Spider-man Homecoming was the first official Spider-man movie that we got in the MCU. So there was a lot riding on it being great, especially with the fact that we have fanboys of Toby Maguire and Andrew Garfield. We had a small glimpse of Tom Holland as Peter Parker and Spiderman in Captain America – Civil War (2016), so we had a little bit of an idea of how he would be portrayed this time around.
Let’s cut right to the chase. This movie was an amazing first outing for Tom Holland’s Spider-Man. The movie perfectly shows that struggle between Peter Parker and Spider-Man. We see all of these opportunities for Peter to just be a normal high school kid but then the responsibility of Spider-Man kicks in and he has to go be Spider-Man. We see his own struggles with this as well as how it affects the people around him. It is one of the core things about Spider-Man that needs to be in a movie and they absolutely nailed it.
Speaking of Peter Parker. Tom Holland is a great Peter Parker. He plays nerdy awkward brilliant kid absolutely perfect. He also plays Spider-Man really well. His quips are funny and sound like a kid is making them. We get to see a version of Spider-Man in this movie where the kid behind the mask actually feels like a kid doing his best to be a superhero.
Let’s move on to The Vulture played by Michael Keaton. Without getting too much into spoilers, I was surprised by Michael Keaton’s performance. I mean the guy literally played Batman so I didn’t know what to expect when it came to him playing a villain in a superhero movie. He made The Vulture a scary villain. With one particular scene where you can feel the tension making anyone’s heart race. He did a phenomenal job and make a great first villain for the MCU version of Spider-Man.
At the end of the day Spider-Man homecoming was a great first outing for Tom Holland’s Spider-Man. It is a solid coming of age story with a superhero at the center that will make you feel excited for what comes next for this character.
Spoiler Discussion – Click to Reveal
So I just wanted to talk about a few things here that I couldn’t talk about up top because they are spoilers.
Iron Man. If you have watched the trailers then you might think this is a Buddy Cop style of movie. It is not that. Iron Man is in a few scenes of the movie only and is more or so just a mentor to Peter. I really enjoyed watching Iron Man start to have that mentorship role where he is able to teach Peter to be better than he was. There was literally a scene in the movie where Tony Stark is getting onto Peter and tells him “and I wanted you to be better” after Peter tells him that he wanted to be like him. He then takes the suit away that he built him and tells him if he’s nothing without the suit then he shouldn’t have it.
So I talked about The Vulture being scary in this, so let’s talk about that. I really liked that The Vulture is a normal guy. Or at least was a normal guy. The movie opens with his crew cleaning up after the battle of New York. Then they get kicked out of it by the government so they decide to keep what they already have of the alien technology and make weapons to sell because they have families to take care of. They were all just normal people trying to make money and the government screwed them over. So we get The Vulture. So cut to the third act of the movie, Spider-Man has gotten in his way multiple times and Peter figured out who The Vulture is. Peter is taking his crush to the homecoming and he goes to her house to pick her up and that’s where we get the plot twist. Adrian Tombs opens the door and we realize at the same time as Peter that The Vulture is her dad. Peter is clearly in shock and terrified while Adrian Tombs is just being a dad doing dad stuff. He drives them to the homecoming dance and based off the things his daughter is saying he puts it together that Peter is Spider-Man. Once his daughter gets out of the car he tells Peter that he knows and threatens him while telling him that because he saved her life he’s not going to kill him but he needs to stay out of the way. It is a truly terrifying moment and my heart was pounding the entire time I watched it. It was created perfectly and shows how great Micheal Keaton was in this role.