Review of Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017) by Thomas B — 07 Jul 2017

***.

This was a very pleasant surprise. Over the last decade we've had an over-abundance of Spider-Man movies - and almost all of them were bad. So how nice it is to be able to say that this THIRD(!) reboot of the series was actually worthwhile. Instead of just rebooting for the sake of it, Marvel presents us with a totally different take on the character, and one that is far more akin to the comic books it is based on. I said in my 'Wonder Woman' review that I'm getting tired of these movies - which is true. Explosion-heavy, non-stop action with little substance or character development, which is what the majority are, just doesn't appeal to me for some reason... With this entry, however, the story is largely self-contained, and although the ending became a little too CGI heavy for my liking, the rest of the movie was fairly restrained. We also have a compelling villain - another rarity in this genre - with Michael Keaton giving a truly fantastic performance. Tom Holland also proves that he was the perfect choice for this role, and the movie got me excited for future instalments without shoving it down my throat constantly. On the negative side, I would have liked to feel a bit more of an emotional connection towards Peter Parker, and whilst Jon Watts does a reasonable job behind the camera, you never get a sense of his style, like you did with Sam Raimi's trilogy. Nonetheless, this was still a very satisfying entry into a genre that, for me, is losing its touch.