Which is the best Spiderman film?

TY student at St Mary’s Secondary School, Nenagh, Katie Brett mulls over the three MCU Spiderman films

With the recent release of ‘No Way Home’, I have been thinking about just which of the three MCU Spiderman films is the best.

Each has their own redeeming qualities but of course there is always one that stands out a bit more from the rest. In this piece I will be comparing ‘Homecoming’, ‘Far From Home’ and ‘No Way Home’, and revealing my preference. Also, be warned that there will be some spoilers ahead!

First of all we have the initial MCU film, ‘Spiderman: Homecoming’ (2017). This film was the first time we had seen a fairly accurately aged actor playing the high schooler, Peter Parker, on the big screen.

One of my favourite things about this film is that it works well both in the trilogy and also as a stand-alone film for those who cannot commit to watching a full series of films on one character. It doesn’t work only as a set-up for the plots of the next films. Also what is unique to this Spiderman is that it leaves out the well-known Spiderman backstory at the beginning of the film, which is unlike any of the previous Spiderman film series.

In this movie particularly, Tom Holland does a great job appealing to younger audiences by portraying Peter as an awkward teenager. This makes him a much more realistic and relatable character than others in the MCU up to the release of the film. It also makes Marvel films more accessible to younger audiences.

I also enjoy the frequent cameos from Iron Man - aka Tony Stark - in this film, although sometimes he does tend to overpower Spiderman in their scenes together. This is to be expected, though, as Iron Man was a much better known character at the time.

‘FAR FROM HOME’

Next up is ‘Spiderman: Far From Home’ (2019). This film had to do many things; for example, it began by explaining the aftermath of ‘Avengers: Endgame’ and then also had the job of introducing the Multiverse by the inclusion of Mysterio, played by Jake Gyllenhaal, who befriends Spiderman at the beginning of the film.

This film definitely has a more mature feel than the previous film and creates a new direction for the Spiderman storyline to go in.

In this film we see Peter and MJ, played by Zendaya, become closer friends, which eventually leads onto their romance storyline. This is one of the more enjoyable parts of the movie and adds a lighter touch compared to the rest of the plot.

The best part of the film by far though is Mysterio’s villain, which leads to Spiderman’s most exciting battle in the series up to this point, and also to J Jonah Jameson shockingly revealing Spiderman’s identity to the world.

While this movie is very exciting, a lot of the story definitely gets lost in the amount of new information constantly being revealed in the film. Unlike ‘Homecoming’ it is clearly setting up the next film, ‘No Way Home’. The most recent of all is ‘Spiderman: No Way Home’ (2021). This movie is almost a celebration of Spiderman as it features all three Spidermen reprising their roles, all the classic Spiderman villains making their return and even cameos from Doctor Strange and Matt Murdock, aka Daredevil.

Although most of the plot of this film depends on Peter Parker making terrible and life-altering decisions, it is all made up for by the epic fighting scenes featuring the three Spidermen in action together. It is also good to see some of Peter’s friends and family get more central roles than before. This addition helps to add some fun to the film.

A LONELY HERO

The charm of the first film can no longer be seen as this movie makes for a much darker tale and ends up leaving Spiderman as the lonely hero we see in the other Spiderman series.

The light-heartedness that could often be found from the MCU Spiderman films is stripped away and a new side of Spiderman’s story is revealed.

Although this is an amazing film and plot, it is sad to see Spiderman grow away from the awkward teenager he once was and to see the tone of the Spiderman films completely change.

After looking back on these three films I believe that ‘Spiderman: No Way Home’ is in fact the best MCU Spiderman film. Although I will always have a particular preference toward ‘Homecoming’, when I look at the facts ‘No Way Home’ definitely has the best action, cast and storyline of any of the films.