Spider-Man: Homecoming
Spider-Man – arguably Marvel’s most famous creation – finally joins the Marvel Cinematic Universe after Sony Pictures (who own the movie rights to the character) agreed a historic deal with Marvel Studios. The result is arguably the best onscreen interpretation so far of the friendly neighbourhood web-slinger.
Premise: A few months after helping Tony Stark/Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr) during the events of Captain America: Civil War, Peter Parker/Spider-Man (Tom Holland) spends his days at high school in Queens, New York waiting for the call to officially join the Avengers. But as high-tech, alien-based weaponry begins to find its way into his neighbourhood, Peter attempts to track down its source, the mysterious Vulture (Michael Keaton).
Review:
It’s difficult to understate just what a difficult task faced Tom Holland and everyone involved in Spider-Man: Homecoming. This was the third incarnation of Spider-Man in 11 years, and whereas there was a 5-year gap between Tobey Maguire’s last appearance and Andrew Garfield’s first, Tom Holland stepped into the spandex just 2 years after The Amazing Spider-Man 2 underperformed in the box-office. There was a real risk of spider-fatigue, and a real chance that audiences wouldn’t connect with yet another version of the same character.
Thankfully, the involvement of Marvel Studios and its head honcho Kevin Feige seems to have solved all of those problems. Just as Mark Ruffalo’s portrayal of Bruce Banner/The Hulk is considered the best yet despite being the third different version of the character in a 10-year period, there’s definitely an argument to be made that Tom Holland’s version of Spider-Man is the closest yet to capturing the youthful exuberance of the comic-book version.
It certainly helps that Homecoming can draw in a lot of goodwill and affection from the previous fifteen films in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). But it’s also a relief that it doesn’t use the ties to the larger MCU as a crutch – despite some of the marketing (that made the film look like “Iron Man and his amazing new sidekick”), this is unquestionably Peter Parker’s film, where the links to the MCU are the icing on the cake, but nothing more. Tony Stark’s appearances are all the more effective precisely because they are limited, and the biggest character (in terms of screen time) from the MCU is actually Happy Hogan (Jon Favreau), who is used to great comic effect.
“…Tom Holland captures Peter’s sense of humour, awe and wonder, but also his sense of moral duty…”
There are a couple of other MCU characters that pop up who I won’t spoil, but the point is, the connections to the wider MCU never overshadow the story being told in Homecoming – which is ironic, as probably the biggest problem with Andrew Garfield’s two Amazing Spider-Man films was that they spent too much time setting up potential future films, to the detriment of the movies that were actually made. In contrast, Homecoming could work perfectly as an entirely standalone film, even if you’d never seen any previous MCU films and never saw another after this one.
Another aspect that really helped Homecoming was that they effectively got to take the new version of Spider-Man for a “test drive” with Tom Holland’s brief appearance in Captain America: Civil War. This gave Tom Holland and the filmmakers the chance to try out the new tone for the character, and to see how audiences reacted. Whereas Andrew Garfield’s Peter Parker arguably tended towards being a sullen teenager obsessed with his missing/dead parents, and Tobey Maguire’s version of Spider-Man lacked the humour and quips traditionally associated with the character, Tom Holland’s appearance in Civil War seemed spot-on, capturing Peter’s sense of humour, awe and wonder, but also his sense of moral duty.
The third element that’s really helped Homecoming is the decision to truly embrace the high school setting. Both Tobey Maguire’s and Andrew Garfield’s versions of Peter Parker were on the cusp of graduating high school when they got their powers, and less than one and a half of the previous five Spider-Man films was actually set during their time at high school. Kevin Feige has previously said that he thought this was surprising, given that some of the most memorable storylines from the comics were set during Peter Parker’s time at high school, and the fact that he was just a kid underneath the costume was one of the key factors that set him apart from all of the other superheroes.
“…incorporates the MCU into the Spider-Man story in a believable and organic way…”
Homecoming has capitalised on that difference by choosing to portray Peter Parker as a 15-year-old kid, which opens up a whole new range of possibilities and which instantly differentiates Tom Holland’s performance from his predecessors’. It not only means that Homecoming can embrace the tone and feel of a classic high-school genre movie, but it also sets up a very interesting dynamic between the “real world” of a 15-year-old kid living in Queens, New York, and the larger-than-life world of billionaires, super-soldiers and alien gods inhabited by the rest of the Avengers.
But perhaps Kevin Feige’s biggest masterstroke was to introduce Spider-Man in Civil War without having to rehash his origin story for a third time onscreen. Sam Raimi’s original Spider-Man got the origin story perfect, and one of the biggest flaws with The Amazing Spider-Man was that it tried so hard not to simply rehash the earlier version of the origin story that it made a complete mess of it instead. Homecoming wisely assumes that audiences already know how Peter Parker got his powers and decided to become Spider-Man, and it instead focuses on what he does next.
It’s in this aspect that the film also finds a fresh and new story to tell, and one which incorporates the MCU into the Spider-Man story in a believable and organic way. In Homecoming, Peter Parker kills time swinging around his neighbourhood stopping bike thieves and giving directions to lost tourists, but he’s really just waiting for the call to come in from Tony Stark to invite him to join the Avengers full time. Peter’s putting his life on hold – dropping out of the school’s Academic Decathlon and other commitments – just so he’s ready to go the moment to phone rings … which, of course, it never does. It adds a whole new dimension to his character, and gives Homecoming a very different feel from the previous Spider-Man films.
“…Michael Keaton’s nuanced performance means the audience never loses sight of what’s actually motivating the Vulture…”
Tom Holland is great, all the more so when you consider how relatively young he actually is. But perhaps the standout performance in the film is from Michael Keaton as Adrian Toomes, the villain also known as the Vulture. Michael Keaton brings layers of humanity to Toomes, and managed to make Toomes perhaps the MCU’s most complex villain after Loki. The opening scene of the film (set in the aftermath of Avengers Assemble) establishes Toomes as an ordinary guy who felt forced into taking extraordinary measures to provide for his family, and Keaton’s nuanced performance means the audience never loses sight of what’s actually motivating Toomes, no matter how reprehensible his actions become. As Spider-Man is the most grounded of the MCU heroes, it’s fitting that his nemesis in Homecoming is equally grounded and relatable.
There’s so much love and attention to detail that’s gone into the film, any long-time comic-book fans will enjoy spotting the nods to characters like Shocker, Scorpion and even Miles Morales. But unlike the scenes in The Amazing Spider-Man 2 which attempted to set up future villains and storylines, these are Easter Eggs for the fans that don’t detract in any way from the story in Homecoming itself.
Ultimately, it’s hard to find fault with this film, which I would say is probably the best Spider-Man film since Sam Raimi’s original. Fresh and fun – very funny – and packed with dramatic action set-pieces, this delivers everything you could possibly want from the first Spider-Man film of a new series. I think in a few years, despite being the third recent version of the character, the name Tom Holland will be as synonymous with Spider-Man as the name Robert Downey Jr now is with Iron Man.
