Review of Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017) by Lewis C — 21 Mar 2018

Spider-Man Homecoming is one of the funnest Marvel and Spider-Man films to date. Tom Holland is perfect in the role, and captures teenage Peter Parker well. This is one of the major strengths of the movie, as Holland is believable as a high schooler and the narrative betters fits someone of his age.

Another major plus for the film is that it does not have to be an origin story. There have already been two big screen origin adaptations of Spider-Man in the past 15 years, so the last thing Marvel needed was another one for Spidey's stand-alone entry into the MCU.

The story follows the events of Civil War and Peter's strong desire to become an avenger. He goes from being the friendly neighbourhood Spider-Man, handling small scale crime to a more serious threat with the Vulture, played by Michael Keaton.

Keaton is one of the strongest villains in the MCU to date, as his ambitions and agenda are understandable. He represents the often forgotten hardworking blue collar worker, who seeks revenge on the people at the top, in this case people like Tony Stark.

Speaking of Stark, he represents Peter's mentor in the movie, and challenges him along the way to become a better person and hero. The rest of the cast is hit and miss. Peters best friend Ned is hilarious and has great chemistry with Holland.

On the other hand, Peter's love interest Liz is very one dimensional, and proves hard to replace the electrifying chemistry Emma Stone's Gwen Stacey had with Andrew Garfield's Peter Parker/Spider-Man.

Zendaya's Michelle is also bland, as she is often very annoying and boring. Although Michelle in the end hints at becoming a major character in the future, she is always in the background and acts as poor comic relief.

The visuals are very good in the film, being very colourful and add to the tone of the movie well. The music is also engaging, adding fun and tensity to scenes when needed. The story is interesting overall, but towards the end proves to be a little far fetched as Peter hangs on the edge of a plane without his suit for a long period of time, before surviving a plane crash with minimal injury.

The first two acts were really fun and interesting, and the writers seemed to stall on this in the third act, as they had to add a more serious tone and conclude the story. However, the execution of this was very bland and unrealistic.

Overall, Spider-Man homecoming is a very fun and engaging adventure. Tom Holland is perfect as Spider-man and the teenage story is a refreshing take on the character. This proves to be an overall strong introduction to one of Marvel's most important heroes moving forward.