Spider-Man: Homecoming Review - 9 Ups & 3 Downs

2. Ned

Alongside Luis from Ant-Man and Wong from Doctor Strange, Ned leaps to the top of the list of comic book movie best friends (Happy Hogan has been a competitor at times too). In Jacob Batalon's hands, he's a hysterical, awkward goof-ball with a whip-smart intellect and the kind of social ineptitude that delightfully mirrors Peter's initial struggles with superheroism.

He's the archetypal John Hughes dork (though the high-school world is a lot more forgiving now than it was in the 80s), and while he and Peter are the target of bullies, they're still more like Harry Potter and Ron Weasley or Bart Simpson and Milhouse rather than total outsiders.

Ned is all of us, invited to know a secret that threatens to vomit itself out of him unguided at every turn, pushed up by a tide of excitement. It's his eyes that we see Peter's double life as Spider-Man play out, and it's a masterstroke of story-telling to do that.