Whilst I can honestly say that Spiderman: Homecoming was a great film, I feel I’m not alone in saying that it wasn’t much more than that. Spidey was in true form with his wisecracks, teen behaviour, and nerdy antics made him a Peter Parker that we have never really seen before. Yet, now with his own little section of the MCU expanding, I didn’t feel like this film meant much and was sort of left with a ‘fair enough’ kind of attitude.

What Went Well

I really enjoyed Tom Holland as Spiderman. I’ve grown up with a firm love for Tobey Maguire as Peter Parker, but it felt like, with this outing, the casting of Spiderman was pretty spot on. He truly felt like a young immature teen, struggling with the day-to-day terrors of high school whilst weighted with the burden of his secret super identity.

The high school aspect was also pretty cool as it really played in well with Spiderman’s character development. There are a few Captain America instructional videos which were a pretty witty inclusion.  I loved Ned (played by Jacob Batalon) and his LEGO Death Star as he simply personifies all of our inner geek and nerdy traits. The girl love story wasn’t too annoying, and it does end up playing pretty well into the film’s conclusion (I will say no more!).

Michael Keaton as the Vulture wasn’t too bad, seems to build murderous grudges pretty quickly, but in terms of overall character I would give him a solid thumbs up. I love how villains are being more intricately explored, rather than simply being an archetypal bad guy. I do wish the film looked further into the clean-up efforts of New York, I think it would have been a pretty interesting story line, especially if Keaton had a role to play.

The Most Enjoyable Scene Was…

I loved the opening, with Peter making a video diary of his Avenger endeavours, as he was everything a nerdy teenage Spiderman would be.  It introduced the return of Happy Hogan (played by Jon Favreau) and Tony Stark (played by Robert Downey Jr.) as we got a little more insight into Peter’s inclusion in Captain America: Civil War. The phone camera filming style was fun and alternative and really made me feel sorrier for Spiderman as he constantly waits for the call to join the Avengers.

What Could Have Been Better

There wasn’t as much action-packed fight scenes or huge fight scenes to talk of. Unfortunately, every big event was more or less covered in the trailer, and whilst the splitting of the Staton Island ferry was pretty epic, I’d already seen plenty of clips of Iron Man pushing it back together, so never felt like there was much peril or threat involved.

This sort of played into the playing it safe aspect. They couldn’t go too big, else it would be a story worthy of an Avengers intervention, and too small and we would have completely lost interest. I thought Spiderman did well, although I felt like his story was highly restricted from getting any bigger. When it did get pretty huge in the end, no one seemed to care. Iron Man wasn’t around to protect some of his most powerful items, everything seemed a little surreal and of little importance.

Overall, they did nothing wrong here, and Spiderman: Homecoming was arguably the best Peter Parker has ever been, it just wasn’t out-of-this-world. After recently seeing Wonder Woman, Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 2 & Logan, the bar may have been set a little too high for our friendly neighbourhood Spiderman this time around!