Starting with the facts, the movie sits at 90% on Rotten Tomatoes. That’s almost the same as Sam Raimi’s very first Spider-Man film, back in 2002. It’s a little lower than the other three Tom Holland films, but it’s way higher than both Andrew Garfield films.

The average score is 7.7 out of 10. On Metacritic, it’s at 70 out of 100. That’s not an average movie. That’s a good movie that a few loud critics don’t like.

And the box office backs this up. The film made $72 million just in preview screenings, the biggest preview number ever recorded, beating Avengers: Endgame. It was on track for one of the biggest opening weekends of the year. People are not showing up in record numbers for something “average.”

“Less fighting” is the point

Yes, there’s less action than past Spider-Man movies. That’s not the movie failing. That’s the movie doing something different on purpose. Think about it this way: Peter Parker has spent four years with no friends. Nobody remembers him. MJ doesn’t know who he is. Ned doesn’t know who he is. He’s completely alone. A movie about a man should not feel like a normal action movie. It should feel slow. It makes me feel sad. That’s what makes it real.

This is actually closer to the original Spider-Man from the comic books. In the old comics, Peter Parker never had an easy life. He lost his job. He lost his money. He lost his girlfriend. Every time things got good for him, something took it away. People even call this “Parker luck.” It’s the whole point of the character: great power, but everything else in his life falls apart. So when this movie makes Peter sad and alone instead of throwing ten villains at him, it’s not lazy. It’s accurate.

The villains are still there…. just smaller

People say the villains “aren’t fully there.” That’s partly true, but here’s why: not every villain needs a big fight scene to matter. Scorpion and Tombstone are both in the movie. Hulk is in the movie as a “secondary villain,” turning savage after Jean Grey messes with his mind. The Hand, a group of ninjas from the comics, also shows up, and critics actually praised that fight scene specifically. Yes, other villains like Boomerang and Tarantula were rumoured for months and only got small cameos. That might feel like a letdown if you were expecting a big villain team-up. But the real story of this movie was never, “How many bad guys can we fit in?” The real story is Peter’s loneliness. The villains are the background, not the point.

For me, it’s the right ending

For months before release, leaks claimed Peter would die in this movie. Big dramatic ending, maybe based on the old comic story Kraven’s Last Hunt, where Spider-Man gets buried alive.

A lot of fans are annoyed that Peter didn’t win MJ back. But look at the real comic book history: Peter Parker and MJ were married for over 20 years in the comics, and then Marvel undid the entire marriage with a magic deal with the devil, because writers realised a happily married Spider-Man doesn’t work as a story any more.

So this movie choosing not to give Peter a clean, happy ending with MJ isn’t Marvel being lazy. It’s Marvel finally learning from its own comic book history.

This isn’t just a stand-alone Spider-Man story. It’s setting up years of future Marvel movies.

Sadie Sink’s character is Jean Grey, and her powers are the reason Hulk goes savage in this movie. One of the film’s villains, played by Tramell Tillman, leads a group that hunts mutants, which is clearly building towards the X-Men joining the Marvel movie universe. And the very end of the film hints at a glitch involving other versions of Spider-Man, possibly Tobey Maguire or Andrew Garfield, which points straight towards the upcoming Avengers: Doomsday and Secret Wars movies.

So while people are busy complaining about missing action scenes, this movie is quietly setting up the next five years of Marvel.

Calling this movie “average” says more about what people expected than what the movie actually is. It’s not trying to be another loud, cameo-packed blockbuster. It’s trying to show the real Peter Parker — alone, tired, and still trying, exactly like the comics always did. That’s not a weaker movie. That’s the most honest Spider-Man movie Marvel has made in years.