When it comes to the live-action Spider-Man films and the actors portraying the titular character, one can quickly pick up how the majority of fans feel about these films and portrayals. The Tobey Maguire films are generally beloved by many, despite some cheesy and outdated elements. The Andrew Garfield films are generally hated by many, despite some diehards loving Garfield as an actor and the love story between him and Gwen Stacy. Then, there's the Tom Holland portrayal in the MCU. This is perhaps the most divisive of the portrayals and for good reason. Either you love the youthful energy of Holland and the use of the wider Marvel Universe to support him or despise the various changes to the depth of the character and how the producers feel insecure about Holland holding a film to himself. I reside on the latter half, but I will try my best on offering some good and bad points of the film. The story offers good potential for the introduction to this version of the web-slinger. After the events of "Captain America: Civil War", Peter Parker is getting tired of solving petty crimes and wants to do a big venture with the Avengers, specifically Iron Man. When he discovers a group of criminals who are dealing powerful weapons to various clients, he attempts to track them down and bring them to justice himself, despite Tony Stark's warnings not to. Now, Peter has to juggle his school life, a crush with a student named Liz, and the criminal group led by the determined Vulture. The story as a whole sounds and is very small-scale in nature, but that works for the inexperienced Spider-Man in this current stage of his life. It also helps to allow Peter to have human connections with his friends, family, and rivals at school, which previous films failed to really capture, aside from the family relationships. The basis of the story works well, but there are two issues with it. One is the reliance on Stark's suit, which not only has an A.I named Karen, but also a variety of gadgets and features that Peter has to learn to use. The suit and the connections between him and Tony kind of ruin the grounded nature of the character and sense of danger, as the suit can just magically have or tell Peter what he needs to do. The suit gets taken away by the end of the second act, but its usage through most of the film still leaves a sour note in the identity of the film. The second problem is the tone. Unlike the previous Spider-Man films, the tone is far more light-hearted to take advantage of the youthful performance by Holland and the high school setting. While that's not a bad thing in general, the issue is that any sense of drama is thrown out or ineffective. I will get into more depth when I talk about the climax, but the big dramatic moments are just weak in my opinion. With that said, the comedy is really good thanks to the tone. Honestly, I think that this is the second funniest Spider-Man film, with "Spiderverse" being the funniest out of all of them. Scenes such as Spider-Man trying to quip with bad guys or interrogate Davis are the highlights along with the inexperience of him swinging around in inconvenient areas.
I will admit it, Tom Holland is the best Spider-Man actor we got, despite me loving Maguire's performance more. Holland gets the more playful nature of the hero while having a more relatable sense of unpopularity and geekiness. He's not a flat-out nerd or some bad-boy outcast, he's just a smart kid who can't seem to have a backbone for himself in high school. Even though I feel that the dramatic moments are extremely weak, I still think that Holland is a great actor who has to work with the strengths and weaknesses of the script. However, it's Micheal Keaton's performance as Adrian Toomes/The Vulture that steals the spotlight in the film. Not only did the writers find a clever way to modernize and fit the character into the MCU, but Keaton's portrayal gives him a more sympathetic if ruthless personality and motive. He's not trying to end the world or kill many people directly, he's just trying to make a living by selling dangerous weapons to others. The scene where Spider-Man learns that he's actually Liz's father has Keaton do a great job in being this likeable, if goofy, guy, that you wish that he wasn't this bad guy. Still, the motivation and performance by Keaton makes him one of the best Spider-Man villains on screen. While the protagonist and antagonist are done really well, the side characters are a mixed bag. Ned, played by Jacob Batalon, is a fun character that works as Peter's only friend with his geeky and popularity-seeking nature, Flash Thompson, played by Tony Revolori, is a enjoyable, if different, portrayal of the school bully, and Robert Downey Jr's Tony Stark/Iron Man doesn't take much screen-time as much as the marketing wanted him to have, making sure that it's Spider-Man's film with Tony being a good yet questionable mentor figure. With that said, not all of the side characters are on the same level. First there's Michelle/MJ, played by Zendaya, a snarky and observant classmate of Peter who tends to have a dark sense of humour. While Zendaya and the character of Michelle get to be far more likeable in the sequel, the first film has her like a random background character that's attempting to foreshadow that she's actually the love interest for Peter, despite the two not really having that much attraction to each other at first. The love interest for the film is Liz, a senior student played by Laura Harrier. Harrier is a good actress, but Liz doesn't really do much other than support Peter with the limited chemistry they have and get dumped by him at the end of the movie because of what's going on with her father. There's really not much to say about Liz, since the film doesn't really care for Liz as a character and is only involved as a type of motivation for Peter during the first half of the film. Marisa Tomei as Aunt May offers the worst portrayal of the character by far, which is not even because Tomei is a bad actress at all. All the writers can do with this interpretation is have a bunch of dudes tell her how hot she is and just play up on how young she is compared to the previous portrayals. I don't mind making her age to be realistic, but give her a big emotional moment like the other films rather than jokes on her attractiveness or her reaction to Peter being Spider-Man at the end. Jon Favreau as Happy Hogan is good, but he's just a complete stick-in-the-mud throughout the entire film rather than being a supportive guy like in other films. Lastly, there are the side villains to note. There's Donald Glover as Aaron Davis/The Prowler, who is never seen as his alter ego and is only there to have a few jokes and be a meta joke as a whole. There's Micheal Chernus as the Tinkerer, who is a more goofy version of the obscure comic-book villain, and lastly there's Bokeem Woodbine as a deadpan and extremely comic-inaccurate Shocker. Aside from all of these side characters, there are some minor students and teachers as well as the A.I known as Karen, but their roles are just so Disney Channel sitcom-esque that there's practically no point in talking about them. As a whole, Holland and Keaton are fantastic as well as a few side performances, but the majority of side characters are either poorly handled or completely generic and forgettable.
Jon Watts was a filmmaker with two independent films under his belt before becoming a Disney go-to director as he has not only covered the Spider-Man films, but is also seated to be the director of Fantastic Four. Here's the issue with all of this. Watts is not a good director or at least a director that leaves any sort of impact. With the case of "Homecoming", Watts said that he wanted to emulate John Hughes's style and energy, leading to the high school backdrop and some homages to a few of the late filmmaker's work. While that's not a bad thing, the issue is that Watts clearly just wanted to emulate only one of Hughes's work, that being "Ferris Bueller's Day Off", which is the filmmaker's least dramatic works. I say this because Hughes, for the most part, doesn't have his films constantly full of youthful energy and teens having fun. Hughes does allow some heavy moments and even slower character scenes that don't really feel kid-friendly. Watts however just stuck to one of his works as inspiration and it shows with the lack of drama or slow moments. There are "slow" scenes, but they end up moving the plot rather than giving a sense of depth to the character. There is an actual slow scene during the third act where Peter just focuses on school, but it's really just for a single day rather than an extended period and Peter was never shown to be a troubled student in regards to his grades or relationships. On top of all of that, Watts simply has no style to his directing compared to the exaggerated filmmaking of Raimi or the balance of cinematic and indie filmmaking of Webb. The cinematography by Salvatore Totino does try to give a sense of visual flair and style to Watts, but it's only a couple of exceptions. Totino does do a fantastic job at using long, wide shots for scale and comedy potential, and the smartphone film made by Peter in-universe was well done by Totino to feel amateur and one-take, but aside of those moments, it's pretty standard stuff. The music by Michael Giacchino is also very safe and standard. While the composed 60's theme in the opening is nice and the original Spider-Man theme they came up with is decent and fits the character and universe, that's all I can remember from Giacchino's offerings which is kind of lame considering how other Spider-Man films managed to have far more dynamic and memorable music, even in the bad films. The licensed songs though do help at setting up the tone and identity of the film, with Blitzkrieg Bop by The Ramones being tied to the montage where Peter as Spider-Man has an mundane day trying to find things to do. The CGI is pretty good, though does have some awkward moments at times with the conversation between Peter and Tony during sunset being the worst effect of the film. It also doesn't help that the film overuses the digital effects too much, which tends to not make the effects look great or work well as an illusion as time goes on. The last thing to note are the action scenes, which the film itself is fairly weak with. While the fight with the ATM robbers was cool and the highlight of the film being the Washington Monument sequence, the action is generally underwhelming with too much use of CGI or just a lack of creativity. The climax in general is perhaps one of the weakest I've seen in a Spider-Man film. Not only does the set-piece of a invisible jet with no security and the battle going to the beach of an abandoned Coney Island offers nothing exceptional or riveting, but the dramatic moments are poorly done due to previous scenes of the film. The scene where Peter is underneath the debris of Vulture's destroyed base isn't dramatic or filled with tension because we literally seen Peter try to hold a ship together, which seems far more tougher than a pile of concrete. The moment where Peter manages to save Toomes from his destroyed suit is clearly reflecting the moment at the beginning where Peter saves the owner of a deli ship, but there's no dramatic impact because Peter saved the owner in the beginning anyway. If the owner died in the beginning due to Peter being too afraid or too late to save him, that would make the moment where he saves Vulture far more powerful. Without this dramatic edge, it just feels awkward. And that word is best to describe Watts's direction skill: capable, but really awkward in execution.
"Spider-Man: Homecoming" is by no means a bad film, but it's not an spectacular one either. From the story elements of Stark's suit as well as some odd plot conveniences, the unbearably lighthearted tone, the majority of side characters being poorly implemented or unmemorable, Giacchino's score being mostly generic, the overuse of CGI harms the quality of the effects and the action sequences, the majority of action sequences are uncreative and standard with a few exceptions, the climax offers both poorly-handled dramatic payoffs and a boring action setpiece, and Watts's directing never pays proper tribute to Hughes's work as the filmmaker just focuses on teenage fun rather than any sense of drama or character moments. Despite all of these issues, there's still good things that a lot of people can get out of. The story as a whole is effective in regards to Peter's journey and the small-scale nature, the humour makes it one of the funniest films that the character has starred in, Holland shows off how great he is as Peter/Spider-Man and as an actor in general in both the comedic and "dramatic" moments, Keaton as Toomes/Vulture offers one of the best villains in the franchise in regards to his likeable personality and motivations, the side characters of Flash, Ned, and Tony are well-handled in terms of how they are used and offer a unique portrayal in the film, the cinematography by Totino does its best with the landscape shots being excellently used for both scale and comedy, Giacchino does offer a nice theme for this portrayal of Spider-Man, the soundtrack is great in reflecting the tone and attitude that previous Spider-Man films were lacking, and the action sequence involving the Washington Monument and the ATM robbers are really good at tension, creativity, and staying in nature to the wall-crawler's capabilities. The shame is that the film is so close to being a good movie if things such as the tone and directing have been improved. All the elements to have a great Spider-Man movie were here, but the filmmakers and writers simply failed to utilize it all, much like Peter not being able to master the Stark suit.
Verdict: 6.5/10. Above-average superhero film that should have been one of the best Spider-Man films. At least they weren't the Mark Webb films...
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