This isn't to say that Jon Watts' first Spidey featured lacked emotion - quite the opposite. It possessed bags of the stuff, but it's fair to say that the film perhaps lacked the heavier beats that typified Raimi's - and to some degree even Marc Webb's - Spider-Man films.
The first Homecoming was mature - that much is true - but what if it ended up being just as devastating as The Breakfast Club? This isn't to ask Watts to conjure a work as groundbreaking or genre-defining as Hughes', but in examining the teenage experience - and in making Peter Parker even more relatable - that kind of pathos should be present.
It was alluded to in Homecoming when Peter referenced "all that May's been through", and by the fact their apartment had a wardrobe full of old suits (a blatant a nod as any to the presence of Uncle Ben), but the sequel needs to do more. It can't afford not to, in light of both Infinity War and its presumably devastating follow-up, and it would only be embodying the spirit of the character - and those other teen movies - in doing so.
WhatCulture's very own resident movie guy, Ewan has been working in the content creation biz for over 10 years now, having started as a freelance contributor to WhatCulture Gaming all the way back in 2015. After graduating with a First-Class Honours in History from Northumbria University in 2017 (where he won a prize for a totally killer dissertation on the Watergate years), Ewan took on the role of Comics Editor at WhatCulture and quickly developed WhatCulture Comics into one of the biggest superhero-focused channels on YouTube. He followed this with a brief hiatus at Screen Rant in 2021, where he worked across the Gaming and Film sections as a writer and editor, before returning to WhatCulture as a Senior Content Producer / Presenter in 2023. He started his own podcast, We Love Dad Movies, in 2022, and has contributed several written pieces to the Eisner-nominated comics website Shelfdust as well.
In his current role, Ewan incorporates his love of cinema, comic books, and history into written pieces and video essays for WhatCulture's Film & TV channel, as well as WhatCulture Gaming and WhatCulture Horror, with a particular focus on nineties-era Dad Movies, old school Westerns, and Golden Age Hollywood Noir. John Carpenter is his fave, and he thinks Batman Beyond should never have been cancelled. If that's your vibe, you'll probably like his stuff.
