"Spider-Man: Homecoming" Review

Spider-Man: Homecoming is the sixteenth film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the sixth theatrical Spider-Man film, is directed by Jon Watts (Clown, Cop Car) in his big-budget debut, and stars a large ensemble cast including Tom Holland, Robert Downey Jr., Michael Keaton, Marisa Tomei, Jacob Batalon, Laura Harrier, Zendaya, Donald Glover, Jennifer Connelly, Jon Favreau, Donald Glover, Tony Revolori, and Martin Starr, with about a billion other supporting players. The film is the third cinematic iteration of Spider-Man since Sam Raimi's trilogy that began in 2002, and follows the failed would-be-trilogy by Marc Webb that began in 2012 with The Amazing Spider-Man. It is a joint project between Sony/Columbia Pictures, who hold official ownership of the Spider-Man character, and Marvel Studios, who have inducted the character into their Avengers lore after introducing him in the second act of last year's Captain America: Civil War. I think it's important to get all these franchise details out of the way straight out the gate, considering how complicated these superhero storylines are getting both in terms of their actual overarching fictional stories and the complex web of property ownership and corporate slip-ups that have led to so many different versions of these tights-wearing crime-fighters appearing on the big screen, small screen, and comic pages in the 21st century.

As far as actual plot goes, Spider-Man: Homecoming follows Peter Parker (Holland) shortly after the events of Civil War, where he has been recruited by Downey Jr.'s Tony Stark/Iron Man to be a friendly neighborhood Spider-Man, giving his assistant Happy (Favreau) daily updates on his small-time crime-fighting activities on the streets of Manhattan, an assignment Peter covers up at school and with his aunt May (Tomei) as the "Stark internship". Peter is dismayed that Stark falls short of offering him a formal role in the Avengers, but is nonetheless excited to be a secret superhero. The film follows his struggle to balance regular high school life - getting a date for homecoming dance, keeping his identity secret from his friends and family, participating in an academic decathlon - with his discovery of a middle-aged man named Adrian Toomes (Keaton), who has been illegally collecting alien technology leftover from Avenger battles to craft high-tech weapons and become the supervillain Vulture, a threat Peter is eager to stop on his own, much to the chagrin of Stark and his best friend Ned (Batalon), who just wants him to focus on being a cool kid.

The biggest relief in this film is that it skips past the origin story of Spider-Man, so the first act doesn't revolve around Peter getting bitten by a radioactive spider or watching Uncle Ben get murdered. Instead, the film plops us right in the middle of Parker's superhero life, and we get our insights into his character and the world around him through his relationships with supporting characters and through Holland's spirited performance. Holland is arguably the main highlight of Homecoming. Especially in contrast to the dark, brooding, "mature" Spider-Man from Andrew Garfield's iteration, it's nice to see a Spider-Man who not only exudes youthful exuberance, but just plain enjoys being Spider-Man. Holland is funny, sweet, incredibly charismatic, and toward the third act even has moments of surprising depth, allowing Peter to exhibit the flaws of any high school kid, being at times dangerously eager to face the world head-on as he attempts to make sense of it. I find him to be just about as good a Spider-Man as Tobey Maguire, though they are admittedly accomplishing very different things.

Peter/Spider-Man is supported by a remarkable ensemble cast of colorful characters, which is rich, finely wrought, diverse, and always fun to watch. Peter's friend Ned garners possibly the most consistent number of laughs out of any character, and Jacob Batalon is a young actor with impeccable comedic timing who is also extremely charming. Robert Downey Jr. has made a believable transition as the snarky, full-of-himself Tony Stark to one that is trying to break through the snark to be the cautious, wise, almost parent-like Stark that we got a glimpse of in Civil War. Michael Keaton strikes a convincing balance between empathetic and intimidating as Toomes/Vulture, who is one of the best-written villains in a cinematic universe plagued with uninteresting, bland, poorly written villains. The Spider-Man universe has always been unique in that many of his adversaries genuinely respect him and know that they're wrong, but have a misconstrued understanding of what they deserve/have to do. Keaton's character has a clear and even understandable motivation rooted in a personal desire to keep his family life afloat in the wake of sudden unemployment that has left him excusing his reprehensible morals for a perceived deserving rebuke of the rich and powerful's oppression of the little guy. It's refreshingly layered stuff for a Marvel villain, and Keaton does it great justice.

The film is also peppered with numerous smaller supporting players and bit parts that somehow feel earned and properly explored for a first film in a planned trilogy despite their short screen time. Homecoming keeps the laborious exposition at an impressive minimum considering the number of narrative gears turned and characters introduced. And those bit parts are well utilized - Martin Starr plays Peter's decathlon leader with his idiosyncratic grasp of perfect deadpan, Zendaya is charming and dryly funny as the sarcastic MJ, Donald Glover finely portrays a small-time criminal in the wrong place at the wrong time, and Hannibal Buress plays Holland's gym teacher who somehow managed to elicit belly laughs from my entire theater audience with just three lines of dialogue in the entire film.

The effectiveness of these characters is also bolstered by the well-constructed world they inhabit. This is the first MCU film where the "cinematic universe" concept has been used effectively for me. The elements in other previous Marvel movies meant to interconnect these franchises within franchises to each other have been inclusions of outside characters, quick tangential references to Infinity Stones, and in-jokes. Homecoming has all of those in short supply, but it also manages to make us really feel as though Peter Parker is going to high school in a world that has superheroes. Students play bang/marry/kill with their favorite Avengers, a civics teacher discusses the Sokovia Accords in class, and Captain America is the star of industrial videos on lab safety and puberty shown in classes. The high school world in general is wonderfully fleshed out, with my favorite detail being the wooden, bewildered students on the low-budget student news show (which gives us what I think is the first appearance of Comic Sans in a blockbuster film). There is quite a bit of downtime in this movie, with much of the movie's narrative leg work focused less on the squabbles of deities and giant beams shooting into the sky and more about the internal and interpersonal struggles of its main character. Especially the first half of this movie feels like a John Hughes movie with superheroes in it. Young children may find it boring and prefer the loud, colorful, fast-paced action they're used to in these Marvel flicks, but I appreciate the time this movie takes with its characters.

Of course, you won't miss out on any fun action sequences with Spider-Man: Homecoming. It's hard to come down from the high of action-directing and editing in Baby Driver (though this is total recency bias talking), but the action in this movie is standout for a Marvel film. They're decently crafted, well paced, lots of fun and peppered with good-natured humor, propped up by Michael Giacchino's thrilling score, and have a much sharper sense of stakes than other typical superhero films. An element of modern superhero movies I've often bemoaned is their tendency to inflate their conflicts into world-shattering scenarios with demigods punching and shooting at each other with no real visual consequences. Homecoming never even makes it outside of Manhattan, and while the visual effects here are as dazzling and about as plentiful as any other Marvel fare, the stakes here are entirely personal for Peter. Our villain is not concerned with literally destroying the entire universe like most Marvel villains, but rather just doing illegal and immoral things to keep his family safe. Remarkably, when your villain's to-do list shrinks from "end all existence" to simply "kill Peter Parker", the level of believability of their success increases, and any encounter with them becomes vastly more tense and exciting. There is one scene in particular in the third act (that I will not spoil the details of because it's actually a pretty great twist) involving Keaton's character and Peter that brims with uncommon tension for a Marvel film simply because of the fact that we have been made to believe this villain could try anything at any time. Another scene involving Spider-Man having to save people trapped inside the Washington Monument is surprisingly heart-pounding despite its relative simplicity. These may sound like small differences, but they are meaningful.

Overall, Spider-Man: Homecoming does not reinvent the wheel as far as blockbuster superhero movies go, and is not even the best Spider-Man film in my opinion (although this and the Sam Raimi films are both excellent at achieving very different things), but it gets a lot right and avoids a lot that could have been trite, boring, or uninspired. It's not perfect, but it's impressive that a film with six screenwriters could be a more focused and complete product than many other big-budget action flicks of our time. The most important thing it gets right, and the main reason for its success, is that it steeps all of its conflicts, be they on the small scale of high school dramas or on the larger scale of extraterrestrial arms dealing, in interesting, likable characters. Tom Holland and his mosaic of supporting characters make Homecoming eminently watchable from start to finish. Watts and company's tight grasp on the source material combine with the film's consistent humor, exciting action, strong characterization, and beguiling sense of charm and breezy fun to make this a superlative modern superhero movie.

I recommend this film to anyone looking for a fast, fun time at the movies who likes good characters, good-natured humor, and some sleek and decently directed action. It may be as meticulously manufactured and packaged as any other Marvel product, but it reeks of good intentions and gets it right far more often than it gets it wrong. Upon a second viewing I'm considering bumping this up to an A-, but for right now this is getting a B+, albeit an enthusiastic one. I look forward to seeing this Spider-Man in theaters again.

Grade: B+