That being said, it is with that preface that I will proceed to applaud the performance of Tom Holland. Despite his troubling baby face, he was able to bring the perfect balance of loser-dome and exciting crime fighting that we needed for this reboot. Tobey Maguire was a successful Peter Parker but a less-than-convincing Spider-Man. Andrew Garfield was a fun and entertaining Spider-Man, but a far-from-believable Peter Parker. Holland, however, was able to bring the challenging equilibrium of insecurity as Peter Parker and confidence as Spider-Man that the character requires. He was all the nerd, hero, humor, and masculinity we needed him to be.
While Holland's performance was a highlight of the film, it was not good enough to take attention away from the jumbled sub-plots that took away from the film's integrity. We saw it in "Spider-Man 3," again in "The Amazing Spider-Man 2," and here yet again; but to a smaller degree. There were so many characters and plot points within the film trying to connect to each other that it was nearly impossible to keep up with all of them, let alone care about them. Important characters got introduced late in the film, too many characters exist, the central conflict isn't well-established until the second half, and the best fighting happens well before the hardly dramatic finish.
For example, I really couldn't have cared less about the love interest in this movie. Don't get me wrong, I love the fact that the love interest is played by African American actress and model Laura Harrier (who's 27, by the way!). As a former member of the interracial couple community, I actually rather appreciated it. However, the development of Harrier's character had almost zero depth; and the relationship between (her) Liz and Holland's Peter Parker was not well-established--and painfully unromantic--to say the least. I usually find myself either cheering or being sufficiently bummed if a couple does or does not end up together. By the end of this film, however, the outcome made no difference to me.
On the same note, Tony Stark (along with Spider-Man's suit for which we have him to thank) was the undisputed highlight of the movie. What is even more amazing is that this was able to be the case with his disappointingly minimal screen time. Yet again, we are left wanting more of the wonderfully charismatic Robert Downey Jr. and less of...everyone else. They even worked Gwyneth Paltrow into this thing. God help us.
Furthermore, Oscar-winning actress Marissa Tomei was put to waste with a small-scale Aunt May. Not only was she arguably too young for the role, but she was almost entirely irrelevant. The same goes for Michael Keaton. With numerous awards and several successful, iconic roles, we see yet another actor performing well below their capacity. It was particularly disappointing to see him cast in not only what was a juvenile character, but what turned out to be a horrible one. I usually prefer Marvel to DC, but Marvel villains are just plain awful. Why do you think the most successful Marvel movies revolve around the heroes fighting either each other or a completely disposable army from space? A super hero movie can only be as good as its villain, and Keaton's Vulture did not even live up to the most trivial of standards, let alone mine.
To end what seems to me to be an extensive compliment sandwich, I will honestly say that the angle of the story was well-appreciated. If I had to see another origin story including Uncle Ben delivering a boring speech about responsibility before getting killed I would have completely given up hope on humanity. I'll leave it up to President Trump to do that for me. Even though it wasn't the conveyance I had hoped for, the updated story line along with the intertwining with the rest of the Marvel universe was something I enjoyed seeing.
In short, this movie was good. But I wanted it to be great. It needed to be great. I wanted to walk out of there giddy with excitement and a new-found love of Spider-Man. The most disappointing thing to me is, in fact, how disappointed I am that this movie didn't meet my (albeit high) expectations. The best I can give this movie is a 60%, deeming it only
Worthy
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