Spider-Man: Homecoming

You win again, Marvel. And I guess you too, Sony.

Spider-Man: Homecoming, the third incarnation of the web slinger to grace the silver screen but the first version of the character to make the trip to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, sees a teenaged Peter Parker (Tom Holland) in the early years of his life and tenure as Spider-Man as he tries to survive high school while balancing a still relatively new career as a superhero. With Iron Man (a still great as ever Robert Downey Jr.) backing him by teaching Spidey a thing or two about responsibility and what it means to be a hero, and a new villain in the form of the Vulture (Michael Keaton) throwing a wrench into both of their plans, Peter must find a way to become the hero he was always meant to be, or die trying to prove himself.

With great power comes great responsibility, and Marvel has proven, once again, that having one of their own characters back under the MCU banner is the best thing that could have happened for fans and audiences alike. That being said, I have to admit that I wasn’t sold on this film by any means before I stepped into the theater. It seemed to me like every trailer released gave more and more away to a point that I felt like I knew the entire film inside and out, allowing the overly critical side of myself to pass judgment on the movie before I even knew how it all fit together. Spoiler alert: the trailers do give away pretty much everything, but the way those snippets were presented do the final film a terrible injustice that still irks me to this day. Fuck those trailers though, cuz once the opening credits begin to roll, nothing stops this film from claiming the crown of being the best Spider-Man film ever made. Let that statement open the nerd-hate floodgates.

Say what you will about the original trilogy and the slightly underrated rebooted series, but we all have to admit – whether you want to or not – that something was always…off about those films. The original trilogy did an older Peter Parker and his relationship with Mary Jane some sort of service, but the actual Spider-Man-ing going on left a bit to be desired. While the movies weren’t bad by any means, this version of the character barely cracked jokes, sparingly did anything cool with his spider-powers (outside of a few well-shot action scenes, I admit), but other than that, I never felt like I was watching Spider-Man as I knew him in the comics. Flash-forward to The Amazing Spider-Man series, which again did better showing a wisecracking, acrobatic and nimble hero, but lacked the villains and story to make them anything more than mediocre.

Enter Tom Holland, a new, entirely high school setting with supporting characters galore, and an alliance with Sony that allowed the character to finally make his shared universe debut in the MCU. I don’t know if it’s the way the character had been handled in the past or the fact that this new incarnation was so different from what came before, but from the opening sequence where Peter filmed what is essentially a home video “prequel” to his big fight scene in last year’s Captain America: Civil War, I was hooked, line and sinker. It’s immediately apparent that this version of the web-head isn’t like what came before, the high school setting and actual drama taking place outside of the normal superhero trappings doing wonders to ground the character and the story alike. Throw in a dash of Iron Man, a bunch of comedy that only helps us love Spidey even more, and some truly fun and entertaining set pieces, and you’re already ahead of the game in terms of what this film has to offer compared to what the other versions of this character gave in an entire movie.

Speaking of Iron Man, the trailers would have you to believe that he’s in the entire film and then some, and while Tony Stark is integral to the core of the script and the themes running through it, I was pleasantly surprised to see the filmmaker’s restraint when it came to using him. A sort of father figure to Peter once he takes him under his wing and outfits him with a new costume, Stark is the guiding force behind everything Spider-Man hopes to be, for better or worse. The true conflict central to the film is whether or not a 15 year old kid from Queens can be the hero he’s destined to be, or if he’s just another kid in a costume playing dress up to impress his elders. Peter’s heart is always in the right place, a quality attributed to Holland’s near spot-on portrayal of the character, but it’s even more so apparent when he handles every problem in his life ranging from his friends, family and the obvious superhero issues with a sense of wonder and charm reserved for an actual 15 year old. It’s fun to see the filmmakers going all in on the high school angle, even going so far as to structure an entire sequence around an academic decathlon and a homecoming dance, both of which are – you guessed it – fun as hell. Past iterations simply placed the character at a high school level, but never really delved into what the implication of putting our hero into that setting meant, and I, for one, really enjoyed all of it.

A usual sore spot for nearly all of the MCU movies up until this point (save for Loki, obviously) are the villains that populate these films. Luckily this time around the filmmakers were able to almost entirely wipe away that issue with the introduction of one of Spider-Man’s oldest (figuratively and literally) enemies in the Vulture. Casting Michael Keaton for the role was probably the best move they could have made to give this character some weight and gravitas, but it’s not until a late reveal completely changes the way we perceive this character that I was truly onboard with what they were trying to do with the character. I’ve seen the movie twice now and both times when this particular scene played, I could audibly hear everyone in the audience (including myself) gasp and realize, all at the same time, that Spidey was royally screwed. That people, is the way an audience should react when watching a movie like this, so kudos all the way around.

A breath of fresh air for a character that’s been run through Hollywood’s reboot/reuse/recycle gauntlet, Spider-Man: Homecoming is my personal favorite when it comes to the various incarnations of the titular hero, and ranks up there with the best the MCU has to offer. While the final battle was a bit anticlimactic and the high school material might turn off a few, there’s enough here to satisfy pretty much anyone seeing this film, regardless of your stance on the superhero genre as a whole. If Marvel can continue to use their joint license of the character in new and inventive ways in the years ahead, then this version of our friendly neighborhood web-slinger will have no problems being the benchmark for quality and fun in the MCU.