Welcome Home Spidey!

At last, Spider-man has returned home.

***Spoiler Alert***: The following review may contain spoilers for the 2017 Film Spider-Man: Homecoming. 

I admit that I was almost skeptical of Spider-Man: Homecoming. After 5 Spidey movies with two different actors, how could this one differentiate itself from its predecessors, and how well would it fit into the Marvel Universe at large?

While imperfect, I give the new Spider-Man film a solid 8 out of 10.


What I Loved:

1. Tom Holland

• Finally we have an actor that exemplifies Peter Parker. For me, I was never a big fan of either Tobey Maguire or Andrew Garfield in the role of Peter Parker. I found Tobey too awkward to play the webslinger, and Andrew is too hot....and both of them seemed too old to play the part of a high school superhero whiz-kid. I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed Tom in the role of Peter in Captain America: Civil War and he impressed me this time around as he starred in his own film.
• Tom owned the role of Peter instead of trying to copy those who came before him. And even though the rising star is 21 years old, it was easy to believe that he was an awkward junior classman.
• Tom brought some emotional depth to the role that I didn't really see with either Maguire or Garfield. In a moment of real struggle for Peter Parker, I felt a level of authenticity with Holland's performance that I hadn't seen in the previous five films.
2. Supporting Characters and Cameos
• Ned (Jacob Batalon) provided some great comic relief as the awkward side kick and best friend of Spider-Man. The dynamic between Ned and Peter Parker was fun to watch on screen, and Batalon's character was almost reminiscent of Luis (Michael Pena) in Ant-Man.
  
• Cameos by other members of the Avengers, particularly Captain America, provided some great comic relief as well, not to mention the legendary Stan Lee's classic cameo
• Karen was a fun addition to the film...you'll have to watch and see if you agree with me.
• Michael Keaton plays an excellent villain.
3. Originality
• If this had been another origin story, I would have been extremely upset. I don't know how many more times I can go through Uncle Ben's death. Marvel struck a nice balance between introducing a new Spider-Man in his own film, without re-hashing the origin story for the third time in recent memory.
• Integrating Spider-Man into the world of the Avengers and other Marvel characters was not an easy task, but I feel like Marvel did a nice job with this one.
4. The very end of the credits
• So much fun when Marvel trolls the audience.....hope you enjoy it as much as I did 

What I Didn't Love

1. Tony Stark

• I'll be honest, I struggled with the dynamic between Peter Parker and Tony Stark. It seemed to me that any time Peter and Tony spoke, suddenly Peter became a whiney little kid and Tony came across as anything but the billionaire genius playboy philanthropist that we have grown to love in the other Marvel films in which he co-stars. While I feel Tony's involvement in the story was necessary to bring Spider-Man home to Marvel Studios, it did feel a little bit forced and awkward at times.
2. The Villain
• Maybe it's because I grew up on the 90s animated cartoon, but I always enjoyed Spider-Man's villains from the comic book stories. While I enjoyed Keaton's performance, I felt like we ended up with a quasi-Green-Goblin-wannabe when all was said and done, and I'm sick of anything resembling the Green Goblin showing up in the live action Spidey films.
3. Aunt May
• Nothing against the actress Marisa Tomei....but I could never imagine Aunt May as young as she is in this film.

Again, overall I really enjoyed my time seeing Spider-Man: Homecoming and will probably end up seeing it in theaters a couple of more times. It isn't Marvel's best, and not a Grand Slam.....but Tom Holland and director Jon Watts hit a solid home run with this film.