What kind of stories should we be telling with superheroes at this point? The critical mass of renditions has to be right around the corner, and yet they continue. There are occasional hits these days, like with Superman (2025), or even Thunderbolts*, but the amount of baggage that these heroes bring at this point has gotten overbearing to say the least. There was some hope that with Sony’s next at bat at the masked web slinger we might get something more grounded, and there is some truth to that being realized. But the film spends time on only half of the two sides of the coin, Spider-Man takes center stage, while Peter Parker is left to flounder in an apartment by himself, behaving like an incel workaholic, rather than spinning the plates of life that he should be.

That’s the morale of the story in the end, that it’s bad to be alone too much. Which is a noble effort, albeit hamfistedly done. The film attempts to underline this point with an incredibly half baked metaphor surrounding Peter’s spider powers becoming too dangerous. He occasionally gets black eyes and gets really strong, and has organic web fluid coming out of his wrists. But Sony (and coparent of Spider-Man) Disney, are too scared to give him any kind of real edge. He loses his temper once and *almost* injures a cop while he’s losing control. Spider-Man in 2026 works alongside law enforcement, but he would NEVER actually harm an officer! He even has a network of his personal flock cameras to run facial recognition scans for them! Not only is he an incel, but he’s a fascist incel to boot. Gone is the Spider-Man who’s a MENACE, chased away by cops, and villainized by the press. The MCU Spider-Man doesn’t even bother having a job, let alone one at a legacy newspaper. Having a job is for commies, I’m sure. They don’t even bother to explain how he affords a relatively spacious studio apartment in New York City in 2026. One must assume he inherited some cash from Aunt May?

The villain of the picture is eventually revealed to be an often time ally of comic book Spider-Man. A new entry into the MCU by a legacy character so it’s surprising to see them role into these scene as anyone villainous. They have a noble goal to be sure, but it will be difficult to root for them when they eventually heel turn all the way to the side of justice after they possessed someone and made them get run over by a truck. It’s all just increasingly sweaty for a bloated franchise that probably should have cashed it in when Avengers: Endgame came out. Especially for a movie that portended to be “more grounded” the MCU minutia feels less and less welcome as these things churn on.

There are moments of respite to be sure, Tom Holland’s Spider-Man and Jon Bernthal’s Punisher get some moments of real chemistry as the two bicker while busting crime on NYC streets. Zendaya isn’t given a lot to do, but she performs admirably with what she has. And even though they filmed the picture in Glasgow there is something to the foggy landscape that adds to the mystique of the pictures villain. It honestly works better as New York than I would’ve guessed.

I may point out my quibbles, but it’s hard to argue when this film had the largest domestic box office opening weekend of all time, and continues to churn out numbers on a daily basis. Still – and it may feel old fashioned to say, but back in my day Peter Parker would be late for work, or a test, or a date, go save a cat in a tree as Spider-Man, and then get chewed out for not being punctual. It should sorta suck to be Spider-Man and that’s something the Holland movies have only briefly gotten right in their run, and it’s something they desperately need more of.

2/5