Do we really need another Spider-Man? Marvel’s involvement means a resounding YES!!! The Marvel machine is such because they know how what drives their characters and how to produce a really solid product. And by Sony letting Marvel’s friendly neighborhood superhero back into the MCU, Marvel reboot the the hero as the kid version most people reading/watching grew up with. And this move injects a previously dead ended franchise with new life. And Iron Man.
No origin stories here; the movie drops us into Peter Parker’s (Tom Holland) view of Captain America: Civil War and the months that followed, geeking out with his best friend Ned (Jacob Batalon) over the fact that Iron Man “employs” him. Peter, however, wants to help out more, and digs too deeply into a weapons manufacturer named Adrian Toomes (Michael Keaton), who possesses more skills than Spider-Man’s normal foes. This investigation potentially threatens Aunt May (Marisa Tomei), Ned, Michelle (Zendaya), and Liz (Laura Harrier) among others Peter cares about.
Marvel I think figured out how to evolve their single character superhero stories early on: via lensing them through some sort of genre or period change. Thor’s early films are Shakespeare plays; Captain America is both a political thriller and a WWII drama; even Ant-Man is a caper film. Spider-Man: Homecoming is, funny enough, a John Hughes high school comedy. This version of the character contains the most relatable and best known material that the audience will be ready to see. Peter Parker is the hero, a smart kid trying to grow up too fast, and his “parents” Aunt May, Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) and Happy Hogan (Jon Favreau) are trying to teach him how to best go about that. He’s also navigating bullies like Flash (Tony Revolori) and talking to pretty girls like Liz and deal with THE PROM!!!! Building the story around moments like Peter attending a party or conversing with his suit (voice of Jennifer Connelly) keeps the stakes small, and the tone relatively light. You want to laugh more, and are more invested in Peter Parker cause many of the audience were him. Much credit to Tom Holland for capturing that energetic enthusiasm and innocence which instantly personalizes and minimizes the stakes to just the little world Peter Parker knows instead of the planet.
Which brings us to the action. Director Jon Watts and the cavalcade of writers make the action mostly revolve around the character. The Washington monument sequence and Staten Island Ferry kerfuffle are excellent, focusing on how Peter’s mistakes can be magnified tenfold because of how new and untested he is with his powers. Michael Keaton’s Vulture also helps a lot; where Toomes gets the weapons and what he’s using them for make him extremely interesting and pay off bigly in the third act (and maybe more???) at THE PROM!!!! Where Watts succeeds before these sequences too are the calm before the fall: Peter has a Ferris Bueller like sequence at one point where he careens through backyards because there are no tall buildings around to grab ahold of. Peter also fighting his suit as he attempts to battle the bad guys generates plenty of laughs and some unexpectedness missing from most Spiderman films. The big battle at the end feels out of place mostly because it raises the stakes and focus of the story above the cute one we were given. It relies on ok spectacle, and doesn’t quite earn the success Peter Parker is going for, but by that point there’s so much good will that you dismiss it as just a kinda ok ending.
Like its lead, Spider-Man: Homecoming is smart. It smartly casts its lead, villain and close family and friends. It smartly emulates an 80s high school comedy. It smartly brings in great cameos as teachers or low level thugs. And it smartly taps into Peter Parker’s joy at being a superhero, something a dead franchise forgot long ago.