Spider-Man: Homecoming Review
Spider-Man is back on the big screen, and it’s time for Homecoming! You know, when they announced this was the title I was very concerned. It’s not a great title. But as this film shows, sometimes the title of the movie has nothing to do with how good or bad the movie is. Anyways, I’m beating around the bush here: Spider-Man: Homecoming is not just the best Spider-Man film we’ve gotten in over a decade, it’s also my new favorite film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
So the story picks up a few moths after the airport battle in Captain America: Civil War (2016) where Spider-Man made his triumphant debut. Now under the eye of Happy Hogan and Tony Stark, Peter Parker is basically bored with his small ventures as the web-slinger. However one night while on the prowl he busts some crooks with some dangerous high-tech weaponry. Eventually Spider-Man comes to conflict with their leader, Vulture. Stark tells Peter to stay out of it and let others handle it, but Peter goes against his word and finds himself in an all-out-war between himself and Vulture and his goons, and Peter learns that soon doing so might not just bring his own destruction, but the destruction of those he cares about as well.
While the plot of the film is kind of laid-back and feels at times a bit familiar, one thing that didn’t feel familiar was Michael Keaton’s Vulture. One of, if not the biggest, complaint I’ve had with Marvel’s films is their lack of memorable villains. Outside of Loki and to a lesser degree Ultron and Helmut Zero, every other Marvel villain is a waste of time; just another obstacle for the title hero to overcome. Now we finally have a villain with depth, motivations, and memorable scenes and dialogue. It doesn’t hurt that Keaton is a phenomenal actor who brings the character to life on the big screen. He’s not just the intimidating figure of a bad guy, he’s a genuine villain, and one you can relate to at times. One of the biggest strengths, too, is the character of Spider-Man. While many films lately have featured heroes who find saving people are boring and would rather fight each other or brood, and that’s just not the case with Tom Holland’s Spider-Man, who always has the joy of being a superhero and grows as a character. As I’ve mentioned before, I’m a sucker for coming-of-age films when they’re done very well, and the personal growth with Peter Parker was also well done. I guess we can go back to the famous words of Uncle Ben, “With great power comes great responsibility”. Speaking of which, with the previous two Spider-Man’s played by Tobey Maguire and Anderew Garfield, I felt that Maguire nailed the nerd aspect of Peter Parker, but just didn’t quite get there once he put the suit on, and Garfield had the physique of Spider-Man in the suit but didn’t look the part of the nerd and socially awkward Peter Parker. Holland, however, molds the positives of the two previous actors and nails it with the best version of the character we’ve seen on the screen yet. One of the strengths with the film, too are the action scenes. One that’s been advertised heavily is a sequence at the Washington Monument, and seriously it’s the most thrilling action scene in a Spider-Man film since the train scene in Spider-Man 2 (2004). Also awesome is the ferry sequence and a few little fight scenes here and there. Going back to Vulture for a moment, another cool thing is his attack scenes, where he actually attacks like a Vulture. I thought that was fun. There’s also a lot of call-backs to the John Hughes era films, some of which are more obvious than others, but that added to the fun elements. There’s a fair amount of laughs in the film, too, as well as nice easter eggs to connect back to the MCU, like Hogan and Stark’s appearances, and a lot of other surprises that I won’t spoil for you here, but trust me, they’re not just comedy bits, some of them have emotion behind them that expand the continuing story of this cinematic universe.
Really I don’t have many complaints here. I mean, there’s a few things here and there that bothered me, like the title, but like I said in the intro, the title of the film doesn’t affect how good or bad the title is. To site a recent example, Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015) was one of my favorite films of that year, but I wasn’t a fan of the title, like at all. I still am not a fan of that title, just the same way I feel about the title of this film, but that doesn’t automatically make the movie suck. It’s just not a title that I would have given it if I were overseeing the film, and I can joke the sequel will likely be Spider-Man: Prom, coming in 2019! I don’t know, maybe they’ll actually go with that. Sorry, internet.
I guess that’ll about wrap it up. There’s some elements of the film that I would love to talk about, but in fear of spoilers I’ll have to save that for another time. Right now I’m battling with myself trying to figure out if I prefer this film or Get Out (2017) as far as which one is my favorite movie of the year so far. It’s that good. Right when everybody thought Spider-Man was played out after the failed films with Andrew Garfield, but Tom Holland and Spider-Man: Homecoming rejuvenate the character and my interest in him and I hope we see a lot more adventures with him in the future on this level. 2017 is turning out to be quite a year for superhero films. The LEGO Batman Movie (2017) charmed my socks off, Logan (2017) was a fitting end to Hugh Jackman’s journey as the character, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 proved, to me at least, to be a better film than the original, and Wonder Woman brought the DCEU back from life support to a thriving future franchise, and if you want to count it, Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie was hilarious and a great family animated film. And now with Homecoming we might be in for a very special year.
My rating: 10/10.
