Spider-Man: Far From Home – and Grounded!

I think I've seen one too many Spider-Man movies, because this film was boring to me.  The first half is primarily a pretty good teen-age comedy, while the second half is Spider-Man trying to stop a villian from destroying London.  I liked the first half better;  but had trouble staying awake in the second half. Spider-Man/Peter Parker (Tom Holland) is in conflict.  He'd rather just be a normal teenager than a superhero, but he feels an obligation to 'Iron Man' to "carry the torch" for him.  He likes M.J. (Zendaya), and is trying to arrange some romantic time together with her on a summer high school trip to Europe.  He gets some guidance from his best friend, Ned (Jacob Batalon), about how to proceed.  There are plenty of decent jokes, and, for the most part, this first half of the film is enjoyable if not necessarily memorable.  Peter also gets some advice from superhero Mysterio (Jake Gyllenhaal),  who tells him to do what he wants, rather than to submit to the will of Avengers Chief Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson), who wants him to 'man up' and become the superhero Iron Man thought he could be. The second half consists primarily of Spider-Man waging various battles with the movie's villain, who isn't nearly as interesting or as cool as the villians in the prior Spider-Man films.  The special effects are fine, but I've seen too much of this stuff before, so the movie just didn't interest me much.  I saw it with my 20-year-old son, Noah, and he felt pretty much the same way as I did. Tom Holland and the other actors do a fine job, but the plot just wasn't good enough to make the film soar.  It needs the Big Screen if you decide to see it.  There are more Spider-Man films in the works, and I hope the next one is better.  If it isn't, I won't be "caught in its web" again.