Tom Holland’s appearance as Spider-Man in the MCU entry Captain America: Civil War introduced the new webhead to millions of immediate fans. Combining a youthful exuberance, and actual nerd cred, Holland’s Peter Parker rings true to the comics, even as this incarnation introduces unique spins on familiar characters like Aunt May played this time around by Marisa Tomei, an introduction of an equally nerdy best friend for Peter, Ned (Jacob Batalon), high school nemesis Flash (Tony Revolori), and a really fun spin on MJ (Zendaya) and Peter’s love life, blossoming with Liz (Laura Harrier).

There are tie-ins to the greater MCU, and the spider-verse, which includes an encounter with Miles Morales uncle, Aaron Davis (Donald Glover) and the story itself is pure Spider-Man.

Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) has set Peter up with a new uniform, with lots of bells and whistles, as well as a babysitter in the form of Happy (Jon Favreau). Tony insists that Peter focus on being a friendly, neighbourhood Spider-Man and leave the big things to the Avengers, but youth and impulsiveness push Pete to get in over his head in pursuit of Adrian Tooms (Micheal Keaton) and his crew – which features some nods to some of Spidey’s classic baddies.

It seems Tooms, who fans will immediately know as the Vulture, and his team have been ripping off tech and weapons from scenes of superhero clashes, as seen in events like the Avengers. He’s been using them to create weapons, embellish his own tech, a set of wings, and try to provide for his family.

Unfortunately, as things escalate, Spidey quickly finds himself in over his head and despite his calls to Happy for help, things go sideways really quick, and Tony calls him in on the carpet, and tells him if he needed the suit to do the job, he doesn’t deserve the suit.

So for his own good, Peter is going to have to learn how to be the best version of Spider-Man without his tech, and that is how Spidey’s going to learn to be the hero we know he is.

Filled with a great sense of humour, fantastic action sequences, and a real sense of the joy it must be to be Spider-Man, Homecoming is arguably the best of the cinematic Spider-Men to have hit the screen. There’s a joy and earnestness not only to Holland’s performance but to the entire film, it’s fun, exciting, and feels like a wonderful piece of escapist entertainment, while still dealing with themes of family and responsibility.

This is one of my favourite MCU films to revisit. Tobey Maguire was definitely my first Spider-Man, but Tom Holland IS Spider-Man. It’s simply… Amazing.