Spider-Man: Homecoming Review

Rating: 9/10 (5 July 2017)

Spider-Man has been one of my favourite superheroes of all time. While many grew up on the old Batman or Superman films, Rami's Spider-Man trilogy was my superhero films. And while now I see flaws in the third installment, the first and second still stand as not only two of my favourite superhero movies of all time, but my favourite movies of all time.
Spider-Man Homecoming does something different to the other Spider-Man films and they absolutely nailed it. Previous films have had most of the focus around Peter being Spider-Man while also being a student. Homecoming flips this. We see Peter as a student who just happens to be Spider-Man. By far this was my favourite aspect of the film. Marvel have continued the trend of diving into new sub-genres. Because of the high school aspect, this movie is very much a coming of age story where previous ones have been mainly an origin story. Due to this coming of age angle, I feel that we know Peter more as a character than we ever have before and less of just the guy who is behind the mask.
Despite a lot of focus going on Peter himself, I still think they did a great job of fleshing him out as Spider-Man. As we know from the trailers, we see Peter learning to use his new suit and I feel like they played those scenes really well being not only does it show Peter at times feeling out of his comfort zone with the suit, but you see him as a character feeling out of his comfort zone being a superhero.
Humour is something we have come to expect from Marvel movies and this movie was no different, however I thought they really changed it up. While there were still the quips and one liners, being a movie that is centred around high school life, they had high school humour. The jokes the students were telling were different to the types of jokes a teach would tell. In many ways, it felt a though a high schooler had written the jokes for this movie. There was puns and play on words and a touch of that immature humour that we wouldn't get in any other movie where an adult is the main focus.
Moving onto the cast, I thought they were all fantastic. Tom Holland is officially now my favourite Spider-Man. While much of the reason why is because of the writing and the story around it, I felt that he really nailed the Peter aspect of the character as well as being suited to being the fast talking, quipy Spider-Man. The return of Jon Favreau as Happy was very well suited to bounce of Holland's Parker. Jacob Batalon, Laura Harrier, Tony Revolori and Zendaya all nailed their specific roles as high schoolers in Peter's life.
I really need to take the time to talk about the two big names of this film, Michael Keaton and Robert Downey Jr. Firstly, I thought Michael Keaton was amazing. It's not often that we come out of a Marvel movie and the villain is one of the stand outs but in this case he was. While much of the credit goes towards the writing and backstory of this villain, Keaton was able to portray the emotion and presence needed to sell us on the Vulture. Secondly, any fears people had about RDJ being a massive part of this film will be brushed away. I wasn't specifically keeping count of how many times he appeared, but his total number of scenes but it would have been no more than maybe 5 or 6. What really worked with those scenes were that story wise, it made sense that Tony was there. Tony is very much the father figure of Peter and I think RDJ really nailed that role, considering that this is a side of Tony we haven't seen a lot of.
Like most Marvel movies, they are filled with easter eggs. I in no way consider myself close to a Marvel expect, but there was quite a few that I picked up on which makes me feel like there are going to be so many more that I missed. Most of the eggs are off handed references amongst dialog or in the background that don't take away from what is happening in the scene.
There are two reveals/twists that his movie has which I thought were both great. One of them many people already assume is going to be revealed in some way, however there is another that completely caught me by surprise. What is most important about that reveal is it up the stakes level for the third act. It got you more invested because you knew that what was going on means so much more than it did before.
While I do have a few problems with the film, I think most of them is just personal expectations I had going into it, rather than straight forward film problems. Personally I would of liked to have seen a bit more of Donald Glover, Marisa Tomei and Hannibal Buress, but I understand why they were pushed aside for the most part in this story. On the flip side of that though, I think both Glover and Tomei are going to play a role in the future of Spider-Man in the MCU so that gets me excited for the future.
Overall, it's hard to say where this ranks among the other Spider-Man films for me. I know it rates above many of them, but only time will tell if it will overtake the first 2 Rami films. However, this is still an amazing movie that I know I am going to revisit time and time again.
9/10