Spider-Man Homecoming review: Irreverent, intimate and wrenching

There’s not a single blah performance in this winning reboot, says Charlotte O'Sullivan
Charlotte O'Sullivan16 November 2017

Spider-Man's origin story poses a problem for modern kids. “Is he strong? You bet, bud. He’s got radioactive blood!” Radioactive blood. Ah, yes, ’twas all the rage. These days? Not so much. Wisely, the reboot doesn’t even go there. Slim-shanked Queens boy Peter Parker (Tom Holland) can climb walls and sling webs. Just ’cos.

In Captain America: Civil War, our hero helped save the world after being recruited by Tony Stark/Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr). Here we see Peter making a home movie about his amazing Avengers adventure. In the digital age, everything gets shared. Peter’s got to stay shtum, vis-à-vis his alter ego. Quite understandably, though, the hyperactive goofball wants to tell the world.

What follows involves a working-class entrepreneur, Adrian Toomes (Michael Keaton), a self-possessed cutie, Liz (Laura Harrier), and the best twist of the year. Maybe even the decade. Lots of superhero movies offer surprises: a celebrity cameo, say, or the resurrection of a fan-boy favourite. But this mind-zapping sequence has nothing to do with showbiz or the Marvel multiverse.

Other pleasures include jokes about child mortality and racism. If the opposite of a cheap joke is an expensive one, these are priceless. Look out, too, for the hilariously stilted infomercials delivered by Captain America and the bit where Spidey, having no high-rise buildings to cleave to, is forced to scurry on foot.

By the way, Jon Watts’s film has six scriptwriters. Who says committees can’t be awesome? Irreverent, intimate and wrenching, Homecoming is indebted to Joss Whedon’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer. In other words, it’s full of everything Whedon’s Avengers: Age of Ultron lacked.

There’s not a single blah performance. Holland is a winning mix of winsome and hard-scrabble, and Marisa Tomei is even more organically sexy than usual as Peter’s widowed aunt. Meanwhile, Jacob Batalon (playing Peter’s best friend) channels Jonah Hill in Superbad to demolish the fat-foil stereotype. And pop star Zendaya (as Michelle, a malcontent who wears Sylvia Plath T-shirts) is gruffly divine.

Spider-Man Homecoming, in pictures

1/7

True, Keaton doesn’t have quite enough to do and is so plausibly ferocious that every time the Vulture has a chance to squish Spidey and somehow bungles it, you want to groan. But when it counts, he soars.

Tobey Maguire was a lovely Spider-Man. But figure-hugging costumes favour the young. Holland probably has five more years in which to dazzle us, and it’ll be a crime if Batalon and Zendaya aren’t by his side. This franchise is now all about Peter and his friends. Here’s looking at you, kids.

Cert 12A, 133 mins

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