A fun teenage coming-of-age movie

Rating: 7/10 (10 July 2017)

I think I might've put my expectations a bit too high, the film feels a bit standard for marvel. It is up to par with Dr. Strange, for example, but not as memorable as.. er.. I guess Marvel's standards are pretty high. This one feels more down to earth. Spiderman fights his villains on his own, and so isn't bogged down by the large scale and heaviness of films like the Avengers. I particularly liked the opening scene with Peter Parker making a little video diary, with some scenes from Civil War in it. Totally what a 15 yo teenager would do.
Tom Holland, as he did in his appearance in Civil War, is the perfect Spider-Man (and I'm a Tobey's version fan), and Tony Stark makes a pretty good mentor/father figure. I like that they only mentioned the fact that Peter lost his uncle just recently (we don't really need another spider bite and uncle death story). I wish there were more Aunt May scenes.
Even though the general feel of the film is upbeat, I have to say that Tom delivered his rare emotional scenes perfectly. You feel his loss when he fails to be what he wanted to be. He reminded me of his excellent work in "The Impossible" (must watch).
The changes in this version of spidey takes him to a completely different universe. He still lags in school due to his "other" responsibilities. But now he's the smart science nerd with his smart IT nerd friend, not the reporter-to-be kind of Peter Parker (I still remember Tobey's Peter taking pictures of MJ when he got bit). His suit and abilities are a bit different and mostly made by Stark, and I think spidey fans didn't like that idea. And I'm not sure I like the in-suit AI either (even though she sounds so soothing... it was Jennifer Connely's voice). But on the other hand it was pretty cool to see the different web effects the suit enabled him.
Michael Keaton as the Birdma.. I mean Vulture.. he's menacing and vicious when he needs to be. Excellent play between him and Peter Parker.
It's good. Fun, light, with some emotions interspersed throughout. The only bad thing.. well.. it's every other marvel standalone movie (well that's not bad actually because most of them are good too) and I guess we've seen those before.