For the hardcore Marvel nerds, it can be annoying to have to explain the complicated nature of movie rights and comic universes to the uninitiated. No, those X-men movies have nothing to do with the Avengers movies. And neither, up until now, did the Spiderman movies. Yes, they all featured a Marvel logo (but not a Marvel-Studios logo), but up until now they weren't built to tie into a wider universe and production style.
Part of the power of the Marvel Studios model is the consistency - for critics of them, they can and do argue that it leads to blandness or predictability, but I've never particularly found that to be the case. Yes, there is the argument that chunks of each film ends up acting as trailers for future films rather than getting an internally consistent narrative, but by now the model is sixteen movies deep. If you like 'em, you'll keep coming. If you don't, you can most definitely not argue you have not been sufficiently prepared.
The major joy of doing the connected universe is that directors will look harder for where the points of differentiation for their movie is compared to the rest. And in the case of "Spiderman", they double down on the previously-quickly-glossed-over teenage elements of the character (the Tobey Maguire films graduated him from highschool midway through the first film, Andrew Garfield early in the second, and in neither case did the characters spend a lot of time near a wider peer group). Giving Peter Parker his own bit of the world to work in - a neighbourhood, a range of school friends and rivals, something away from the usual high-powered business and miltary elements that make up the background of most of the earth-bound Marvel films means that you get a looser, more personal kinda story that is still quite capable of escalating when the action takes place. And because the stakes are not "the entire planet will be destroyed" (or, as Marvel has progressed into space, the entire universe), they're forced to find more personal stakes with villians who actually have vaguely realistic goals and schemes.
A lot of the strengths are with the performers. Tom Holland has pure joyous youth in abundance, wide eyed, impressionable, maybe a little out of his depth but determined to do the right thing regardless. Michael Keaton may be the best of the Marvel bad guys, with a scheme that takes advantage of him being slightly under-the-radar of the bigger guns. And it's a testement to the power of the film that one of the best scenes in the film is a simple dialogue scene in a car between the two of them - no costumes, no effects, just performances and writing. Of course it also brings the spectacle in major action set-pieces set at the Washington Monument, Staten Island Ferry and on a plane, but the point of these is that we are invested in the people who are doing the big flashy thing. Too many blockbusters seem to throw actors bodily at large objects without ever giving them anything human to play.
The main cross-universe element is Robert Downey Jr's Tony Stark, who is in a weird point at the moment where the universe has sorta already thorougly established in two previous films that his weakness is a tendency to dabble in the world without thinking through the consequences, and yet again he's a bit of a dilettante in the life of Peter Parker, not very engaged and not very aware of the consequences of calling this kid in. It's clear that a price is going to have to be paid, but the delay in paying this price is a little bit of a case of "WHen are we going to get to the fireworks factory" (which Marvel already has a little bit of in the case of Thanos). Fortunately, hopefully both will pay off next year in Infinity Wars, one way or another.
This is a thoroughly delightful film otherwise, with solid characters, adventurous action and even a little bit of more-subtly-played-than usual heroics. Maybe because they're not trying to make another world-conquering superhero, they're able to make just an interestingly human one instead. And that's wonderfully fine with me.
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