A humbler hero

In the ever-expanding world of cinematic superheroes, the push has continually been to go bigger—bigger budgets, bigger effects, bigger stakes. But the producers behind Spider-Man: Homecoming evidently realized that with a character we’ve already seen in two grandiose franchises (the last one barely cool from Sony’s 2014 release), they needed to do something different. They needed to go small.

This latest reintroduction to Spider-Man (rated PG-13 for a few annoyingly unnecessary expletives) is particularly smart in that it doesn’t start at the very beginning. Who needs yet another origin story where we see Peter Parker get bitten by the spider and discover his powers? We’ve been there, done that, and not that long ago. Instead, the film cheekily introduces the radioactive high-school sophomore just as he’s lobbying for the very thing savvy viewers already know is the film’s true mission—formal entry into the behemoth Avengers machine.

Making the commercial aim of the movie the protagonist’s central goal, as opposed to an awkward plot element wedged in toward the end, is a bold, ironic choice that disarms superhero-weary cynicism. Suddenly the question becomes not will Spidey defeat the bad guy (we know he will), but what position will he play in the all-star lineup? What will his relationship be to the other team members? This is possibly the only joy of discovery director Jon Watts could have tapped out of the familiar character, and he makes the most of it.

He’s helped immensely by Tom Holland’s performance as Peter. To cut to the chase, Holland is simply the best Spider-Man we’ve seen on screen. His hilarious, geeked-out enthusiasm rings far truer to adolescence than the broodiness we saw from Andrew Garfield or the wavering indecision we saw from Tobey Maguire. A kid discovers he has superhuman strength and can defy gravity! Of course he’s going to be pumped and want to push the bounds of his abilities. Holland is the first actor to capture the sheer awesomeness of being a suburban teenager who can scale buildings and sling webs.

Spidey’s enemy is similarly superior. For once we have a villain we not only understand, we sympathize with. Played by the perennially likable Michael Keaton, Adrian Toomes starts out as a positive-thinking, hard-working contractor … until he becomes a victim of the Stark empire’s crony capitalism.

The epitome of the “little guy,” Adrian bets everything he has on the free market, only to watch the government-ID’d minions of a smug billionaire sweep it all away. Why? Because the little people can’t be trusted with important jobs like disposing of alien wreckage. For that you need a bureaucrat.

Imagine this man—over 50, shunted to the side and made obsolete by politicians and corporate elitists—voting for president, and you might guess which lever he’d pull. But this is a summer movie, so instead he takes his revenge by becoming the Vulture and trading in black-market, extraterrestrial arms. The story’s correlation with our recent election season is likely not accidental on the filmmakers’ part. Regrettably, the film’s moral isn’t how Tony Stark learns that the American small-business owner is probably more to be trusted with public works projects than the federal lackey with no personal investment at stake.

Still, the moral the film does champion is a good one: Peter learns that if he ever hopes to be trusted with much, he must first be faithful with little. He must be content to serve as a friendly, neighborhood Spider-Man, helping old women find their cars and being paid in churros. Essentially, he learns the lessons of humility. And by keeping our hero and his world modest, Marvel managed to make the most amazing Spidey yet.