SPIDER-MAN: HOMECOMING.
(ORIGINALLY POSTED ON LETTERBOXD - 25/06/2019)
CUT TO: Written reviews.

There needs to be an asterisk next to my 🧡 of this film, because although I can't say I disliked it, I also have quite a few issues with it, and they're all my own personal qualms.
First off, my overall opinion of Homecoming is that I liked it fine, it didn't do anything to make me have any extreme feelings about it, and there is where I would say it's biggest fault is, like a lot of MCU films I can already tell that I'm going to forget most of this film within the next few days, and that sucks because Spider-Man shouldn't be "just another MCU flick" and ultimately that's what it turned out to be.
Things that I liked about this was Tom Holland, he's easily the best live action Peter Parker/Spidey we've had, even though there's not much competition in that field, I still think it would be hard to beat him as he just encapsulates everything that Peter should be. Michael Keaton was good in his role, it's always fun seeing him having fun on screen and you can clearly see he was enjoying his part here, and to be honest, he also was probably the saving grace for me. I love Donald Glover in any creative venture I've seen him do, and this was no exception, dare I say he was my favourite part of the film, and he was barely in it! Everything else that I would consider praise wasn't bad, it just was passable, nothing that really left an impact on my viewing in any way, good or bad.
The negatives I have are that it just felt far too bland, most of the humour (asides from Jon Favreau) landed flat, especially anything from the character of Ned, it had this glossy polished manufactured "let's please the masses" WWE circa 2010 feel to it that every MCU film has. As soon as the big CG fights started I instantly tuned out of the film, it just looked goofy as hell and I can already tell that these visuals are not going to age well at all, and the film is only 2 years old. The runtime was a huge tipping point in my enjoyment as well, I was enjoying myself, went to check how long I had left because it felt as if I was approaching the third act, and I still had over halfway to go, a "small timer superhero story" should not be over 2 hours long, especially since the story really wasn't built for that length, and by the time we get to the ferry scene the film is already out-staying its welcome.
There's probably more I can say about this, but I'm going to stop because realistically this film isn't going to stay in my mind by the end of the week. Final words is that when thinking about it I think that this story would have been much more effective in the form of a video game, yeah it's fun to watch for the first hour, but by that point I just want to pick up the controller and play it myself, not watch the CPU being untouchable even though the protagonist is meant to be the "friendly neighbourhood Spider-Man". Also, not sure how I feel about borderline 9/11 imagery in a Spidey film, probably could of done without that.