Kevin Feige makes Spider-Man just another guy, but it's fine I guess

Rating: 7/10 (20 July 2017)

We all know that Spider-Man's silver screen legacy is extremely controversial. With three incarnations of the character existing in the short span of 15 years, it's impossible not to compare every reboot to the last. How does this one compare? It's a decent effort, but Homecoming isn't as deep or as personal as Spidey's past exploits, largely because of its ties to the great Marvel machine.
In the shadow of the other two iterations of Spider-Man, this film makes a sincere attempt to directly address fan issues with prior films. The central fan criticism of 2012's The Amazing Spider-Man is that it spends too much time retelling Spider-Man's backstory. This film subverts that by not showing the backstory at all. Likewise, another common criticism of the first two iterations of the character was the unrealistic age of the lead actors (Maguire was a 27 year old playing a high school student). Homecoming fixes this by casting a boyish-looking 21 year old Tom Holland. The film shies away from retread villains, having Spidey fight Vulture instead of round 3 against the Green Goblin. The film also subverts wider criticisms of the MCU by having Spidey's role be to stop a simple heist by an arms dealer, instead of having another movie in which the total annihilation of Earth is threatened. Fans will be happy that the film addresses all of these common criticisms and "fixes" them, but that alone doesn't mean that this is the perfect Spider-Man movie.
Perhaps the movie's biggest flaw is its annoying obsession with The Avengers. The film literally has about *fifty* allusions to other Marvel characters. Peter Parker talks about how he's dying to get into the Avengers, other characters ask if he knows the Avengers, the villains express their fear of Iron Man, etc. This movie cannot do its own thing for five minutes without bringing up other Marvel properties. Cameos by Captain America and random references to Thor's belt are distracting to the story that this movie is trying to tell. The more cynical viewers in the audience can easily identify these references for what they are: cross-promotion. The whole charade is just a thinly veiled commercial for the next Marvel movie.
Spider-Man: Homecoming also suffers from its presence in the MCU in more ways than just the references. In the logic of Marvel's current universe, superheroes are totally normalized. Every character in the film knows about the Avengers and their battles against alien invaders, so the emergence of a new hero is not mind-blowing to anyone. Since a common New Yorker knows about Iron Man, they don't really care about Spider-Man. The people of New York are very invested in Spider-Man in the Raimi trilogy: they rally behind him as an emblem of their city's identity. He is featured on the front page of the newspaper every day in those films. In Homecoming, the people don't care that much about Spider-Man, and that makes the audience disengaged too. The proliferation of superpowers and superweapons in the universe also makes Spider-Man pretty pedestrian in terms of how well he can fight. In the other films, it is very satisfying to see Spidey easily take down common. In Homecoming, the viewer never gets a good moment in which we are in awe of Peter's powers. He's just shown as a guy who's less powerful than Iron Man, and that really gives audiences a reason to be disengaged.
Spider-Man's motivations in this film are much weaker than those in the traditional Spider-Man story. In Homecoming, Spider-Man wants to impress Tony Stark so he can join the Avengers. Contrast this to the traditional Spider-Man mythos, in which Spider-Man has made a vow to avenge the memory of his dead Uncle, whose death he feels partially responsible for. Spidey has to fight for good because it's his duty and there's nobody else to do it, even when his personal life crumbles and it's easy to quit. This poetic struggle is almost entirely absent from Homecoming, and it is the backbone of the character.
Despite my gripes, this film certainly does have its fair share of redeeming qualities. It is a comedy through and through, keeping a constant stream of laughs that land more often than not. The script is filled with witty jokes and the acting and editing makes these jokes work nicely. Making this movie a comedy-first was a calculated choice by Marvel so it would be more likable and different from other MCU films (think Ant-Man), and that choice pays off since the comedy beats work well.
Tom Holland is a very good casting choice for the role of Spider-Man, hitting the comedic and dramatic notes well while realistically looking like a high school student. A lot of weight and scrutiny is put on the actors who play Spider-Man (probably since they are easily compared to others who have played the same character), and Holland delivers. He embodies the character's charm and youthfulness well and isn't awkwardly old. He may be the most believable and relatable Spider-Man yet.
Michael Keaton's villain, Vulture, is another highlight of the film. He is a man with a blue collar background who is just trying to get by, a struggle that the audience can identify with easily. There is some serious irony that Keaton is playing this "Birdman"-esque character, but he certainly plays it well.
In itself, Spider-Man: Homecoming is a good enough, par-for-the-course Marvel movie. Sadly, the character has had incredible recent exploits, and this film doesn't get to the same heights of those movies. It's sad to see Spidey in a movie that just makes him another face in the already overcrowded MCU when the character seems so much more special than that.