Easily the worst Tom Holland Spiderman movie. The plot is unambitious and leaves so many plot points hanging it feels like barely anything was resolved, and they were scrambling to create a third act where Spiderman has to fight anything.
Why would they introduce Jean and then not resolve her plot line… At all? She starts the movie on the run, looks for her sister, realizes she’s dead, then goes back to being on the run. It didn’t really feel like we accomplished anything. It didn't feel like she had any character arc because we still don't know anything about her, other than she's mad at the people who kidnapped her sister.
Also, the twist of her not being the villain is CRAZY to me because she was insanely evil and spent most of the movie messing with Spiderman, threatening to kill his girlfriend, possessing multiple people and making them attempt suicide, and causing untold damage… only for the movie to end with “actually she’s a really nice person deep down inside?” What??? She was blatantly evil and sadistic, and now she’s just cool and misunderstood?
So much of Jean becoming a villain was out of convenience so there could be something for Spiderman to fight. Why would Jean run a tank through the city and plant a bomb if she wants to keep a low profile? Why did she free Scorpion? You also can't just make EVERY action scene about fighting mind-controlled villains. Oh my god, it's Scorpion... But he's mind controlled! It's Hulk but he's mind controlled! It's The Hand but they're mind controlled!!! It's a bunch of security guards but they're...! Oh nevermind, they just wanted to fight Spiderman for fun.
Half of the plot is just Spiderman getting the confidence to re-introduce himself to his friends. I totally get *why* they’re doing it and it’s nice that they reconnect in a believable way… But it’s just such a boring plot idea. The whole emotional core of the movie is just “guy connects with characters he used to be friends with last movie”. It takes an entire movie to reset the status quo back to the previous movie. Imagine if they spent this time introducing any new fun characters instead of re-introducing ones we already know.
The Hand is also just hanging out in New York and it’s never explained or resolved. Spiderman’s powers freaking out is never resolved but I guess it’s just implied he gets over it now that he has friends again. Jean Gray baits you into thinking they’re introducing mutants to the MCU but they never do. The director guy was supposedly left alive but we never see if anything happened to him…? Did they just let him go with zero consequences?
So much wasted potential and wasted time. Everything was kinda half assed. The only thing I can really say I liked was the direction, it felt a lot more dynamic and less flat than the other Tom Holland spiderman movies. I loved the swinging scenes. Everything else? Bleh.