Review of Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017) by Kyle L — 14 Jul 2018

Funny, action packed, well told and true to the spirit of what made its character so popular. Spider-Man Homecoming is the top contender in the sprawling and fully established Marvel Cinematic Universe not only it is the best film in the MCU but also the best of all six Spider-Man movies, making it both as the golden coin and major league on the slate of Phase Three Marvel films to date since Thor Ragnarok and Black Panther.

The story of this film takes place after Captain America Civil War where Peter Parker tries to balance his life as a High School student and as the superhero Spider-Man. When he begins to uncover the mysteries of a mysterious black market weapons deal with Vulture, Spider-Man struggles to deal with these issues as he learns the differences of what its like to either be your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man or as an Avenger.

This is the one film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe that I have watched more than five times, because this film is pure gold towards its execution and storytelling. It is a completely new and different type of Spider-Man movie that takes a huge leap forward from the last five Spidey films and I'm not kidding when I say that this movie is a miles better than the mediocre Sam Raimi and Tobey Maguire films or the great Marc Webb and Andrew Garfield movies which are missing the positive key beats of this movie.

When differentiating this from the past Spider-Man films, there are plenty of major changes that really raised the bar high for this lovable web swinging hero that the early films never got right in the first place.

One of those is heart, soul and last but not least is loyalty to how the character is treated. Everyone knows that Spider-Man is this quipping hero who always cracks jokes and makes fun of his enemies during the big fights which this film did as it shows that most studios who do comic book movies never stay true to the spirit of its source material in the worst way which is the case of the two Andrew Garfield movies that led to the cancellation of the supposed to be Amazing Spider-Man films especially the Tobey Maguire films which were disastrous for my taste compared to the aforementioned Andrew Garfield movies.

Because the Sam Raimi directed movies have good fight scenes but the bad and cheesy acting left a bad taste in my mouth whereas the Marc Webb films tried too hard to be good but ends up failing when attempting to create a shared universe to compete with Marvel's success.

This film solves all that problem and strips every negative aspect that were present in the first five Spider-Man films. What surprised me is that this film did not rely on telling the same story again as director Jon Watts along with producer and current president of Marvel studios Kevin Feige throws in the trash the story elements used from the last films like the death of Uncle Ben, how Peter became Spider-Man, the Daily Bugle building and finally, not using the same villains like Green Goblin who was already overused by the time The Amazing Spider-Man 2 was released.

What sets this apart most importantly from the previous films is that it focused more on Spider-Man's High School life. Since in the Sam Raimi trilogy, he graduated throughout High School and goes to College in the two follow-ups and by the beginning of the second Marc Webb film, Spider-Man graduated from his Senior year.

This film explores his Sophomore year and I love how we get to explore his life during that school year as we see his friends and more. This film did a good job avoiding from getting bogged down in franchise building as it had the opportunity to tell a good story over the 2016 failed follow-up for all the best reasons.

There are plenty of scenes that beats the major memorable scenes from the last films (Spider-Man saving people from a giant sinking Ferry boat, the intense elevator rescue, the suburban chase sequence, the fight with the Vulture on the Stark plane, the fight at the ATM booth including the one outside of the school with the Shocker and the finale where Spider-Man and the Vulture fight in the beach of Coney Island).

The character development is well focused, I love the mentor/father and son like chemistry of Tony Stark and Peter Parker. Last but not least, Adrian Toomes AKA the Vulture is another one of the Marvel Cinematic Universe's best villains since Ava or Ghost from Ant-Man And The Wasp along with Erik Kilmonger from Black Panther.

The motivations of the Vulture are so clear and understanding as I get to see him more as a human who is just forced to do bad things because of what he went through in the beginning of the movie due to Tony Stark.

Plus he is portrayed by a great actor who captures both the dark and light sides of the character in all the right places and I love the big twist that reveals himself as the father of Peter Parker's crush along with the part where he figures out Spider-Man's true identity combined with a maniacal grin on his face.

The acting is brilliant, nearly all of the cast did a good job with their performances in this film. From the brilliant Jacob Batalon as Spider-Man's friend Ned, Zendaya as the cute and pretty Michelle Jones or by her reference nickname MJ, Donald Glover AKA Childish Gambino as Aaron Davis who in turn is the uncle of new Spider-Man Miles Morales from the comics to the super sexy and beautiful Laura Harrier as Peter's long time crush Liz Allen.

Its also nice to see the other actors reprise their roles from the previous Marvel films like Jon Favreau, Robert Downey Junior, Gwyneth Paltrow and Marisa Tomei as Happy Hogan, Iron Man, Pepper Potts and the super sexy Aunt May respectively while I also enjoy Chris Evans reprising his role as a Captain America video instructor for school, but the one who steals the show are the performances of Tom Holland and Michael Keaton as the titular hero and the Vulture respectively.

Tom Holland really steals the show by staying true to how the character was originally portrayed in the comics and he is way better than Tobey Maguire or Andrew Garfield as he has more charisma than the other two, while Michael Keaton does a fantastic job portraying the antagonist Vulture and I prefer this role for him more over his other comic book role as Batman in the Tim Burton Batman films.

Director Jon Watts has really done a remarkable yet surprising job with his work on the latest Spider-Man movie that is by far the best one yet. He really made Spider-Man come to life by being true to the roots of what made this character the most likable Marvel hero to date and he knows how to keep us surprised and entertained at the same time, I look forward for his work on the upcoming sequel titled Spider-Man Far From Home which is after Avengers Infinity War Parts 1 and 2.

Overall, Spider-Man Homecoming is a fun blockbuster film that is pure, funny and entertaining from start to finish, making it the best Spider-Man film to date. This movie gets an 11/10/.