Trailers:
- Mysterio holding his own against Hydro-Man using a high-tech suit and what appears to be magic similar to Doctor Strange's. Took a Level in Badass indeed.
- Played for Laughs but when Peter is getting a call from an unknown number, Happy reveals it to be Nick Fury who wants him for a mission. Peter's response is to send it to voicemail. Repeat: Peter Parker ghosted Nick Fury. There isn't a single version of him, comic book or otherwise, who had the stones to do that until now. Fury responds accordingly; he does not take no for an answer.Fury: (after breaking into their room and tranquilizing Ned) You're a very difficult person to contact, Spider-Man.
- Peter starts to tell MJ he likes her. She cuts him off to reveal she’s figured out he’s Spider-Man, completely on her own, no catching him in the suit like Ned or May required.MJ: It's kinda obvious.
- There's also the scene where Fury and Maria Hill go up against the earth Elemental with nothing but their sidearms. For the top brass of S.H.I.E.L.D., a building sized rock monster is just Tuesday.
- Fury's Dare to Be Badass speech to Peter. Also Mysterio giving a version of with With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility and Being Good Sucks, both which are iconic to the franchise.
Film
- Peter attempting to take on the water monster and minimize its damage without his suit showcases both his agility and creativity.
- A villainous awesome moment comes from Mysterio when he utilized his illusions against Peter to not only establish himself as a serious threat, but also to get Peter to give up the identities of his friends by making him think he was Fury.
- The sheer horror, scale, and relentlessness of Mysterio's illusory assault, pulling directly from similar stunts various iterations of the character have pulled on Spider-Man in the comics. It's Mysterio when he's at the top of his game, rendering Spider-Man incapable of fighting back since there's nothing to fight back against, and showing why he's one of Spidey's more memorable villains. It's almost on par with the trippy Doctor Strange fights.
- Rather than "edit down" Mysterio's capabilities from the comics to be realistic, the filmmakers looked at what Mysterio can do in the comics, then asked what he'd need to be able to pull them off in reality (or, at least, the MCU version of "reality"). Thus Beck has an entire team working on his special effects setpieces, backed up by Stark technology, allowing him to effectively be the all-out Reality Warper Mysterio of the comics could be when he's at his best.
- There's one particular moment in this scene that's cool in a very subtle way. At one point, we see an illusion of MJ standing in front of a full moon. With a very smooth transition, the moon turns into Mysterio's helmet as he steps out of the darkness and grabs her! This shot gives off strong "shadow on the moon at night" vibes. The fishbowl helmet has often been mocked in previous works, but this time, Marvel made it awesome!
- The Mysterio costume largely exists as a holographic projection, with Beck only wearing the actual suit for necessary public appearances. But the film still gives us a recurring shot from the comics: Spider-Man's fist cracking the infamous fishbowl helmet. If you're a true-blue Spider-Man fan, it's a moment that you probably didn't realize until you saw it that you would have missed it if it hadn't been there.
- Peter gets hit by a bullet train, crushed between two cars, and takes several falls that would kill a normal human. Happy mentions his fast-healing ability, but Peter makes it clear that he can certainly still sustain damage. By the end of the climax, he's got what looks to be a broken ankle, a concussion, and at least several broken ribs. And yet he still takes Beck down and pulls off physical feats that even a non-injured superhuman might not have been capable of.
- Maria Hill blasting the drone targeting Fury with a goddamn rocket launcher.Fury: You got me?
Hill: I got you.- Even better? The whole time, "Fury" and "Hill" are actually our old Skrull friends Talos and Soren in disguise.
- Two of Beck's drones chase Happy and Peter's friends into the Tower of London. A pair of Coldstream Guards let them pass and open fire on the drones with their assault rifles, destroying one and heavily damaging another, allowing Happy and the kids to have a considerably easier time evading the remaining drone.
- Peter’s friends take on drones when Betty pushes an armor set to distract a drone before MJ whacks it with a mace.
- Minor one, but Ned and MJ taking the initiative to run on their own, correctly figuring that Mysterio won't hesitate to put their classmates in danger to get to them.
- After three years, you finally get to see Tom Holland's Spider-Man do a final swing in Manhattan.
- The sheer fact that this movie is the one where Spider-Man officially Took a Level in Badass, transitioning from "boy" to "man", and setting the stage for him to become the next Iron Man and/or Captain America of the MCU. In Civil War, he had only been at the superhero gig for 6 months at the time, and while he was able to hold his own against heroes like Falcon, the Winter Soldier, and even Captain America himself (to an extent), his inability to stay focused is what ultimately proved to be his downfall. In Homecoming, he was marred by inexperience every step, including the final battle against Vulture where he only "won" by accident. Whereas we got to see Spidey show more experience in Infinity War and Endgame, he couldn't demonstrate just how far he's come to avoid stealing the spotlight from others. Here, we finally get to see just what Spidey's made of. He goes through an entire army of aerial drones armed with machine guns by himself, masters his Spider-Sense to a degree that he now fully controls it, completely negates Mysterio's illusions, and shows everyone why it's important to level-grind before the final battle. The best part is that the greatest suit he has wasn't given to him by anyone — he made it by himself.
- Peter's battle against the drones cannot be understated. He starts out with a grand plan (and built the new suit to carry out that plan), but quickly starts improvising as the plan falls apart. He proceeds to demonstrate not only all of his formidable super-powers, but his brilliant and adept mind, coming up with and flawlessly executing Herd-Hitting Attacks in the space between heartbeats to obliterate dozens of drones with every blow. And Peter is completely silent for pretty much all of the climax, which any Spidey fan knows means he's entirely focused on ending the threat.
- At one point he actually manages to weaponise his super stickiness by clinging with his feet to a car, pulling himself and said car up with webbing and dropping it on multiple drones chasing after him.
- Not to mention the weapons he uses during the fight. An improvised shield and a hammer jury rigged from drone parts. Seems like the fight against Thanos gave him some inspiration. Then he subverts that expectation by tossing the "hammer" up into middle of the drones, who shoot it causing it to explode; it's a bomb. And the shield is so that he can take advantage of the broken drone regularly firing sonic blasts by using it as a surf board to launch himself into the air. Brilliant.
- Peter designing his new suit. Sure, he had access to Tony Stark's tech and notes on Peter himself to do it, but Peter literally walked up to one of Tony's own super-suit-making machines and got it to give him exactly what he wanted, no more and no less. The only other person who could have done that is probably... well, Tony Stark. Notably, Peter knows exactly what he wants this suit to be capable of for the fight he's going into, drawing on Peter's tendency in the comics to think up a clever, scientific way to gain an edge over whatever villain he's currently facing.
- Also, he does it while "Back In Black" blasts in the background - one of Tony's favorite songs. One of the themes of the film is the legacy of Iron Man and who's going to replace him: this is the scene that proves once and for all that Peter Parker is, indeed, Tony Stark's spiritual heir.
- Teenage Tony built DUM-E. Teenage Peter built a multi-function, combat-ready Spider-Suit customized to his specifications.
- Peter's battle against the drones cannot be understated. He starts out with a grand plan (and built the new suit to carry out that plan), but quickly starts improvising as the plan falls apart. He proceeds to demonstrate not only all of his formidable super-powers, but his brilliant and adept mind, coming up with and flawlessly executing Herd-Hitting Attacks in the space between heartbeats to obliterate dozens of drones with every blow. And Peter is completely silent for pretty much all of the climax, which any Spidey fan knows means he's entirely focused on ending the threat.
- Out of webbing during the final battle, Peter improvises a way up to Tower Bridge using Beck's own drones.
- Spider-Man using his Spidey Sense (or Peter-Tingle) to destroy Beck’s last drones while they have him in an illusion. Again, with no webs.
- Peter no-selling Beck's final illusion when he tries to sneak up behind him with a gun.
- Peter is victorious over Mysterio, but during the mid-credits scene, he outs Peter's identity as Spider-Man and seemingly tricks the world into thinking he was responsible for the drone attacks, and that Beck was truly a hero, murdered in his prime. Beck dies, but gets the last laugh on Spider-Man, and dramatically alters the course of the young webslinger's future...
- According to the footage, Beck managed all this while Peter was still fighting the drones to get to him. He had his backup plan well in advance, and made absolutely sure that Peter lost no matter what.
- When Beck orders the drones shut down because Peter's damaged them to the point the illusion is worse than useless, his underling states "I don't know how you're going to spin this one." Beck just smiles. Either he already had a plan for framing Peter if everything went south, or he came up with the idea on the spot. Either way, pretty impressive.
- And the icing on the cake? The reporter who delivers the footage and decries Spider-Man as a murderer is none other than J. Jonah Jameson of the Daily Bugle (here an Alex Jones-esque podcast/website rather than an old-fashioned newspaper), with J. K. Simmons reprising his role from Sam Raimi's Spider-Man Trilogy! In one scene, he does more damage to Spider-Man's life than his counterpart from those movies ever did.
- Nick Fury gets one through Fridge Brilliance, when you realize the actual reason Talos was written in posing as him is that there’s no way in hell the real Fury would have let Mysterio’s plan get out of hand the way it did.
- A subtle one for Talos, combined with a bit of heartwarming: Fury trusted him to do a good enough job running SHIELD that he could actually go on vacation!
