Spider-Man Homecoming Review – Spoiler Free
Spider-man Homecoming is a film which comes directed by Jon Watts who some may know as the director of Cop Car (2015) (read review). The film stars Tom Holland, Michael Keaton, Robert Downey Jr., Marisa Tomei, Jon Favreau, Gwyneth Paltrow and Zendaya.
Spider-Man Homecoming is the first in a series of new film starring Tom Holland as Spider-man and is the first Spider-man film to be set in the same universe as the Marvel cinematic universe, meaning characters like Robert Downey Jr.’s Iron Man can appear.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ikBdaZH6myk&t=6s
I’ve always been interested in Spider-man films and in fact actually the first post I ever wrote for Resident Entertainment back when I started was about Raimi’s Spider-man (see here). Back then those Spider-man films were really just one of a few superhero films around, unlike today where there is almost a saturation of them at the cinema every year, with almost every hero I know of getting either a TV show or a film. Going into this new Spider-man I wasn’t sure where to put my expectations, my favourite Spider-man is still the first series and I enjoyed Andrew Garfield, but with this one I kind of felt, it’s just another Spider-man film. Sure I was hyped to see it, but not as much as I have been in the past, he’s the third Spider-man I’m going to see.
As a character, Tom Holland’s Spider-man is much younger than all the past Spider-man’s I’ve seen, unless it’s just because I’m older now, but to me he looks the most like a kid, he’s only 15. This Spider-man is always cracking jokes and so do his friends and a variety of other characters in the film. The film itself has a very light tone to it, it’s not something that takes itself too seriously, but it works. It’s a relaxing light film to watch, with some solid action sequences.
One of the things I thought of when I did go in though, not having read up much on this film was that it was maybe going to be another origin story. I’ve already gone through the Tobey Mcguire one and the Andrew Garfield one too. How could they do it differently? Well this one is a little different, it’s not a full origin story, in the film he’s already Spider-man. But as a character I guess he’s not fully developed as a hero yet, he’s just beginning. There’s no uncle Ben here to guide him (actually I don’t know where he is), instead we get Iron Man filling in this role and giving Peter Parker some help/advice on what it is to be a hero, “if you’re nothing without this suit, then you shouldn’t have it” was one of his advice lines. It’s an interesting take on the hero, also more interesting is that the whole Spider-man suit is made by Stark as well and even it has a GPS in there with a navigation voice.
One of the things that I think places Spider-Man Homecoming a little above the Andrew Garfield Spider-man films was that I think it does have a pretty decent villain. Michael Keaton plays the Vulture, which is like a flying Birdman on wings. As a villain and a character I felt he seemed well developed, you get this strong working class vibe from him and I really understood what he was trying to do in the world, actually even I really liked this character. I don’t want to go in to too much of what he does to avoid spoilers, but the Vulture is as well done as I think they could make him be in this film.
The acting is all pretty great. As mentioned the film’s tone is fairly light with a lot of jokes thrown around. Tom Holland does great for his time with Spider-man. He’s a decent Peter Parker and his voice is I think well suited for the Spider-man role. Michael Keaton I think was my favourite in the film and I found myself really enjoying his performance as the Vulture. Robert Downey Jr. appears frequently with his “tips”, he’s been playing the character for a while and is no different to anything we’ve seen in the past. Gwenyth Paltrow is only there for maybe a minute. Marisa Tomei who plays aunt May, is good enough, but like many of the characters isn’t so serious.
The action scenes are all great. Spider-man does a lot of similar things to what we’ve seen in past films, like jumping around with his web and beating up bad guys. But the special effects are all better than they were in the past and I enjoyed all of it. Some of the things Spider-man does, I do wonder how he survives though. In one part he was thrown into a bus, I did wonder how he was not dead from that and it happened a few times throughout the film. One of the things I am not sure of is how exactly his current suit protects him from such hits.
Overall I found myself enjoying this film a lot more than I thought I would. It’s great to see Spider-man existing in the world of the Marvel cinematic universe. While I may have not been so keen to see what is now my third Spider-man experience, that feeling quickly went away because what’s here is pretty decent. The film doesn’t take itself so seriously and is very light in tone, but it’s also funny at times. Michael Keaton’s villain is well done and Tom Holland also did well as Spider-man. If you’re a comic book fan I’m sure you’re going to see this not matter what this review said, but if you’re not really sure, I’d say to give this one a go, Spider-man Homecoming is a decent film and solid Spider-man film experience.
