It has been around 13 years since a Spider-Man movie released that enraptured its audience. Luckily, Spider-Man: Homecoming offers a fresh and original take for Spider-Man (on film). The film gives the feeling that director Jon Watts and actor Tom Holland truly understand the character of Peter Parker/Spider-Man. It's filled with heart and the story is crafted with care, it feels like a very personal and intimate story, something we haven't seen in a superhero movie (not counting Logan) in a very long time.
This movie is Spider-Man.
In some of the best Spidey stories, he has been portrayed as just a kid playing superhero. After many tests of endurance and overcoming some major obstacles, he ends up embodying that heroic status, he’s no longer pretending. He is the hero. In the other films, we never got that sense of him being just a kid who is going head first into some serious danger, while there were times where he was nearing the end of his rope, we knew he’d pull through.
Spider-Man: Homecoming alters that typical hero set-up with moments where you are genuinely scared for Peter. There’s one scene, in particular, that had me tearing up because of the struggles Peter had to go through in that moment. It was a rough but beautiful scene that shows one significant step in his journey towards becoming a full-blown hero with a sense of purpose. One of the reasons this may work so well may be due to how young Tom Holland is and where Peter is in his life.
The movie picks up shortly after Captain America: Civil War, 15-year-old Peter Parker is eager to go on his next big mission with Tony Stark but is stuck stopping bicycle thieves, helping give old ladies directions, and casually interacting with New Yorkers. He wants to be more than just the “friendly neighborhood Spider-Man”, he wants to be a full blown Avenger who makes a big difference. He’s like every teenager, he wants to be treated like an adult and he doesn’t want to be held back by restrictions given to him by Tony Stark or even Aunt May who doesn’t want him to be out of the house late at night.
The first Marvel Cinematic Universe with many layers and legit depth:
Eventually, Peter sees a way to impress Stark by attempting to thwart the evil plan of the menacing Adrian Toomes, AKA The Vulture, who is using alien weaponry to perform heists for his own personal gain. Michael Keaton’s portrayal of The Vulture is easily one of the best villains in the MCU rivaled only by Loki and Vulture may even beat him out due to how personal his arc is. The Marvel movies have a big villain problem. Most of them lack any form of depth or are even remotely engaging but Vulture in Spider-Man: Homecoming is so vibrant and even relatable.
Toomes is just a regular, blue collar guy who has gotten his hands on some alien technology left over from ground zero of the alien invasion in The Avengers. He has a big grievance with the 1% (looking at you, Tony Stark) and he’s almost like an evil Robin Hood-like character who wants to take from the rich and give to the working people. He’s a well-developed character who has an impact on Peter Parker in a good way. As an audience, we understand Adrian Toomes’ views on the world and where he’s coming from because he’s so well-written. His actions and perspective as a villain influence who Peter becomes at the end of the movie and it’s a really fascinating deep-dive into a character who I didn’t think really had a ton of depth prior to this movie. There’s even a bit of a dynamic in an incredibly tense scene that reminded me a bit of the Green Goblin/Peter Parker dynamic from Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man.
Despite being an MCU movie, Homecoming feels like it has its own personality and style:
Just like how it fixes Marvel’s villain issues, it doesn’t succumb to other issues and tropes that plague the MCU. I was worried that this would feel too much like an MCU movie and it wouldn’t have its own style -that Marvel formula is getting a bit tiresome. Fortunately, Homecoming doesn't rely on that formula.
The humor is irreverent and appropriate for this movie, even though not all of the jokes stick, the world building is subtle and it doesn’t feel like they’re trying to sell you tickets to Avengers 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9 by shoving references down your throat and offering that tease for the something that will occur in another film. Very rarely does it even attempt to throw hints at the future of the MCU, it’s focused on Spider-Man and his story. It was refreshing to see a hero film where the hero is allowed be himself without having to abide by the pre-written rules of the Marvel Cinematic Universe too much.
One of the best instances of world building in Homecoming is when Peter and his friend Ned are in history class and in the background, you can faintly hear the teacher talking about the Sokovia Accords from Captain America: Civil War. If you’re a major Spidey fan, keep your eyes peeled and your ears open because there’s a lot of various nods to other Spidey characters who are in this universe.
As for the actual style that really sets it apart from the rest of the MCU, this movie has been described as a John Hughes film and that’s exactly what it is, the movie even draws attention to that in a blink and you’ll miss it visual gag and it’s incredible. This is a high school movie just as much as it is a comic-book movie. There’s a realistic love teenage love story, there are expectations of Peter at school, and even a couple moments where Spidey/Peter’s world collide at the school. It all feels very natural and all of the kids in the film fill their roles perfectly even if they aren’t exactly accurate to their comic-book counterparts.
Tom Holland is both the perfect Peter Parker and the perfect Spider-Man:
Tom Holland sets himself up to be the best Spider-Man actor yet with Homecoming. Tobey Maguire’s version was great and I have a bit of a soft spot for Andrew Garfield’s as well, but Tom Holland manages to nail each aspect of the character with finesse. Tobey always felt like the perfect Peter Parker, but his Spider-Man felt a bit weak in terms of the quips and line deliveries. Andrew was the perfect Spider-Man because he was the quick-witted webhead we know and love, but his Peter felt way too cool for anyone to believe he was some loser that no one liked. Until Holland, there has never been an actor to nail all aspects of the dual identities.
Tom Holland’s version of the wall-crawler is joyful, annoying (as he should be at times), imperfect, and genuinely hilarious. His portrayal of his nerdy alter ego is spot on as well. We see Peter using his intellect, he’s awkward as hell in the best way possible, and he delivers emotion where it counts. He’s a lovable loser and that’s exactly what Peter Parker should be. More often than not, I was more invested in what was happening in Peter’s life than Spider-Man’s and that’s arguably the most important thing.
Homecoming is also incredibly creative when using Spider-Man himself. We see his powers used (and not used) in unique ways, one great example of this is when the web-slinger can’t actually sling his webs because he’s on a golf course in the middle of the suburbs. He has nothing for his webs to latch on to so his flaccid webs just float towards the ground in a wimpy fashion and then he has to hoof it on foot to reach the action he’s trying to get to. There are many other instances of him using his powers in fun ways but there’s also a downside to all of this originality.
The film has some issues but not enough to significantly detract from the overall experience:
Due to Peter’s relationship with Tony Stark, he’s granted a ton of special abilities and fancy gadgets. He has everything he could ever need and it makes sense for this story, but it also takes away from him being the one who invents everything he needs and also removes some of his problem solving/critical thinking skills. His gadgets are used fairly sparingly in this movie (given how many he has access to), but they are treading on some dangerous ground. You don’t want to make it so he constantly has a tool for every situation because it may remove the element of vulnerability that surrounds Peter.
More often than not the action is great in this movie, however, the final fight felt a bit lackluster. There was definitely some tension because Spidey is in a very susceptible situation where if he makes a mistake he will die, but the actual fight itself wasn’t very engaging. There wasn’t enough variety in what was happening to make it feel engrossing and it went by quicker than it should’ve. Once again, the marketing and advertisement spoiled the movie, which ultimately killed the suspense for one scene in particular
The only thing missing from Homecoming was that Spidey wasn't swinging around as much as he could have been. Some of the highlights of the previous Spider-Man films revolve around the awesome web-swinging scenes, particularly the one at the start of The Amazing Spider-Man 2. It creates this theme park ride feeling of zooming through the streets of New York 10, 20, 30 stories above the ground and it's absolutely thrilling to see Spidey run up the side of buildings, doing acrobatic spins in the air, and use his webs to pull himself around corners or over obstacles. We do get a couple of brief, but excellent, first-person POV shots throughout Homecoming. However, it's not enough to scratch that itch simply due to the fact the shots aren't that long. Hopefully, this is something we see more of in the sequel!
The Verdict:
Spider-Man: Homecoming suffers from few issues, most of which spawn from humor missing the mark or elements of the character having gone missing. Even with those few flaws, Homecoming is a spectacular achievement for Marvel due to how much it manages to separate itself from the MCU tropes while benefiting from being a movie within this universe when it matters.
This movie sells us a near-perfect incarnation of Spider-Man and since this is only Peter’s freshman or sophomore year, I can’t wait to see how much the character evolves over the next few films as he still has a lot to learn. Without a doubt, if there's any Spider-Man movie that should be granted the title of The Amazing Spider-Man, it should be Spider-Man: Homecoming.
