As with last summer's Captain America: Civil War, Marvel seems keenly aware of the fact that with a half-century of the wall-crawler, Spider-Man's origin story is practically seared into the brain of every human on Earth, with the entirety of it skipped with only a few casual mentions here and there. This seems to be the main motto of this take: skip the fluff and get to the good stuff. When it does get to the good stuff, Watts is keen on keeping the action compressed to a manageable level. Sure, there are set-pieces, but, apart from a tone-betraying, yet beautiful climax, they're tight enough to never be earth-shattering. Like Marvel’s Netflix output, these are small-scale set-pieces that manage to feel infinitely larger than those in The Avengers films due to the intimate and character-focused identity of the film.

On that note, the tone shifts roughly two-thirds of the way through the film. It’s not drastic, but it changes gears as the movie slides into the third act. I’m generally wary of tonal shifts, especially because they so often fall flat on their promise, but the shift here works. And, it heralds in a surprisingly effective twist that manages to hone in on the previously floaty theme of responsibility and concretize it with a single dialogue exchange. The way Watts uses dramatic irony in this scene is certainly not without precedent, but it’s masterfully wrought nonetheless. Finally, though it’s not extensive, he does experiment visually in some interesting ways adopting modes that I never would have expected to see in a Marvel movie.

Tom Holland, as in Civil War, nails the dual role of both Peter Parker and Spider-Man. His Parker is largely the same genius outcast we’ve seen before, but the way in which Holland weaves in his ingenuity to the fights and setpieces keep the character development rolling along. In previous films, we would get a bespoke scene whose purpose was entirely to flesh out Peter's nerdiness; such as him eating dinner with Otto Octavius and his wife in Spider-Man 2. Here, Watts skillfully and slickly places Parker’s gushing over tech into the action itself. It’s refreshing, and it sticks closer to the comics than we’re accustomed to seeing. The entire cast (apart from Keaton, more on that in a bit) nail their roles. Marisa Tomei’s Aunt May is solid, though she’s hardly given the same amount of attention that Rosemary Harris was given in the original Sam Raimi trilogy. And, Jacob Batalon’s Ned is a delight. The real star of the show in the supporting category is Peter's love interest Michelle (Zendaya). Her dry wit produces some of Homecoming’s biggest laughs and she delivers all of her lines with a cool aloofness that remains charming throughout. It’s certainly a different take on the character, but a welcome one. And, perhaps more than anyone else in the film, I’m excited to see more from her in future appearances.