**All-Spoilery! You've been warned.**
PART 1: Intro: "Mommy? What's a movie?"
As a cinephile, I just look for a couple of things in any movie: A story that makes sense, with compelling characters who act and react in a sensible way, filmed by capable people in a world that follows its own rules. That's pretty much it. Sadly, this is pretty rare. (See: The Amazing Spider-Man 2-part film series for proof.)
PART 2: Tell me, what is this Spider-Man you speak of?
The Spider-Man we met in Civil War was a pretty capable dude. He stole Cap's shield, went toe to toe with him pretty nicely, then took down both Winter Soldier -- which Cap was barely able to do -- and Falcon. However, later on in Homecoming, he couldn't defeat a van. A van!
Spider-Man is smart enough to develop his own web fluid yet not smart enough to be prepared the second or even third time a crazy, alien-powered space gun shoots.
A Spidey who's got to learn the ropes is great; one who is a distracted and typical teenager is not just fun, it's real! A Spidey who just can't catch a break is, well, exactly what Spider-Man is supposed to be.
What Spider-Man is not supposed to be is a complete doofus. A boob who doesn't seem able to learn from his mistakes. An idiot who can't seem to analyze a situation in any way that makes any lick of sense, especially since he's a genius scientist.
PART 3: Will the real Spider-Man please stand up, please stand up?
Homecoming did a good job ret-conning what we saw in Civil War. That film's prelude, where we watch Peter head to the airport, get his suit from Happy, and wait in the wings for his cue from Iron Man wasn't just a silly intro, it was a calculated retcon of what we the audience saw. So rather than it being a damned fine superhero jumping out and taking Cap's shield and potentially turn the tide of battle, it's now an excitable kid who's barely able to contain himself waiting for the hero Iron Man to tell him what to do. Clever.
Later, in that same film, Iron Man tells Peter -- who thinks he fought Captain America to a standstill -- that if Cap wanted to take him down, he would have. Again, another clever retcon that re-calibrates in the viewer's mind everything he/she saw in Civil War. It not only de-powers Spider-Man, it lowers his level of comprehension and superheroic talent.
However, in Infinity War, we once again saw a very capable and even smart Peter Parker. As such, I had really hoped that that's what we would see in Spider-Man: Far From Home.
PART 4: Far From Spider-Man
Virtually the first appearance of Spider-Man in Far From Home, not only only shows-off Peter as a doofus who can barely speak (at a benefit for those who are homeless after "The Blip" -- the disappearances caused by once omnipotent villain Thanos), but the appearance struck me as odd: He's wearing the Iron Spider outfit. You know, the one that most closely resembles the armor of Iron Man. Considering the character's journey, his guilt, his despondence over the death of his "father" and mentor, an appearance in the red & blue hoodie might've made more sense. (Since May gives him the Stark-made red & blues later, it would've made even more sense.)
PART 5: I Don't Care About Spider-Man's Amazing Friends
Not that I'm not happy with some fun repartee with Peter's aunt May and Iron Man's ol' pal Happy, but I'm here for Spidey. But, OK, maybe on the way to the airport, perhaps Peter misses his bus, so, as Spider-Man, he's gotta swing his way out there and save a runaway semi ("Like in that really old movie Terminator 2!") or something. Or maybe Peter didn't miss the bus out to the airport, but he spots a pickpocketing ring while at that airport, and as he walks through with Ned and the other students, Peter surreptitiously webs away a wallet from a pickpocket and pretends he found it, returning it to the mark...and then he repeats the under-the-radar web-grabbing, webbing the bad guys' hands to people's pockets or together, with wallets in them, maybe webs them to walls, chairs, etc. And his pal Ned taps an officer on the shoulder and says, "I think you dropped something!" And on the floor at the cop's feet? A little note saying "Pickpocketers webbed up throughout the terminal --Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man!"
As it stands, Spider-Man's first heroic appearance in the movie is out of costume (which, comics-wise, is very Spidey, but we're 30 minutes in and have yet to see Spider-Man...in a film called Spider-Man), and in that scene, Peter does nothing but hold up a tower -- and not very well. It seemed like the kind of thing that would be right up his alley -- physics. Yet Peter doesn't use his brains really at all in the scene. He starts to, by webbing to and fro, but then he falls back on brute force, something that Spider-Man knows his not where he excels -- you know, because he's not a moron. He's just a distracted teenage kid.
The next time Spidey appears is as, essentially, Stealth Spider-Man (aka Night Monkey). It's an extremely brief appearance where he helps Mysterio.
(And, I'm sorry, but if you've got a giant fire monster in a Spider-Man movie, a fire monster that gets sort of frozen when Mysterio gets into the center of it, there is NO excuse to not have that shot of Spidey swinging right through it like he does in the opening credits sequence of Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends.)
PART 6: Quentin Beck's Web -- It's Some Pig!
This brings me to the plot. The movie is told through the eyes of our hero, Peter Parker. However, unless you've never seen the comics or the cartoons, you know going in that Mysterio is the villain (Marvel tried to keep this a secret from general audiences based on the trailers and the very little said in interviews). And, if you know Mysterio is the villain, then there's no suspense. Because, not only do you know Peter is being fooled -- which is the big mid-movie reveal -- but you know everything is an illusion (also revealed around that time). This is why I personally was expecting some major plot twists -- Nick Fury would actually be The Chameleon; Mysterio and Chameleon were actually hired by someone else for a bigger purpose, etc.
With no plot twist, we're left with a story that has no surprises unless you're a very young or very inexperienced moviegoer (Spidey-knowledge aside). We know Mysterio, who proffers himself as a hero, is a fraud, we know Spider-Man will eventually realize he's being fooled, we know everything we're seeing is a complex illusion (so there's no reason to fear for any of the characters at any time), we know Spidey will eventually fight Mysterio (as opposed to more elementals or other monsters), we know he'll use tech and, to some degree, his brains to defeat Mysterio. Again, if you don't know about Mysterio going in, then all of this is great, otherwise, it's extemely predictable.
Heck, director Jon Watts couldn't even make Ned and Betty Brant getting together a surprise. Had he not included the shot of Ned grabbing Betty's hand, and instead had Ned keep trying to chat her up, the reveal that they were together would have had more punch.
Actually, nearly all of the humor in this film fell flat for me (maybe not for you, but for me it did). I even find Peter's school nemeses -- Flash Thompson and new character Brad Davis -- pathetic. Peter's supposed to be the nerdy outcast who gets picked on, but Flash is far more goofy and nerdy than Peter and Brad, who apparently didn't "blip," somehow seems to act several years younger than the characters he's around. And silly gags revolving around the teachers? It felt like the kind of sitcom, old-timey 1980s TGIF-level humor movie should have grown out of years ago.
PART 7: Spider's End: It's America's End
The most exciting part of this movie, and I think most everyone will agree, is the denouement, when Spider-Man and MJ admit their feelings for one another -- 'cause, heck, we do love those kids -- and everything that happens thereafter: Peter finally swings through Manhattan (beautifully, I might add), classic "Spider-Menace" hater JJJ (Who's -- ulp -- bald!) shows up on a giant TV screen, and Spidey is outed as Peter Parker. it's the first sequence in the movie that had any real surprises...and, as such, it's the only thing anyone I know is talking about.
In sum: Young Spidey learning the ropes? Cool. Spidey acting like a normal teenager whose thoughts are filled with puppy love and pop-culture references? Perfect. A Spider-Man who's a complete doofus and can't seem to use the brains the movies want to keep reminding us he has? Nope. Combining that with a predictable story that gave me nothing new until the last 5 minutes...
I'm sorry, I just don't get what people see in this. I look forward to you screaming at me in the comments!