime & disaster scenes rubbing shoulders with the first responders, so we have none of the complexities or issues that complicated his relationship with the Stacy family in my personal favorite Spider-Man film, The One With Dennis Leary & Otto Hightower. (a diegetic explanation could be in one scene where the cops thank him, and he waves off their praise, telling them that they are the real heroes, and he's just a volunteer - they eat that shit up with a spoon). A TV announcer informs us that crime in NY is at an all-time low thanks to Spider-Man. The TV news even covers his defeat of The Hand, he ninjas from the Daredevil/Defenders ghetto of the MCU. The only bad thing is his loneliness, shown by his obsessive following of Ned's Instagram, as he helpfully announces the start of each new school year, so we know exactly how much time is passing between scenes of webbing bad guys, and putting flowers on May's grave.

Anyway, Spider-Man intervenes in a dangerous situation, while stopping Frank from excessive violence, because the Punisher is Bad and he uses firearms, which are also Bad, and not the proper way to handle crime. Except as the situation turns out, which the movie hopes you don't notice or remember, by diverting his attention to Frank, Spider-Man made the situation much, much worse.

The cause of this situation is a dangerous individual with mind powers, and a Marvel character appearing in their sixth film, who, annoyed at Spider-Man's interference, starts stalking him and prying into his life and secrets and then goes after MJ, who has moved back to New York with Ned, and makes multiple attempts on her life, as well as violating her mind and those of many other people. Just from what we see before the villain's identity is revealed, this is objectively the most evil antagonist in any Spider-Man titled movie, with the science-imposed insanity that afflicted Eddie, the Osbornes, the Ottos and Jamie Foxx.

Well, in the final act, the movie also wants you to forget the evil actions of the villain, because it's time for the surprise reveal that it's not actually a villain!! It's someone you already know! But since the movie acts like what happened an hour ago doesn't count, they also clearly don't expect anyone to remember who this is the THIRD FILM in which this same character is a villain!

Also, Frank takes a shot at this villain, when it is totally justified, there is unexpected collateral damage (which is also due to stupidity on Peter's part) (additionally, given the firepower of the weapon Frank uses, the damage done is surprisingly minimal) and he is brought to tears at his "mistake." So the movie also expects us to not actually remember who the Punisher really is.

Also, threaded through all this is the whole bit where Peter is stalking Ned & MJ. So we are not moving on from them at all. Peter exchanges more dialogue in this movie, with two high school friends who don't know who he is, than I have with all of my high school friends, combined, in the decades since we graduated. They also tease the memories coming back on a couple of occasions, because we are not supposed to remember that they were removed for a good reason, to keep reality intact, remember?

Also, also, also, there is a subplot about Peter's powers evolving. We don't actually get anything firm on that, except for the fact that the villain thinks his sensory abilities have altered, believing at first, that Peter can identify people who are under the mind-control, and later, that he has lost the ability. Anyway, Peter's eyes go dark when he manifests these abilities, which include superior strength, anatomically-generated webs, akin to Tobey McGuire's powers (Peter notes as much, referring to him as Peter #2), and sometimes a worse temper, maybe? And he randomly spews webs unconsciously. As shown in the trailers, he approaches Bruce for information on the issue, specifically for adaptation of his power-suppressor thing. Despite noting that this could be applied to all super powers, Bruce freely shares the information on how his device works, despite not knowing Peter and picking up on more than one lie in his cover story. Almost like Bruce forgotten about helping with another high tech security measure that went disastrously wrong... Ultron, anyone? Anyway, because of this talk, Peter invents a version for himself, with a more general application, and the development of this plot point follows an incredibly predictable track doesn't work until he gets help from a woman in STEM; realizes it can be used on the villain; villain grasps ramifications of power-suppressing tech revealing the only thing preventing a Hulk from trashing NYC; "unforeseen" negative consequence of using it on villain; ramifications of Peter wearing device in final battle, etc. I have heard that at one point the picture books had Spider-Man undergo a metamorphosis to bring his powers in line with the organic webs of the McGuire movies, so maybe that's what they are adapting here.

They could have removed quite a few characters and subplots and turned this into a nice, tight little movie, without retroactively rendering the prior film pointless, character assassinating Frank, Peter, Bruce and REDACTED or writing themselves into an aggressively amoral story* with so many plot holes.

*for all the complaints about wokeness producing "Mary Sue" minority and female characters, for my money, the most egregious offense with this sort of ideologically-blinkered storytelling is when objectively evil behavior is narratively and/or diegetically excused for the same classes of characters, or because of their group's IRL sufferings.

All of that aside, it's the usual fun Spider-Man antics, the action is pretty well-shot and the performances are generally good. Just don't think about it. At all.