Holland is the third Spider-Man we’ve had on the big screen, and he has been utterly fantastic. Starting his career off swinging in Captain America: Civil War back in 2016, he has since had two solo films; what a joy they have both been!
His age
As we all know, many times in many films the ‘teenagers’ are definitely not teens when it comes to a school setting. And while Holland wasn’t a teenager himself when Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017) was released, he only missed the mark by a year or so.
Holland was 20 when Homecoming was filming, making him not only the youngest Spider-Man, but the most true-to-age Spider-Man we’ve had.
It’s quite funny when you look at the actors who previously held the flame of Spider-Man, in terms of age.
Both Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield were 27 when they started filming their first Spidey movies. Maguire clearly looks about 10 years too old to be there, while Garfield just looks a bit like he’s been held back a few years.
Flash Thompson
Again, we must look back on previous Flash characters to compare how good the new one is.
Flash is a character who serves as the school bully, and especially in the Maguire phase of Spider-Man, he is someone for Parker to prove he is the opposite of. This no longer seemed to be the case in the latest Spider-Man telling.
Flash is now played by Tony Revolori, not a massively buff actor (sorry, Tony), but a regular kid who doesn’t stand out too much. The simple fact of this Flash is this: he’s a bit of a d*ck. That’s it.
Flash is more involved this time around, arguing with Peter every now and again about why Flash loves Spider-Man so much - the irony is just brilliant. He’s less of a bully and more just a smug rich kid and to be honest, this is much better.
MJ
We all know the story of MJ, right? Parker dotes on her all the way through the films… but not this time!
In Homecoming, Peter is more infatuated with Liz (Laura Harrier), a girl at his school who ends up having to move away because her dad went to prison thanks to Spider-Man and, well, it’s a whole ordeal.
But after knowing her throughout the film without a name, at the end we discover that the smart, well-witted girl who’s been there the whole time is in fact MJ. But not Mary Jane; this time she is Michelle Jones.
This MJ is frankly fantastic. She is smart, curious, and can really hold her own. She is a very strong female character, and is a wonderful change to other MJs or even Gwen Stacys we’ve seen thus far.
We don’t have to watch Uncle Ben die, again
As harsh as this sounds, watching the whole ordeal of Uncle Ben dying is just so overused to the point where you just want to skip past it…
But the third time round with Holland’s Spider-Man we don’t have to go through that again (thank the lord), but we do get to see a different kind of loss – the death of Tony Stark/Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.).
While many characters struggle with the death of this purely wonderful man, we see Peter Parker struggle with it during Spider-Man: Far From Home. Parker sees pictures and paintings of Stark everywhere he goes, and we see him truly hurt and feel the loss of a friend, and someone who believed in him.
This mourning is very different to any other kind of loss we might see, and as they got Parker’s age right this time, it’s like watching a young boy lose his father for the first time, not his Uncle for the third…
His smarts
Another well-known fact about the webbed wonder known as Spider-Man is that he is one smart cookie.
Despite Maguire and Garfield’s heroes being shown to be very clever, the way we see Holland’s smarts is just brilliant.
With him being rather young (for real this time), Holland’s Peter Parker doesn’t know everything – which is good! We don’t want to see Parker get everything right the first time around because that just isn’t how things work.
We get to see him learn things, and see him grow throughout not just his solo films, but the other Marvel films he is a part of, too.
But what really shows how brilliant he really is, is the scene in Far From Home when Holland designs his own suit to prepare for a fight. The scene is quite the masterpiece, as Holland plays with tech and AC/DC plays in the background – he isn’t just like Stark which is wonderful as you can truly see Holland’s Peter Parker take after Stark, but in his own exceptional way.
Written by Melissa, who you can follow on Twitter @melissajournal
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