Spider-Man Homecoming

You would think that people would be bored of seeing the friendly neighbourhood Spider-Man on the big screen with this being the 3rd actor to portray the Web-head in his 6th film in 15 years. Sam Raimi and Tobey Maguire had their relatively well received trilogy and then we had Mark Webb and Andrew Garfield’s unfortunately problematic films before Sony decided to ask Marvel studios for help, handing reins to Jon Watts and Tom Holland and they nailed it.

The reason Marvel seem to be able to make a constant stream of top quality superhero films and others are struggling is because they aren’t just superhero films anymore. Winter Soldier is a spy film, Guardians of the Galaxy is a sci-fi film, Ant-Man is a heist film and Spider-Man homecoming is a high-school film. With Marvel doing this it gives them a chance to never really have their films become the same clichés every time but instead have different themes with their ever growing cinematic universe which now consists of 16 films with another 8 either in production or in development.

While this isn’t an origin story where we see Peter get bitten by the spider it is him learning how to be the Spider-Man who can save New York and still swinging into things so it sort of is an origin story and Tom Holland did brilliantly following on from his cameo in Captain America: Civil War (which we get to see again but from mobile-phone footage that he took during the battle at the airport). One of the best things this film does is to make Spider-Man seem small and not ready for the incoming villain in the film. It’s during the school trip to Washington which provides maybe the best evidence of how new to the superhero game Peter is, when on top of the Washington monument. He seems to be dizzy and the camera work from Watts gives the impression he is scared of heights and with Peter actually saying he has never been this high up and bearing in mind how tall the buildings in New York are, you can see how unprepared he is.

A major criticism of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) is that they can’t seem to get the villains right and with the exception of a few, e.g. Loki (Tom Hiddleston),they either don’t explore the character enough so have little depth or they kill them off not giving enough time to develop in future films. Now in Spider-Man we have Adrian Toomes (Michael Keaton) and we establish his motives and some understanding of his character from the opening scene where we see him running a salvage company contracted to clean up after the first Avengers film but is kicked out and the job and is given to Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr). Toomes is at heart a family man who is just trying to provide for his family in a world he deems unfair.

The supporting cast at school all have a purpose and we don’t feel like they are just here to make numbers. They have a mini story as they are all part of the Decathlon school team. Ned (Jacob Batalon) plays the delightfully dorky best friend who just wants to hang out with Peter and build a Lego Death Star. Liz (Laura Harrier) plays the romantic interest being both taller and older than Peter. Michelle (Zendaya) is the sarcastic teammate.

This is easily the best Spider-Man film since Raimi’s Spider-Man 2 and you could argue it is not only the best Spider-Man film but one of the best in the MCU.