Spi­der-Man: Homecoming

Grow up. Two words no teenag­er wants to hear, be it from a close friend, well-mean­ing fam­i­ly mem­ber or bil­lion­aire super­hero men­tor. But that’s exact­ly what’s required of Peter Park­er (Tom Hol­land) if he’s to realise his dream of join­ing the Avengers’ crew. In Spi­der-Man: Home­com­ing, he ini­tial­ly assumes the role of friend­ly neigh­bour­hood vig­i­lante to calami­tous effect, thwart­ing pet­ty crooks with­out threat­en­ing to con­vince a watch­ful Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr) that he’s ready for big school. It’s clear from the out­set he has a lot of grow­ing up left to do.

Eight months after the events of Cap­tain Amer­i­ca: Civ­il War, Park­er is still in high school, still liv­ing with Aunt May (Marisa Tomei) and still get­ting used to his nascent super­pow­ers. He’s angsty and impetu­ous, des­per­ate to do good but frus­trat­ed at the lack of oppor­tu­ni­ty to repeat his ear­li­er show-steal­ing exploits. He’s ide­al­is­tic, infat­u­at­ed and obliv­i­ous to the fact that sav­ing the world often means los­ing the girl. The suit – a cus­tom Stark Indus­tries design with a few too many hi-tech mod­i­fi­ca­tions – fits him well, yet he doesn’t appear entire­ly com­fort­able in his own skin. For Park­er, pre­car­i­ous­ly poised on the cusp of adult­hood, life is about to get very messy.

This isn’t the same old sto­ry of how Peter Park­er becomes Spi­der-Man but rather the sto­ry of Spi­der-Man learn­ing how to be Peter Park­er. Spidey 3.0 is played with puck­ish verve by the excel­lent Hol­land, less flop­py-haired and fleet-foot­ed than his pre­de­ces­sors but with a cer­tain naïve, boy­ish charm that makes him instant­ly endear­ing and relat­able. As in Sam Raimi’s hit-and-miss tril­o­gy and Marc Webb’s unfair­ly maligned brace of films, we get to see Park­er hon­ing his web-sling­ing skills in aban­doned alley­ways and swing­ing from tall build­ings in pur­suit of (and occa­sion­al­ly in retreat from) bad­dies, but cru­cial­ly we also get to see him work­ing out how to be a 16-year-old kid.

Home­com­ing is the first true Gen Z super­hero movie, not for the sim­ple fact its pro­tag­o­nist was (tech­ni­cal­ly) born in the 21^st cen­tu­ry but because this Peter Park­er reflects the anx­i­eties and aspi­ra­tions of today’s youth – those raised in the shad­ow of ⁹⁄₁₁ who are now start­ing to come of age in a per­ma­nent­ly switched on world. He’s not an author­i­ty fig­ure or a role mod­el but some­one who thinks and acts as real teenagers do, some­one prone to speak­ing out of turn and screw­ing up because, hey, that’s what grow­ing up is all about. One overt Fer­ris Bueller ref­er­ence aside, the film feels like it was made pri­mar­i­ly with younger view­ers in mind.

Over the course of the film Park­er lets down his class­mates, his best pal and prac­ti­cal­ly every­one else who cares about him. For the most part he gets off light­ly, save one par­tic­u­lar­ly poignant scene where Stark rep­ri­mands his ego-bruised appren­tice with a cut­ting wake-up call: ​“If you’re noth­ing with­out the suit, then you shouldn’t be wear­ing it.” He’s been told before that with great pow­er comes great respon­si­bil­i­ty – though that time­worn super­hero mantra is not repeat­ed here – but it’s equal­ly true that pow­er can also come at great per­son­al sac­ri­fice, as Tony Stark knows all too well.

Iron­i­cal­ly for a film about being giv­en the free­dom to make your own mis­takes, Home­com­ing does hit a few famil­iar snags. Like Birdman’s mangy evil twin, Michael Keaton’s Vul­ture soars high and stoops low to lit­tle avail, a more seri­ous vil­lain than Jamie Foxx’s Elec­tro or Rhys Ifans’ Lizard from the pre­vi­ous two Spi­der-Man films but large­ly for­get­table and indeed small-fry enough to fly under Iron Man’s radar. That said, it’s worth not­ing that Keaton’s char­ac­ter is not an evil mas­ter­mind or a nut­case with a god com­plex but a reg­u­lar blue-col­lar guy with a legit­i­mate grudge against the slick cor­po­ratism Stark and co now rep­re­sent. Read into that what you will…

Final­ly, a word on that sub­ti­tle and its var­i­ous mean­ings. Sym­bol­i­cal­ly ​‘home­com­ing’ is a nod to this being Spider-Man’s first solo out­ing as a ful­ly paid-up mem­ber of the Mar­vel Cin­e­mat­ic Uni­verse. Lit­er­al­ly speak­ing it refers to the annu­al event that tra­di­tion­al­ly marks the end of the aca­d­e­m­ic year, which in this instance pro­vides the set up for the biggest shock of this or any oth­er Mar­vel movie. And spir­i­tu­al­ly it relates to a deci­sion Park­er must ulti­mate­ly make about whether to return to his neigh­bour­hood hav­ing expe­ri­enced first-hand what being a super­hero actu­al­ly entails. For all the tough choic­es faced and impor­tant lessons learned, Parker’s great­est real­i­sa­tion is that life moves pret­ty fast – and he’s not about to miss it.