Kyle

While I do appreciate the more emotional and human (ironically) approach, there are a lot of issues with this movie that come back to haunt it on the second pass:  1. characters that had no business being there (I mean what was even the point of Florence Pugh in this? The hulk they at least used better but I really don’t think he was all that necessary either, it just feels like cheap fanservice) 2. lazy development of fairly interesting characters in Jean Grey and Scorpion. such a lame way to end that, and the “people are gonna be awful because you’re different, just be better than them” thing is so worn out with x-men. You can bring the character over and find something else to do. For scorpion, they spend all this time building him up just to close that door again in like 4 seconds. Disappointed with that one, hope he comes back.  3. a lot of lost momentum - the stakes felt the highest in the hulk sequence and I don’t think they ever really recovered 4. An astounding lack of on-screen chemistry between Tom and Zendaya, especially considering they’re married - I get that she doesn’t remember him but this is not an issue that’s specific to this movie. It might not even be their fault, the writing in a lot of their scenes was especially bad  5. This whole “spiderman thought he was doing the right thing, but he was wrong! His judgement was clouded!” thing, no she just had every opportunity to give him any indication whatsoever that this dude is big time evil and she’s just looking for her sister, but instead she just acts quite evil to his face like dude what did you expect him to think? 6. The visuals were okay at best - outside of a few good shots, nothing really stood out, and with the amount marvel spends on cgi you’d expect a little bit more return 6. Finally this is not an original thought but what’s up with Palantir Parker is that something we’re pushing now? Looking back, I think two things are carrying this movie:  1. as not the biggest marvel fan, seeing them take a more emotional, human approach is refreshing and probably enabled me to overlook some of the more obvious flaws in the first watch (this is my justification for the full star drop) 2. tom holland and jon bernthal. Those guys really put the whole thing on their back, their dynamic was probably the best part of this movie  At the end of the day, marvel is marvel. It’s an enjoyable movie, but its propped up by the post-endgame falloff. If this came out in the prime marvel era it wouldn’t have generated nearly this much buzz.

Devastating watch, but impossible to look away from. Humanity at its most vulnerable faced with humanity at its worst. A quip for this one would feel out of place. You’ll have to trust that I had a good one ready somewhere along the way.