10 Ways The Amazing Spider-Man Was Better Than Homecoming

4. A Better Balance Of Comedy And Drama

Like too many Marvel movies, Spider-Man: Homecoming is fun, but nothing else. It lacks urgency, substance and a feeling of consequence. Aside from Tony Stark taking the suit away from a puppy-eyed Peter, there’s never a moment that makes you feel sympathy for the carefree high-schooler.

The death of Garfield’s Uncle Ben was something audiences had already seen and was thus naturally not as upsetting as in Maguire’s. However, in addition to the death of Gwen's Dad and Aunt May's struggles to mother Peter, it did give the film emotional weight and a depressing tone of vulnerability. Plus, despite being an otherwise horribly edited and written film, the death of Gwen in The Amazing Spider-Man 2 was an ugly consequence of naivety that shocked and upset audiences in love with the romance (a moment ruined by having us wallow in pity for a mere five-minutes).

Drama is the missing ingredient in Spider-Man: Homecoming. No, a Spider-Man movie should not be dark, joyless or "mature", but it should have a deserved moment of silence that breaks up the comedy and makes viewers feel something. Even with the goofy dancing, cookies and emo haircut, Spider-Man 3 still had the emotionally heavy birth of the Sandman.

Both The Amazing Spider-Man and Homecoming are full of comedy, but Webb invoked drama through tragedy to provide more substance, resulting in his features having both bright and dark tones, rather than one colour throughout.