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

7. The Clever Fidelity To The Origin

We were also told very early on that we wouldn't be getting a Spider-Man origin story, as he'd already arrived in the MCU fully-formed in Civil War. Still, Watts could quite easily have gone with key flash-backs to establish how Peter got his powers and the whole Uncle Ben thing, but he resisted and the film benefits from that boldness.

But that doesn't mean the origin story doesn't bubble under the surface. For instance, thanks to smart, non-expositional dialogue around Ned learning Peter's secret, we know that Peter was indeed bitten by a spider and we know that a heavy trauma hangs over Aunt May (Peter doesn't want to put her through the added anxiety of knowing he's Spidey). We are never invited to obsess over those elements, and there's no fetishism of Spider-Man's origin as there has been elsewhere.

The decision to make Uncle Ben's death very much Aunt May's story rather than Peter's is a smart move too, because it gives the film space to have Peter find his own driving mantra in place of the "with great power..." shtick.