Spider-Man: Homecoming (No Spoilers)

I mean, just look at it.

Tone is really important.


I've said this before, but the biggest problem with pretty much every comic book movie between the Donner Superman and Iron Man is that they desperately didn't want to be comic book movies. The greatest trick the devel ever taught comic book movies is that they should be grounded. And yess, Hellboy is the most notable exception to this.

But it's the MCU movies that really, truly embraced the idea of comic book movies being unapologetically comic book movies. And of all the characters to benefit from this treatment over the years, none have needed it more than Spider-Man.

I mean, if this movie did nothing else right, we finally got a Spider-Man movie without a "grounded" textured rubber suit in muted colors. And it on ly took six movies! Purists can quibble about the amount of Stark tech in the suit at various points in the movie, a balancing act that will be way more important in the sequel, but this is a Spider-Man movie that's not afraid to have Spider-Man look like Spider-Man, and that's huge.

So what we end up with is a solid MCU outing with the usual level of craftsmanship and the occasional flaw, most notably an action sequence or two that could be a bit better and clearer about where people are and what they're doing. And the soundtrack is a little intrusive.

But man, did they nail the tone. There are a lot of reworkings, reimaginings, homages, easter eggs, and nods to various aspects of Spider-Man, and none of them have that weird, awkward clumsiness that, say, the street performer singing the old theme song had in the first Raimi movie. There's a natural ease to everything, a comfort with what they're doing and why, that's the hallmark of many an MCU movie, and works especially well when applied to Spidey.

Also, this movie confirms my belief that the Captain America costume from the first Avengers is the dumbest, worst costume in the entire MCU, and that everybody knows it. Bonus.