Spidey is back, baby!!

Rating: 9/10 (6 July 2017)

In my opinion, there has not been a good Spider-Man movie since Spider-Man 2. I love the original two Raimi movies and grew up with them. Unfortunately, the three that would follow those movies were incredibly disappointing and lacked the spirit of the character. As a result, there was a ton of pressure on this film to succeed, and it does with flying colors.
Firstly, I have to give praise to Tom Holland. He absolutely nailed the character of Peter Parker. When he was in the Spidey costume, he also absolutely rocked it. The look of the character (the actual suit itself) is awesome and he throws quips all the time without it feeling gimmicky or forced like it did in the Amazing Spider-Man movies. The supporting characters also were fantastic. Michelle was a very fun side character who had some fun moments (although I really did not like the fact that she ended up being MJ as she acts nothing like that character), as were Liz and Ned. Those characters really added emotional weight to Peter's story and I thought that it was incredibly well-handled.
The action was grade-A Marvel. Although I would not definitively say that the action in this film is quite as good as it was in Raimi's, it is extremely well-choreographed and, when CGI was necessary (which was often), it looked top-notch. The humor, as it usually is in MCU movies, was also fantastic and there were a lot of laughs in the theater that I saw it in. The final post credit scene was also really funny.
The main twist of the movie was obviously the fact that the Vulture was Liz's father. I get the sense that many people will be upset about this since it is a huge coincidence, but there have been coincidences all throughout Spider-Man lore in the movies, cartoons, and comics. Let's not forget that Peter's best friend's dad in the comics, Norman Osborn, ends up being his archnemesis. The Vulture as a character, unfortunately, did leave me slightly underwhelmed. He is definitely a top-tier Marvel villain, as he at least has a personality and clear goals unlike previous characters in the MCU, but I felt like there should have been more to his character. He was two- dimensional, which is better than one-dimensional, but I think that he could have been even better. However, the look of the character is absolutely perfect and Michael Keaton was really good in the film. The scene where Peter finds out that he is Michelle's dad had so much tension and was very well-handled.
I also have a gripe with the references made to the MCU throughout the film. They were all very fun and creative, but I think that there were some that were just unnecessary. I almost feel like that is Sony's doing since they have really wanted to drive home the fact that this film takes place in the MCU. It takes away the standalone nature of the film to a certain extent. However, Tony Stark was in the movie for just the right amount and never changed the focus of the film. Towards the end, I thought it was perfect to have Stark and Peter together in the new Avengers facility. The fact that they were also able to incorporate an arc for Tony's character in this film despite his extremely limited screen time was really impressive and I look forward to seeing his relationship with Spider-Man grow even more.
Overall, I was extremely pleased with Spider-Man homecoming and I think it is probably the second or third best movie in the MCU. Spider-Man fans finally now have another film that will be almost universally loved.
9/10 Grade: A-