Breath of fresh air for Spiderman movies, for the MCU and for superhero movies in general !

Rating: 10/10 (7 July 2017)

Opening Arguments: Till Dr Strange came out, the MCU had become rather formulaic in terms of character development and plot lines. Colourful action sequences, an ensemble of great actors and a few comical tropes thrown in here and there to make the plot lines seem clever and grounded are some factors that were causing MCU movies to become hit after hit. However, it wouldn't work forever and something had to change. And, boy, did it change with Spiderman Homecoming !! Usually i am wary to call a superhero movie 'realistic', but i will use that particular term in this movie simply because the entire movie is welded together in a seamless stream of events that play out very sensibly inside the viewers head.
Plot: 'Stay close to the ground', Stark tells Peter. And the movie does so too. The result is a very believable version of how a 15 year old boy on the cusp of becoming an Avenger, but also struggling with 'coming of age' issues would behave. Yes there are a couple of good action set pieces. But even those are portrayed so well that they seem to be stem more out of a series of events going out of hand rather than the movie setting us up for action just for the heck of it. And each act blends into the other in a fluid way that has been missing in superhero movies so far.
Acting & Characters: Absolutely full marks to Holland and Keaton. After a long long time do we get to enjoy a fully fleshed out antagonist in the MCU! When i watched the trailers i thought 'The Vulture' is going to be another mech-suit wearing bad guy drunk on power and carnage. But no. Keaton's character actually keeps developing & evolving throughout the span of the movie so well that a discerning viewer might even question whether he is really so much of a bad guy at all. And Holland, well, you can just see that he gives his heart & soul to this performance, and i am looking forward to see more of him in future MCU movies. If he is truly the central character of phase 4, then the MCU is in good hands.
Other stuff: It actually feels nice to see Peter getting used to a wicked tech-ed up suit developed by Stark which is part of why this movie feels fresh. Rather than giving 'instinct' as an excuse for all the cool stuff spiderman can do, here we are given a version of how Spidey first learns many tricks with the help of some cool Stark tech, but then also learns to look inside of himself for the best of his abilities after his suit is temporarily taken away by an angry Tony after the ferry incident depicted in the trailers.
Closing arguments: Overall, the movie offers everything: a grounded plot, great characters to sympathise with, well placed yet simplistic humour and of course, cool Spidey stuff !! Spiderman comes of age and so does the MCU itself. Previous versions haven't made it beyond 3 and 2 movies respectively. Maybe the third-time reboot's a charm ? :-)