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I have a lot of things I want to get out, so I apologize if this is a long review. I will do my best to avoid providing too much information to prevent spoilers, but some very minor and insignificant details might slip through the cracks. I want to start by giving immense praise to the first half of this movie. When I saw the trailers, I was quite worried about the overwhelming number of characters, which seemed to be overstuffing the movie. There were Spider-Man, MJ, Ned, The Punisher, The Hulk, Sadie Sink, The Hand, Tombstone, Damage Control, Scorpion, and probably a few more that I’m forgetting. However, after watching the movie, I was genuinely surprised by how well they managed to handle all these characters within the limited runtime, without feeling cluttered. The first half of this movie is also the best we’ve ever seen from any live-action Spider-Man. Everything from Peter’s comedic remarks to his intelligence and his most depressing moments is just what you want to see from this beloved character. I was also very concerned about how they would handle Ned and MJ. I felt that the ending in Spider-Man: No Way Home was the perfect send-off for these characters, and I was very against their inclusion in this movie. Their story had come to an end, and Peter was about to embark on a new chapter in his life. Their absence would have been the perfect way to symbolize this new beginning. I believed that Sony’s interference would get the best of these characters, but their relationship with Peter in the first half of the movie never felt forced, and I really enjoyed that. **Now the negatives I have with this movie…** There’s a reason I kept using the phrase “first half” throughout my positives. The entire second half of this movie severely diminishes the overall quality of the film for me. The shift in quality was almost instantaneous; I first noticed it in Sadie Sinks’ scene at the park. I regret to say this because I absolutely adore that first half, but everything after that park scene became incredibly tedious. The same information is constantly repeated, and the problem with repetition is that it quickly becomes boring. Dialogue like “You don’t have to do this” is uttered repeatedly in various forms by multiple characters. It also doesn’t help that the delivery of these lines by Tom Holland, but especially Sadie Sink, was very unbearable and cringey. I’m not sure what went wrong behind the scenes, as they did a fantastic job in the beginning. To top it all off, the final act relies heavily on some of the most cliché and bland tropes in the business. Saying this alone could be considered a spoiler, as if you were to think of the most generic way to end this movie, it’s probably how the actual ending plays out. Not to mention the ending to this movie is pretty abrupt and lacks a satisfying conclusion. Ned and MJ are also almost completely forgotten about in this second half, which really annoyed me because they are a core element to MCU Spider-Man’s overall character. I will continue to think about this one, potentially docking it the more I think about it. This movie is just such a hard one to rate. This movie contains the best of the best moments out of any live-action Spider-Man film to date but also some of the worst moments too. Yet at the end of the day I still enjoyed the movie. Semi connected, but I would like to address the current path the MCU is on… After watching this film, it has done nothing but make me all the more worried about Avengers Doomsday. **INSIGNIFICANT SPOILER, **this film contains no true build up to Avengers Doomsday. From start to post credits. Laugh at me if I may end up being completely wrong, but this lack of build up for any of these characters from Dr Doom to Steve Rogers’ return and the X-men variants is going to bite Doomsday in the butt. The reason why Infinity War and Endgame had stakes was because of build up. We see each infinity stone in each movie leading up to Infinity War and we are teased Thanos as far back as The Avengers (2012). Fans knowing that during every movie, every fight, there was a larger threat looming over and when that larger threat finally arrived, Marvel successfully had fans on the edge of their seats. We got to relate to these characters for over a decade. People felt personally connected to characters like Black Widow, like Ironman, like Captain America; explaining why their conclusions in Endgame felt so strong and impactful. And now **nearly a decade after Endgame,** we have no defined Avengers team and our new big threat has only been mentioned in a post credit scene from a movie last year. We had been fed TV shows and movies that never contributed and never will to anything upcoming, for the past **SEVEN YEARS** (Echo, Eternals and Secret Invasion for an example). It is clear that Marvel had no concrete plan during the pandemic, the plan the did eventually form post-covid with Kang The Conqueror got scrapped mid way through, and it’s also pretty apparent that Marvel hired the Russo Brothers to hopefully find a way to piece together the broken puzzle pieces. **TLDR: ** First half, best we have seen from any live action Spider-Man movie. Second half, very cliche, boring, repetitive and dull. Conflicted about rating, as the movie contains both the best and worst of live action Spider-Man. May eventually dock later. The movie also drained a lot of my excitement for Doomsday. No build up for Doomsday, we have been fed too much slop over quality for nearly a decade.