I didn’t know that I was ready for another Spider-man movie. I’m not even ready for the title. The odd title change and start of phase 4 made me question if I could really tolerate it. Honestly, I wanted this movie to be terrible. That way we could all agree that our neighborhood Spider-man isn’t for us. After all this time, we would just realize that Tobie Maguire would have to come back and revive Spiderman 2 for this to be great again. But, that didn’t happen and I’m mightily pleased with how this movie turned out.
From the start, I knew that Michael Keaton was the best choice for Vulture. His backstory worked so well. The fight for the working-class man was on and I was thoroughly enjoying the ride that his character took us on. From scene to scene, Keaton’s performance shown through his interacts with his crew members to his interactions with Peter (Tom Holland) towards the end of the film. He never changed the tone of the film to something that it wasn’t and made his character relatable. It’s been amazing to see Keaton’s career transform from Batman to Birdman and now to Vulture. His performance was great and once again hushed the doubters.
Opposite to Keaton and probably one of the hardest roles in all of Hollywood right now was performed by Tom Holland. In our 3rd live-action rendition of the character in what seems like 10 years, Holland must be the high school version Peter Parker and somehow differentiate and not differentiate himself from Garfield and Maguire. I would say for what it’s worth, Holland has fit himself in well into the series and I’m excited to see what happens next. His performance has this kid like charm and excitement that the other two weren’t 100% able to capture. Sure, this has drawbacks with most notably having the lack of serious tone that the character needs in certain points, but his performance was solid.
This film comes from Jon Watts whose work I have never seen before. It definitely took a fresh face to make Spider-man Homecoming into a fresh movie. From the first bits of this film, I knew it was different. There was something so mystical and different from the very beginning. I thought he connected each part of the story together and made a Spider-man movie that we all want to see. There’s never a point in this where I wanted it to end immediately and I was on the edge of my seat many times throughout. It kept a consistent tone and the plot was so exciting that I just wanted to see more. The way that Watts balanced each character and storyline is the main reason that I wouldn’t mind seeing him direct anything else in this Marvel Universe. Watts did a stellar job.
Overall, I think there were some visual effects hiccups and some misplaced characters, but we can’t expect much more from a film that has 5 others before it in different cinematic universes. Spider-man Homecoming separates itself from the disasters and glories of the previous films and is a movie that I will want to see many more times in the coming months. Which might be the first time in a while that I say that about any film.
Grade: A-
