Written by James Reilly – Student Pages Entertainment Journalist/Film Critic
Film Rating:
★★★★
Spider-Man: Homecoming, directed by Jon Watts, takes place moments after his excellent introduction to the MCU in Captain America: Civil War, and displays his journey finding his place amongst an Avengers filled world. From managing student life, family life and his life as a hero, we see the most comic accurate Peter Parker to date (which is helped by the fact for once we actually get an actor who is in the same age bracket as his comic counterpart). So how does this film stack up amongst an increasingly cluttered MCU?
It holds up good. Pretty damn good. The film, despite being over two and a half hours long, doesn’t seem it – its fast, funny and a bloody good time. The humour hits most of the time, Tom Holland gives a career defining performance, and for ONCE we get a good Spider-Man movie in the modern superhero era.
Despite the trailers not selling me, the film delivered. Tom Holland, is perfect as Peter Parker. He is funny, charming and physically outstanding in the role, and for once with Spider-Man, seems to embody the role to perfection. A lot of peoples fears that Tony Stark, played once again by Robert Downey Jr. would overshadow the film, fear not – he is very much a supporting character to Holland and plays off both Peter Parker and Happy Hogan excitingly – what else do you expect.
The plot is pretty straight forward – Peter wants to prove himself as Spider-Man and become an Avenger in Tony Stark’s eyes. However when twists and turns make themselves apparent to Peter, he struggles to cope and perhaps he is out of his depth. The villain, Vulture, played by Michael Keaton is surprisingly developed and intriguing for a Marvel film, and places they take the character were both interesting and pleasant to see. I wouldn’t go as far to say he’s excellent, but he’s both engaging and genuinely threatening – something we don’t get often in superhero movies.
The film is more a Peter Parker film than a Spider-Man film, which I was very happy with especially since they got the character so right. While the pacing and writing was tad off in places, the film was quite generic and by-the-book in places. However, it was a fun ride from start to finish. The film very much seems like an origin story (without rehashing the origins of Spider-Man we’ve seen before). This is very much a young Spider-Man, and with what they’ve teased going forward for the character – I am very excited to see where this character goes in future sequels and in Avengers: Infinity War next year.
Overall the film was funny, action packed and everything I wanted from a Spider-Man film in the MCU. While the film seemed to have the training wheels on for some of it, it sets up the character excellently and I cannot wait to see what they do with him next.
Follow James at @JamesisGinger
