I very much loved most of the film. But I actually hated the ending. I'm deducting half a star from my final grade. I'll talk about the ending a little more later. But we have good stuff to get to.

I felt Aunt May's death was pretty well earned, and it was cool to give her the Uncle Ben role. Her saying the words meant something if this Peter had never gotten them before.

I am very glad I saw this at home. I could not have sat still for 2 and a half hours in a theater for this. I will admit some stuff was spoiled for me. But I was able to sit back and enjoy Andrew Garfield saying he's loves Tom Holland and Tobey Maguire with a big dopey grin on my face, instead of praying for the movie to end so I could use the bathroom. I knew Maguire and Garfield were coming (and I didn't want to). And even still I prefer that I saw it at home. It is no question I will never go to another theater again.

Matt Murdock's cameo was fun. He is able to catch the brick because his superpower is being a great lawyer. But they better not make those awful Netflix shows MCU canon. They need to start over from scratch with both him and Kingpin.

I want to talk a bit about the secrecy of the movie. I think Marvel hiding Maguire and Garfield's involvement is rather silly after seeing the movie. It's a selling point, not a surprise. In fact, since it's an expectation, you might as well hype it. I think Marvel is too secretive for its own good. If these were cameos it would make sense. Both both Maguire AND Garfield got shockingly big roles. There is no point in hiding that.

I mentioned I didn't like the ending, but one of the things I didn't like is that we didn't see the fall-out of the villains returning to their Universes after being cured. Does Doc Ock still need to make the grand sacrifice? Will Flint Marko be reunited with his daughter? I think a tag sort of wrapping those things up via a two minute montage would have been cooler than the Doctor Strange trailer, especially because in THIS teaser we don't get any hints of the previous franchises the Multiverse is exploring.

A lot of this movie was a bit of redemption for some of Sony's previous failings. Maguire endured fewer of them, but I very much feel Andrew Garfield was mistreated by both Sony and Marc Webb. I no longer resent the Amazing Spider-Man movies existing, which an neat, unheard-of trick. Jamie Foxx also got a bit of redemption after the botched version of Electro from Amazing Spider-Man 2. This Electro is as cool as Foxx is in real life, and knows it. It's no wonder he neither wants to be cured or to go back to his Universe.

I loved Venom in the tag. Very good things for Sony can occur if they play ball with Feige. I'm very much looking forward to Venom 3 now, and hope it also stars Garfield (as rumored). And giving Feige an MCU version of Venom is why it's good for Marvel Studios to play ball with Sony too.

I don't understand why Eddie was pulled into our Universe in the first place though. He most assuredly did not know Peter Parker was Spider-Man.

There was one other thing I disliked besides the ending, but the truth is this was a problem for the last film too. This version of J. Jonah Jameson sucks butt. Before the second movie came out it was my loud opinion that Marvel Studios should just say "Screw continuity!" and cast J.K. Simmons as Jameson. Simmons was truly a remarkable Jameson in the Sam Raimi films and there was no reason to not use what already worked. Stan Lee went out of his way to make the reader hate the character unreservedly in the beginning of the comics' run. And as the comics went along they started giving Jameson understandable reasons for his behavior, and properly exploring the controversy. Raimi's take was so unique and great because he's the only version I don't hate. I would argue he's actually the best character in the Raimi films. When Goblin breaks into his office and he denies knowing Peter and where he was, despite his life being in danger, and him owing Peter nothing, the character was endeared to me right off the bat in a way no other interpretation bothered to do before that.

And when Simmons popped up with his bald-ass head in the last film's tag, people cheered, but I scowled. His smear campaign on Spider-Man starts right off the bat with him revealing his identity. Maybe that wouldn't be a huge deal if Jameson had been a thorn and a nuisance throughout the first two movies.. But he basically shows up in a tag to break the most sacred of superhero codes on a guy he doesn't even know, and he's someone PETER doesn't know either. It doesn't just feel unearned, it feels dirty. And personal. How dare he? And nothing about that changes with the best Jameson actor ever turning in the most loathsome Jameson performance ever. And I'll complain about the ending because it was a specific problem about this movie. But the MCU Jameson is an ongoing problem that started with the last film.

I love all the Spider-Mans comparing their powers and backstories. It feels sort of funny that the Marvel Universe at large for both Maguire and Garfield probably only consists of characters Sony exclusively owns, and they are both as impressed and unbelieving over the aliens and superhero scenarios as Eddie Brock is.

I am very glad they let Garfield be the one to catch MJ. The Amazing Spider-Man 2 is a startlingly bad movie simply because they killed off Gwen Stacy. I think Marc Webb needed his head examined for doing it. Firing him and starting over was the only feasible thing to do after the worst scene in any Spider-Man film ever. I'm glad Garfield was given that redemption. Webb says he wanted to do a tribute to the death of Gwen Stacy in the comics and he was too dumb to understand how attached the audience was to Emma Stone. Her and Garfield had more legit chemistry than Maguire and Kirsten Dunst ever did. And this Gwen was delightfully in on the secret, so unlike the comics she's fun instead of a nag always worrying Peter is absent due to a drug problem or seeing another girl behind her back. While Garfield and Stone had the chemistry they did, Gwen NEVER should have been killed off. Frankly, I think the studio should have stepped in at some point. If Webb had refused to back down, he should have just been fired. That's how damaging that moment was. And the worst part for me is I think on some level the audience knew it was coming. Webb did not try to hide it very hard, and expressed a deep admiration for the comic arc. We just hoped he wasn't as bad a filmmaker as someone dumb enough to do that was. But he was. And I spent the entire time in the theater praying that Webb wouldn't let me down, and when he did I was like, "Oh, great the entire franchise is ruined." Thanks a lot, Marc Webb. And thank you Kevin Feige for giving Andrew Garfield some of his dignity back.

Here's another selling point for the movie: Maguire is funny as Peter for the first time ever. The lack of wisecracks in Raimi's films has always been their biggest point of contention. Him clowning around with Garfield here is quite delightful

Here's an opinion: Flash Thompson may in fact be Peter Parker's best friend. That guy has been defending Spider-Man day and night in a way nobody else not in on the secret has been. Yeah, he treated Peter shabbily beforehand, and he's kinda weaselly here, but he has a legit claim to being part of Spidey's main defenders.

Wong is now the Sorcerer Supreme. Sort of makes his cameo at the end of Shang-Chi have more resonance in hindsight, doesn't it?

I like Max saying he's disappointed Spider-Man isn't black. That's another Multiverse, Electro.

I like the meta moment of the film noting that villains disproportionately get their starts by falling into something. They've noticed that too, huh?

Part of me feels Maguire wasn't specific enough about Harry's death to Ben. And another part is reminded who Ben is in the comics, and thinks it's a warning he needs to hear.

I like that it's Maguire who stops Holland from killing Osbourne. What I don't like is Osbourne stabbing Maguire. If they were gonna kill Maguire in that moment, that would be one thing. Instead, it was the first real misstep of the ending, and when things started to go wrong a bit.

Now to talk about the crappy ending. "But Matt, don't you understand they'll undo it in a future movie?" Yeah, that's if the contracts can actually be signed for the actors and the studios. And even if they are, it doesn't excuse the ending here. I go to a movie and expect a beginning, middle, and end. It's okay to add a surprise twist to a tag to set something else up, but for the main movie itself, the writers, directors, and producers should just tell their damn story, and not leave us hanging from movie to movie. Another reason Gwen's death didn't work is because it landed entirely differently in a movie than in an ongoing monthly comic where we don't spend any real time waiting to find out what happened next. This ending sucked because it was utterly unsatisfying. I heard a blurb calling this movie the best Marvel movie ever. But while I think that this movie is probably just as rewarding for long-term fans of Spider-Man movies as Avengers: Endgame was for long-term fans of MCU movies, the truth is Endgame was satisfying and this was not. And I'm allowed to be mad about that. You want my honest opinion. Empire Strikes Back is overrated because it suffers the same damn problem. And you can check my earlier review if you must, but I also had a similar negative reaction to the ending of Avengers: Infinity War, so I'm not saying anything I've never said before.

It's a shame because I definitely enjoyed the movie far more than I thought I would. Seeing the trailers for Morbius led me to believe the movie would be about Spider-Man on the lam, wanted for a murder he didn't commit. Instead the movie takes the far more interesting (and fun) tack in exploring how it blows open Peter's life, even if the legal consequences aren't something he has to really deal with. It's a FUN movie, and when Doctor Strange is super pissed at Peter when he reveals he didn't bother pleading his case to the college board and thought that brainwashing the entire world was the correct first option, I love Doctor Strange more than I ever have. He can call him "Sir" after that. Has Peter never questioned that somebody as dumb as him doesn't belong in MIT? Just asking.

I loved the movie more than I thought I would, but the ending turned me off. Until then it was great. 4 1/2 stars.

Bloopers And Gag Reel:

It was fun seeing the casts from all three iterations goof off with each other. 5 stars.

Alternate Reality Easter Eggs:

This was freaking handy. 5 stars.

Eddie most certainly doesn't know anything about Peter but Venom does.  In the after-credits from Let There be Carnage Venom mentions having however many years of symbiote hive-knowledge, it's assuming that the Topher Grace Venom was somehow part of that knowledge base and that's why they get brought to the MCU.

That said, there is more to universe jumping that you haven't seen, yet, and it doesn't make any sense at all.  Amazon doesn't have a date listed, yet, so I'm not sure how much longer before you get to see that.

As for the bit you mention about Peter being smart enough to be in M.I.T., you're looking at it wrong...  To use a method of definition from D&D play, "Intelligence is knowing that tomatoes are fruit.  Wisdom is knowing not to put a tomato in fruit salad."  Peter has the intelligence but he lacks the wisdom to think though his actions, something Steven Strange also has a problem with...  (as do Banner and Stark...)

I heard that explanation elsewhere and it's a bit of nonsense. As I told the person offering it, it's a fun scene so it doesn't really NEED too much explanation. But I do think it's a hole. 

As for the MIT bit, that was a joke on my part. Don't you wish I used emojis?