"Spider-Man : Homecoming" Review
To start off, I'm someone who's a sucker for stories set in high school and it just so happened that Marvel Studios and Sony decided to make a high school comedy with my favourite superhero in it. So yeah, "Spider-Man: Homecoming" is a movie that I can't help but love, but that be said, there are some things that need to be addressed.
If you haven't noticed already, Marvel movies aren't the best at crafting a compelling villain in most cases. Homecoming is no different. The movie, for some reason, chooses to develop its villains off screen so I could never really wrap my head around how their minds work. You got Michael Keaton in here as a character who fights for the working class (cool), he scavenges around for cool tech, as if he's some kind of Vulture (cool) then it cuts away... Maybe it was a pacing thing but by showing more of your villain, you'd have a better chance at developing them and that would only help your movie. If you've payed for Michael Keaton, why not use him more? Another thing, his character was progressing so well until he does something really fucked up that made him irredeemable. This movie tries really hard to make you not notice this moment and makes a joke out of it but it's still pretty fucked up and makes what could've been a cool character into a confusing moment and what I consider to be a mediocre attempt at screenwriting. There are a lot of moments in this movie where something happens... but it doesn't make sense why it's happening, and then someone makes a joke about it. If you're gonna tell a joke, have it make sense. There's also a love interest in here somewhere but no one really cares about her "character" if you can even call her that. If there's anything this movie could've learned from those shitty Andrew Garfield Amazing Spider-Man movies, is that the person Spider-Man falls in love with matters. Unfortunately, Homecoming, a movie named after a romanticized high school dance, somehow ended up completely missing the mark. There's no tension between him and his crush because they know nothing about each other and we know nothing about her personality and motivations in the script. She's yet another strong female Marvel character archetype that does nothing important.
On to the good stuff. Tom Holland is our new Spider-Man and I think he's more compelling to watch than Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield combined. We follow a very vulnerable and enthusiastic portrayal of Peter Parker (Maguire and Garfield missed the mark on the latter in my opinion). We get to see how awkward he is, and how he struggles to prove himself to be a member of the Avengers, it's great storytelling and Holland pulls it up so effortlessly. RDJ's appearance feels organic as a mentor to Peter and even as an antagonist (he's a better antagonist than the Vulture). He chews a lot of the scenery but doesn't overstay his welcome. We get a close study of Peter's relationships with his bff, Ned (Jacob Batalon) and aunt May (Marisa Tomei). Both actors are able to help ground Spider-Man and reminds us that at the end of the day, Spider-Man is just a kid with great power and responsibility. He needs help from his friend when going on missions and he needs his aunt to figure out what to wear and how to act for a school dance. The fact that the scope of the movie is so small sets it apart from your typical superhero movie. Every action that Peter makes feels emotionally rich and pales in comparison to the dramatic impact of, say, a bunch of superheroes sparring with each other at an airport.
Spider-Man: Homecoming may not be the action movie that people expect. But it's able to capture the heart and soul of Peter Parker and it's never afraid to show his flaws. It's hilarious (at times to the point of nonsense) and its main villain is kind of a mixed bag but this movie managed to move me and restore my faith in Spider-Man movies. It's not as dark and intense as the first two Raimi films and it's not as stupid as the Marc Webb films. This version of Spider-Man just feels right.