Watched Spider-Man: Homecoming and Far From Home the same night, since neither were on Disney+, but on Netflix and Amazon respectively. I'd say they're both somewhat above average Marvel movies, so 7/10 for both.
Of the two Homecoming is IMO the superior one. It has a bit more focus, is smaller scale, and has the novelty value of being a way different take on Spider-Man than we're used to. Holland is really charming in the lead role, Ned is a great sideman and just plain adorable, Vulture is one of the better MCU villains and the whole thing is just a really charming and fun (home)coming of age story. It's also genuinely funny, so it definitely works as an action comedy. It's also fun to see Spider-Man being more than a bit of a fuck-up: not only is he often out of his depth (the interrogation scene with Donald Glover is the funniest in the film), his actions also many times end up making things worse. The film's best part is probably the twist with the villain, and it works 100% even when you know it's coming. In an instant a lot of the movie is recontextualized, character allegiances and sympathies shift, and the whole thing gains a grain of moral greyness not often seen in Marvel movies. Michael Keaton is on his A-game, being funny, kind, charming and terrifying at the same time.
What drags the movie down are the usual Marvel problems: it's visually stunningly uninteresting (aside from the brief Ferris Bueller homage), and there's a tendency for overt flippancy: in one scene the Vulture straight up disintegrates one of his goons, and everyone's reaction is just played for laughs.
Far From Home feels mostly like a sidegrade: it's visually slightly more interesting, but a bit less focused. It has a quite strong first half, but in the second half it really starts to stretch believability even by MCU standards. The theme of Spider-Man learning to deal with the responsibility of his station is still strong, but in some ways it feels like a thematic retread of Homecoming: instead of the suit now it's the glasses. For every aspect that's improved from Homecoming I can think of one that's a bit weaker. But all of Homecoming's strengths are still present: it's still funny, the actors and chemistry are on point, and Holland carries his role magnificently. Perhaps the most disappointing thing about it is that it feels forcedly big, like it's obligated to shove its budget in the audience's face all the time with lavish locations, special effects blowouts and a supposed world-threatening conflict. A lot of it isn't necessary, and would actually make the movie better if removed: at the end when Peter has to rely on his spider sense to defeat Mysterio, I thought how cool it would be if they only showed Peter striking at empty air in a single tracking shot, and then show the whole thing from Mysterio's POV. But no, sparks flying, metal getting crushed, bang boom crash wallop is what we get.
As with Homecoming, there's a really aggravating aspect to the script that I've now realized is consistent through all three MCU Spider-Man films: the whole world seems to act and have been designed horribly irresponsibly. In Homecoming is the aforementioned disintegration scene. In Far From Home Peter gets given essentially godlike power, which apparently can be used on accident in the blink of an eye. Not only that, but said godlike power can apparently just be given freely to any twat without any further verification or consideration. And in No Way Home it's Dr. Strange. It just lessens the stakes when you can hardly take this world of super-technology seriously because everyone is acting like they're at the "I can do anything" stage of drunkenness.
But the biggest mark against these Spider-Man movies, and a lot of the MCU in retrospect is that you just can't watch them as Spider-Man movies. To understand Homecoming you need to have seen Civil War (and think how many movies that requires you to have seen to understand), to understand Far From Home you need to have seen Endgame, and so on. They rely so much on the viewer already knowing the universe and the characters in it that if you'd show them to someone unfamiliar with the MCU they'd be completely lost: who is Happy? Who is Tony Stark? Who is Nick Fury and why is he acting like a dick towards Peter? Even I was confused when Far From Home started with Nick Fury and Maria Hill in Mexico. And the connections to the MCU are so prevalent that if you'd try to take them out you'd have to rewrite the whole movie. It made me realize (probably way late) that this will happen to the vast majority of MCU movies at this point, and who the fuck knows how it will go down in cinema history in the long term. Where will it end? It already seems like Multiverse of Madness assumes you to have watched an entire TV show with Wandavision. At what point does it stop being an entertaining connecting narrative and becomes just homework.
