I watched Spider-Man Homecoming, and I loved the movie. I want to see more. I want to see this Spider-Man on a weekly basis learn about his powers and become the Amazing Spider-Man.  The supporting cast is excellent, who wouldn’t want to see more of Michael Keaton? More Happy? Yes please, Jon Favreau excels at playing the straight man in movies. Heck Tony Starks presence in the film is pretty understandable, and it fits into his character.

How about the script? Babies are born with the innate knowledge that Superman crashed to Earth as a baby, Batman’s parents were killed in front of him and Peter’s Uncle Ben was shot by someone Peter could have stopped so no use rehashing all that. Here Peter is already Spider-Man, and the viewer doesn’t get bogged down with an overdone origin story. The script is funny and gives some emotional weight to scenes when needed. It has a few homages to teen comedies, and more importantly, it’s the second straight MCU movie without a McGuffin driving the plot! As far as the supporting characters are concerned, they have just enough quirky-ness to them that it’s light and doesn’t feel forced or cliched. Zendaya’s Michele, in particular, seems like she would fit well into Scott Pilgrim vs. the World and that’s a good thing.

As for directing the movie flowed well the two hours flew by with you wanting more which is good. Unlike say Batman vs. Superman where you’re asking “when will this end” half way through the 3rd slow mo walking sequence. There were no scenes where someone was on their knees looking up into the sky yelling “NOOOOO!” like the 30 times they did that in Wolverine movies. It felt like it could have fit in well with Spider-Man 1 and 2 (not the third) and it fits well with the MCU as a whole. It’s not filmed like they thought “hey let’s turn Nolan’s Batman films into  Spider-Man movie.” *cough* Marc Webb *cough*

So to recap

• • Spider-Man: +1
  • Supporting Cast +1
  • Writing: +1
  • Directing: +1
  • Enjoyment: +1

So why does it feel like 1+1+1+1+1 = 4? I should be walking away saying this is the best Marvel movie ever done! It very well could be the best Marvel movie done, but something about the movie just felt off. I said, I walked away saying “I love Spider-Man: Homecoming… but I am just not in love with Spider-Man Homecoming.”  It’s not because there was too much Tony Stark because that fits in the MCU narrative that everything in the MCU is because Tony Stark allows it to happen.  Spider-Man doesn’t have a Tony Stark problem it has a Peter Parker problem.

Tom Holland is great in the film. It’s just nothing in this movie that makes this a Peter Parker movie. This film could have just as easily been about Miles Morales as Spider-Man or Spider-Gwen, hell you could have done this movie with Darkhawk, and 95% of the movie would not have to be changed or rewritten, and it would have been just as entertaining and just as good and made just as much money. Understandably you must put some distance between you and the past movies, but in doing so everything that made Peter Peter has been stripped away. Aunt Mae is not only super hot, but she’s not struggling to make ends meet, so Peter is not feeling the financial stress. While it was a big plus that the movie didn’t go through the murder of Uncle Ben, they could have at least acknowledged Uncle Ben existed. Also gone are all of Peters Freinds and love interests. What you are left is a cookie cutter guy doing cookie cutter things and not having to worry about the repercussions of his actions.  The few things that the Andrew Garfield movies got right was that it showed actual consequences to Peters actions, and Tobey Maguire movies made you really feel the struggle. Here there are no consequences for your actions that cannot be fixed in 2 hours or Tony Starks money. Because at the end of the day this was an MCU movie that happened to feature Spider-Man and not a Spider-Man movie that happened to be in the MCU.