Spider-Man: Homecoming – Movie Review
Spider-Man: Homecoming – PG-13
Release Date: Fri 07 Jul 2017
After introducing this new incarnation of Peter Parker (Tom Holland) in last year’s Captain America: Civil War, Spider-Man: Homecoming marks the character’s first stand-alone film to be tied into the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It’s a great thing for everyone involved that Marvel Studios and Sony (who still retain the film rights to Spider-Man) were able to make this work.
By placing Spider-Man: Homecoming in the world that the Marvel Cinematic Universe has been building and having dropped him into Civil War, we get to skip through the tired origin stories that have already been done in the Sam Raimi films and Sony’s ill-fated The Amazing Spider-Man films.
The story is that after helping Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) in Civil War, Peter is mostly left on his own to finish high school. It’s a “don’t call us, we’ll call you” situation. This is frustrating to Peter who goes out and does his best to fight crime at night while dealing with more grounded high school issues. This Peter is much closer to his friend Ned (Jacob Batalon) than his distant love interest Liz (Laura Harrier) though he always chooses being Spider-Man over spending time with them. This also helps differentiate it from the prior films where Peter’s romantic relationships defined his secret identity’s time.
Michael Keaton plays a nuanced foil to Spider-Man. They manage to make him an undeniable threat but also a believable character with integrity. He’s not a silly goofball bent on world domination. Instead, he’s another in a long line of collateral damage left in the wake of The Avengers trying to claw his way back.
This film works because it fits perfectly into the MCU and doesn’t re-tell the origin story of Spider-Man or follow his romantic exploits. Those things were interesting in the prior films, but it’s great to see something much more original and unique.
Amber, Aaron, Cal and I saw it in the theater and had a discussion in the car:
