It's easy to see why so many people enjoyed the film. By all means, it was a fun romp through the general sticking points of Spider-man action. It even utilizes some of the same cheesy cliches that are staples of the character. Tom Holland is arguably the most complete version of the Peter Parker/Spider-man symbiosis, which stands out given that Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield both did solid jobs as either Peter or Spider-man. Neither brought the two together quite like Holland. Of course, it helps that the actor is just 21 years old. Compared to Maguire (who was 26) and Garfield (who was 29), we finally have a high school Peter Parker that actually looks like he could, ya know, be in high school. (Byline on that thought: how strange is it that Garfield was actually older than Maguire when they took their roles?)
Yet this is also one of the problems with the film. High school Peter Parker is sort of old hat by now, as far as cinematic renditions go. It's a bit odd that they keep insisting that Peter start in high school every franchise when, in the comics, he hasn't been a teenager in decades! Being a high school kid certainly helped grow the popularity of Spider-man when he was first introduced into the world of comics. The medium was (and continues, really) to try to be appealing to all ages, especially young folks. Placing him in his teen years would resonate more genuinely for teenage fans buying comics. At the same time, teenage Peter Parker hasn't really been interesting in the comics for ages. On film, navigating high school has been so repetitive that it highlights how limiting that environment ultimately is.
Certainly, it is appreciated that they recognized Spider-man is one of the characters in which no one one in the theater needs the origin story explained, picking up in the middle of his every day life is sort of problematic as far as film structure goes. The first ten minutes are almost unbearable. We get the hyper-simplified introduction of the villain, followed by a nauseating series of smartphone shot footage of Captain America: Civil War - because maybe there's a chance people didn't see that movie. It all just serves to recap the last big Marvel movie, which begs the question: is this just what we're going to do now? Are we going to need to start each film on Earth with a "previously on" sequence? It's strange that they trust the audience enough to already know that Peter Parker was bit by a radioactive spider, and that Uncle Ben was killed, but they can't trust us to have some idea that Captain America: Civil War happened just a year ago?
The primary issue here is that so much attention is spent on Spider-man, his ancillary characters are effectively pointless. Sure, we can easily tell that Ned is his best friend, but since we get so little time with them or seeing them be buds, it feels entirely rushed when he catches Peter in the act of being Spider-man within the first twenty minutes of the film. We obviously tell that Liz is Peter's love interest, but other than some awkward (and kind of uncomfortable) moments of him pining for her, they don't really have much screen time together prior to him confessing his feelings. It's true that in Spider-man and The Amazing Spider-man, we already can tell that Mary-Jane and Gwen are his love interests. The biggest difference is that those relationships are actually pretty big components to the overall plot. Liz is indicative of a film that feels very "paint-by-numbers."
Aunt May fares even worse, given she has almost no role whatsoever in the film. She gets maybe a scene or two to worry over her nephew, and she gets a brief moment to highlight how in the dark she is about his big secret. On the whole, she is absent from any meaningful aspect of the story. This problem is by no means exclusive to Spider-man: Homecoming. Few writers and directors have quite understood how to utilize the main cast. For example, Zack Snyder clearly has disdain for Superman's world of Lois Lane, Jimmy Olsen, and Perry White.
We don't ever really get moments to see these relationships in action, in part because they choose to bring us into the action already in progress. It's also in part because the Peter Parker world takes a back seat to the Spider-man world. This is a key difference between other "first films" of the character, and a big reason why Spider-man and The Amazing Spider-man are better. Those are films about Peter Parker, and Spider-man gets in the way. Spider-man: Homecoming is about Spider-man, with Peter Parker getting in the way. That might make for a more entertaining action flick, but it makes for less compelling drama or character arcs. It is a bit of a miss to have his arc end with "digging deep" to prove he's worthy of the suit when we are also already meant to assume he has already learned the lesson of great responsibility accompanying great power. Granted, they never explicit reference Uncle Ben at all, but because his origin story is implied, we should be safe in assuming that is the case in this universe as well.
Spider-man has lacked intriguing or substantial villains ever since Sam Raimi stopped directing the films, and as great as Michael Keaton is, Adrian Toomes is as much a boring villain as anyone in The Amazing Spider-man. He goes from what appears to be an honest working man to an illegal arms dealer, performing high tech, elaborate heists, in literally the blink of an eye. It's impossible to get a bead on him. In the prologue, he's just a working man trying to earn a living for his family, as are all of his employees. When he loses the gig cleaning up after the alien invasion from The Avengers, he goes full-blown terrorist: stealing illegal weapons and selling them to dangerous people on the streets. He supposedly cares about his family - he states a couple times that's who he's doing this for - but he never seems like a half-way decent person at all. And then at the end, he has a little moment randomly protecting Peter Parker's identity from another criminal. Why is that? Are we supposed to think it's because he wants revenge himself? Or is it because, after Spidey saved him, he's maybe showing that he isn't just another generic bad guy? Either way, he doesn't get enough development or attention throughout the film for it to really make sense.
It is worth noting that there are interesting elements in there. One conversation sees his crew point out the insanity that Stark gets to take control of the clean up when he was part of why the city wound up in ruins in the first place. Toomes's rant at the end about how someone like Stark gets to just do whatever he wants is completely legitimate. It's just not presented adequately enough in Homecoming. It makes sense if you are a fan who has been watching from the start. Tony Stark has indeed been behind some crazy stuff and gotten off without any real consequences. Then again, we just watched an entire movie where Spider-man keeps screwing stuff up and he, too, doesn't suffer any consequences. By the end, his principle dismisses his detention stating that he's a good, smart kid while Stark offers him a brand new suit and a spot on the Avengers squad. He faces no legal repercussions for his assault on a person trying to get into their own car. Also, there's no blow back from the fact that he disrupted an FBI sting operation on the ferry. Watching Homecoming is, in a sense, a great way to understand why J. Jonah Jameson feels the way he does about good ol' webhead.
The action is good, of course. Most Spider-man flicks do that side of things really well. The lack of any weight to it here, though, causes it to suffer. There aren't really any stakes, even personal ones. Sure, it's not totally stale to see a story about this kid trying to live up to the standards that idols like the Avengers set, but since that's all he's trying to do for so long, it just feels like insignificant, mindless fighting. Who cares, really?
They try to put some sort of personal spin on the final battle. They basically spin off from the Harry Osborn thing. The Green Goblin is the villain of the first ever Spider-man film, and his son happens to be Peter's best friend. It's a great way to create drama in the action. Even if Spider-man wins, Peter loses because he's inadvertently destroyed his best friend's father. They sort of attempt this in The Amazing Spider-man by having Gwen Stacey's policeman papa involved in the action. Again, Spider-man wins, but Peter suffers. Here, they randomly force the connection that love interest Liz's dad happens to be Adrian Toomes. Voila! A classic Spider-man trope, present and accounted for! Only, it is revealed so abruptly and with virtually no set up - and just before the final action. It's one of the most contrived things in a super hero film to date. In The Amazing Spider-man, it kind of just makes sense why Captain Stacey would be involved in trying to bring down the villain. Additionally, he and Spidey have a few run-ins prior. The same thing is true of Spider-man. Norman Osborn has a relationship with Peter from the beginning by virtue of being his son's friend.
Again, it falls flat because who really cares about Liz, her family, or even Peter's potential relationship with her? They are such a non-item throughout the film that it's almost easy to forget the stakes there during the fight. Worse, the consequences are completely short-lived. Whereas Peter has to continue to live in a world where he feels responsible for the death of Harry's and Gwen's fathers while maintaining a relationship with Harry and Gwen, Homecoming has Liz simply move away to Oregon. She's out of the picture completely now. That still stinks for Peter, I guess, but it is so much cleaner. At least he doesn't have to worry about sustained feelings of guilt! Phew!
At the end of the day, when you ask the quintessential question, "what is this movie about?" there isn't really a good answer. Both Spider-man and The Amazing Spider-man are about this kid grappling with these new powers and the responsibilities that come with them. They're about learning balance between the maturity these responsibilities require with the ability to lay back and take care of oneself. They're about navigating relationships while life throws crazy curve balls at you. There's a tiny bit of that maturity theme in Homecoming, but it's actually just about Spider-man becoming part of the MCU. Through stretches, it feels almost exclusively to exist to show how he is part of it (while also somehow keeping him out of New York City proper, so, I hope you don't think swinging through skyscrapers is a key ingredient to good wall crawler action). It's so full of references to the MCU that you can almost feel a footnote on the script.
To be sure, it beats the previous film. The Amazing Spider-man 2 did some things well enough, but got bogged down too much with world building for its own good. Here, the world has already been built, so it was more world referencing. While it could also be argued that the infamous Spider-man 3 suffered the same thing as Amazing Spider-man 2, there could be a legitimate case that it is a better film than Homecoming as well. (That might be one of the most controversial things I've written on this site. Perhaps I'll elaborate on that later in greater detail.) It's not hard to understand why modern movie goers might love Homecoming, but it is - as a film - perhaps the weakest thing Marvel has put on screen so far. And yes, I'm including Thor: The Dark World. (Man, I really want nerds to hate me, huh?)
REDUCTIVE RATING: It's...actually kinda...meeeeeeh.
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