I enjoyed this movie quite a bit. Instead of retelling everything that happened in the earlier Spider-Man movies, this movie picks up after the Battle of New York and shows Tony Stark mentoring Peter to possibly become an Avenger. Peter still deals with typical teenage angst, and struggles with balancing being a superhero and a high school kid at the same time. He gets a date for the homecoming dance with his dream girl Liz, only to find out that her dad is the villain he is hunting down. For some reason I didn't see this coming, despite being completely obvious in hindsight. Michael Keaton's Vulture character is a disgruntled contractor or engineer of some sort, who had a job cleaning up the wreckage after the Battle of New York. When his firm was subsequently fired from the job, he takes some alien materials from the wreckage, turning it into weapons that he sells on the black market.
We knew that Tony Stark had a relationship with Peter from Captain America: Civil War, when he joined Tony's team at the airport battle. This movie tells the story of what is going on in Peter's life during that time. He is the typical friendly neighborhood Spider-Man, stopping small thefts and struggling to fit in at school. After the events of Civil War, though, he strives to join the Avengers to have a bigger impact. Tony, however, wants him to stay under the radar and continue to develop his skills, presumably because of his age. Once Peter discovers the alien weapon black market, he aims to shut it down to impress Tony and show him that he can do bigger things than stop basic robberies. This is how Spider-Man and Vulture cross paths.
The interesting thing about this movie is that the battle between Spider-Man and Vulture takes a back seat to the relationship between Peter and Tony. Regardless of what happens between Spider-Man and Vulture, you get the feeling that the Avengers could sweep in and take care of business at any time. This is OK, however, because the bigger story is Spider-Man getting integrated into the MCU. I've been looking forward to the Tom Holland Spider-Man movies because of this integration.
I have just a couple of random closing thoughts about the movie. Tony is still driving the awesome Audi R8, which I love. Jon Favreau is great as Tony's assistant Happy Hogan. The always great Donald Glover has a small role in the film, as does Nacho from Better Call Saul. The AI in the enhanced Spider-Man suit from Tony is voiced by Jennifer Connelly, which I only know from looking at the IMDB page. Speaking of the suit, I thought it was a cool idea and enjoyed its integration into the film. However, there was a point where I thought there were too many on-screen graphics and interaction with the suit. Tony eventually takes the suit back, saving the movie from turning into a video game.
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