Not sure what the point was...

Rating: 4/10 (28 January 2019)

I'm not sure what the point of this movie was. Usually, a "first" super hero movie gives us the hero's backstory, the origin of their powers, how they grapple with these new found powers, some sort of personal tragedy (that ultimately leads them to becoming a hero instead of a villain), and a focus point for the resolution of their conflicting issues in the form of whatever shape or form the villain takes. After that, it's sequel after endless sequel.
I get it.
What I don't get is the purpose of THIS movie. There already IS a Spider-Man. He's Peter Parker, photographer for the Daily Bugle, and so on and so forth. We all know about his Aunt, Uncle, the radioactive spider, J. Jonah, M.J. and the cadre of bad dudes he eventually takes on (and down). So, with that in mind, I wasn't sure if this was supposed to be (1) yet another re-imagining of the story for a newer, hip audience, (2) an introduction of several new characters, or (3) an intense marketing ploy to get young viewers interested in the printed version of these heroes? Why else would each character have it's own "Issue #1" cover shown during the movie as well as their own brief backstory / origin explanation?
It has to be one of those explanations because in every stand-alone movie or comic book, the super hero fights the bad guy typically by himself / herself without the aid of other super heroes (Avengers and other super groups notwithstanding). Spider-Man, Superman, Batman, et al always fought the Green Goblin, Lex Luthor and the Joker (among others) by themselves. But in this movie, five (or was it six) Spider-Men/Women were needed to take Kingpin down? Not likely.
Also, this movie had alot going on and went nowhere. The start of the movie was tedious, plodding and slow. And, most importantly, the formula was incredibly predictable. If there were any jokes, they fell flat and were unremarkable, sans the obligatory Stan Lee cameo as the comic shop owner.
Once the action started, it was kind of pointless and repetitive. And I kept coming back to the central question I had while watching the movie, as they kept introducing version after version of Spider-Men: do these comic characters already exist somewhere else and this movie is just a ploy to expose them to a wider audience?
So, the questions are: Are we being exposed to the NEW Spider-Man? Are we being exposed new, multiple Spider-Men? Why were there no new villains (and making Dr. Octopus a woman is NOT making a new villain, by the way). All of that (and more) brings me back to the central idea of this review - I'm not sure what the point of this movie was.