Spider-Man: Homecoming Review

After the mild disappointment of The Dark Knight Rises (2012), I hopped the pond over to Marvel. An interesting story is wrapped in the events of this film, and no, I won’t be going into the details of them. All I want to focus on right now is the film itself. It’s released and out now, so it’s time to talk about Spider-Man: Homecoming. This is one of the few superhero series that I’ve kept up to date with, the other being Batman’s stellar The Dark Knight trilogy. Still, this film needed to do one thing for me. Prove that Tom Holland can be better than Tobey Maguire. Did it succeed? Read on and find out.

I should point out before heading into this review that I had the best seat in the entire theatre. Only four or five people were in, I had a VIP seat and my God was that comfortable. No distractions were stopping me from enjoying the film, so I had the ideal setting. It was up to the film to make my time enjoyable. I’d say it succeeded quite well. Maybe this is because Marvel is back with their long lost franchise. Having Marvel with the rights to Spider-Man means that they can link him in with The Avengers (2012), which this film does.

The opening to the film features a straight reference to The Avengers and from there, the plot skips eight years into the future. We follow Peter Parker (Tom Holland) who has been picked up by Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) as a sort of protege. After uncovering a villainous plot that involves Vulture (Michael Keaton), it’s up to Parker to stop him and save the day. It’s at this point I like to make it clear that Vulture is played by Michael Keaton. Not Michael Rourke as I wrote down in my notes, which seems to be a blend of Keaton and Mickey Rourke. I’m an idiot, I know.

At first, Vulture, real name Aiden Toomes, didn’t have the best reasons for becoming a villain. The motif was that, well, he can. He has a building contract taken away from him and is annoyed that the people that caused the mess are getting paid to clean it up. I didn’t really think too highly of this angle, and it could have been a bit better. What I did think was magnificent though was Keaton’s performance. My God, he stole the film away from Tom Holland for me.

He wasn’t the only great actor, as expected Robert Downey Jr. delivers a stunning support role as Iron Man/Tony Stark. What more were you really expecting though? Downey Jr. is stellar in his roles as always, and Iron Man is his character to play. He works well as Peter Parker’s mentor, and so does “Happy” (Jon Favreau). I was unsure at first whether or not it was, in fact, Jon Favreau, due to him not having a goatee I wasn’t sure. It was definitely Jon Favreau. I’m glad the director of the Iron Man series is allowed to stay in the cinematic universe as an actor too.

That’s nothing compared to the supporting cast though, who are at either ends of acting. We have the great performances (Tony Favroli, Martin Starr) to the downright dreadful (Jacob Batalon). The problem here is that Batalon plays Ned, Parker’s best and presumably only friend. He genuinely was an annoying reoccurrence in that film and it bugged me to no end. He’s the token stereotypical fat, comedic character that the film so desperately didn’t need. Not because it’s a stereotype, but because he wasn’t funny. My first note of this character was only that he “seemed” annoying. Hell, that changed rather quickly throughout my time watching this film. If only he had been replaced by literally anyone else.

One thing I am very grateful for is that they seem to just brush over the whole origin story shtick. We’ve seen it twice before now, and both times Uncle Ben has been killed. Not this time, we don’t even hear of Uncle Ben. He’s vaguely referenced to but other than that there’s no mentioning of him. It’s definitely because we’re sick to death of hearing about him now. We’ve seen the origin story so many times it would’ve been a pain in the arse to sit through it again.

Stan Lee cameos are frequent of course, I almost missed it as I wrote about comedic montages of Spider-Man helping old women. Still, short, comedic and brief cameos are what Stan Lee does best. The problem there is that this short and sweet approach reflects the choreography of the film overall. I’m not saying it’s bad, not at all. It’s great to watch and a treat for the eyes. The only problem I had with it is that it’s quite simply just forgettable. I think the only fight scene I really remember is the one towards the end. But that’s it, there are no other fight scenes that I remember and I am more than sure there were a good four or five.

Although these fight scenes were forgettable and heavily created with CGI, they were definitely very impressive to see. I can’t comment too much on the choreography considering computers are really good at it, but the stuff with the actual Tom Holland and real life Michael Keaton were impressive. The Washington Monument scene wasn’t a fight, but it was climactic and above all impressive. I was hoping it would kill off Ned, but no such luck I’m afraid.

What I liked most about this film, and you’ll be surprised when I say this, was the plot. I absolutely loved it. At first, Michael Keaton and Tom Holland’s respective storylines are completely unrelated to one another. That of course soon changes and we’re left with the mash up of both plotlines. I’m not going to lie, I loved the overall subtle realisation from Keaton that Parker is in fact Spider-Man. Of course, I’m not going to spoil it, but my God does he deserve an Oscar for this role, so does Holland to be fair. Hell, this film made me want to watch Birdman (2014) thanks to Keaton flying 'round the city of New York as a bird.

So, what was Spider Man: Homecoming like? Was it any good? Was it the return of Spider-Man that fans have so dearly been needing? Yes. I’d say so. It’s not fully there yet, but it’s a definite step in the right direction. This film felt more like a way to bridge the gap into the second film, and there’s nothing wrong with that. Hell, ditch The Avengers guys, have it solely about Spider-Man and away we go. And, you know, you could always have Mysterio as the next villain. It’s only a suggestion, but come on, please, he’s clearly the best Spider-Man villain.

To be fair this film did something I never imagined it could do. It managed to make me remember why I hated prom, even though it doesn’t actually feature much of the actual Homecoming bit. Sure, Homecoming, Prom, whatever you want to call it. Call it a clustershit for all I care, because that’s basically what it is. I hated Homecoming more than I hated the villains in this film. That’s the real enemy, social interaction.