Where to begin...it's amazing to me just how much world building this movie accomplished, for one thing. I'll start with the part of the movie I was most pleased with, and it should come as no surprise to anyone that, hands down, that was Michael Keaton as The Vulture. The Vulture of the comics has always seemed like a bit of a joke to me. Some Geriatric in a skintight bodysuit and a Liza Minnelli Feather Boa flying around the city stealing ****; of all of Spidey's Rogue's Gallery, he always struck me as one of Webhead's weaker villains.
That being said, this is precisely what great writing and amazing casting can do for a role. Keaton made Toomes, arguably, the most compelling villain to grace the MCU. His motivations were clearly defined, he was sympathetic, and, in some ways, even, admirable, but, when the chips were down and the claws came out, he would **** your life, if it came down to it, and the introduction of Damage Control and the way they were introduced was absolutely brilliant, because it does not at all seem out of character for Tony Stark to pull that ****. We have, going on, 9 years of him acting like a ******** and screwing things up for people to fall back on, and seeing it from Toomes' perspective, honestly? **** Civil War with Team Cap and Team Iron Man. This is a way more compelling Civil War and, me? I'm Team Vulture, all the way.
In many ways, the death of Shocker was kind of a turning point and, honestly, you actually felt really bad when it happened. It's that point of no return for Toomes and the worst part is that, at the end of the day? It was an accident. Considering everything up to that point was him taking care of these guys as if they were extensions of his own family, and him thinking it was the anti-gravity gun, I don't think he had any intention of actually killing him, but, at the same time, as the movie showed, he'll go to any lengths to take care of his own.
And that "dad talk" was absolutely fantastic. It shows just how sympathetic he is, in many ways. He knows Peter's just a kid, and he knows he's a good kid. Yeah, he threatened to kill him and everyone he loved, but the opportunity he was presenting him? Go be a teenager, ignore this stuff that's above your pay grade, and I'll still let you date my daughter? And the thing of it is that there wasn't an ounce of duplicity in the offer; he was laying his cards on the table: "walk away and have a happy life." No superhero in the history of comic book movies will ever be offered a better deal than that.
Hell, even by the end of the film, he's still looking out for Peter, and words cannot describe how happy I was that they didn't waste such a compelling villain with yet another "he knows his secret, he has to die" Spider-Man trope. I also loved the twist. It came out of nowhere, for me, at least. The whole time, I was sort of building up this idea that he was Zendaya's dad from internet rumors and stuff like the Avengers drawing and her love of sketching and then, when he opens that door, you're just like "whaaaat?"
Looking at it now, though: this is the bridge that Marvel needs to connect the Netflix series with the MCU. That post-credits sequence with Toomes and Gargan? I could easily see these characters interacting with D'onofrio's Kingpin or showing up in an episode of one of the Netflix series; hell, even the stuff with Peter in that deli felt, tonally, like the same sort of down to earth character interaction that you'd see in Daredevil or Luke Cage. It felt like a very real neighborhood, and, on that note, it really reinforced that idea of the "Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man."
Tom Holland was fantastic. He's got just the right amount of naïveté while still being intelligent and capable as both Parker and Spider-Man, and they did an excellent job of showcasing how he juggles both those sides of his life and how he's still very much growing up. I can't count how many times I felt a huge grin creep across my face. I'll be honest and pretty much say it was continuous from the moment Toomes met the Damage Control people, right through to Giacchino's rendition of the classic Spidey theme over the Marvel Studios logo, and, from there, pretty much every second of the movie until the end credits.
Which, that post-credits scene...I'd almost be pissed if I weren't so damn amused.
I feel like I could gush about far more, but, to be honest, it's late and I'm too tire to continue this train of thought.