The camera often captures wide spaces and the infrastructure of urban Queens, following Peter down the stairs of overground subway platforms, but it rarely captures its people in any realistic sense.

Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man and Spider-Man 2 were littered with minor characters whose daily lives could be discerned from their behavior, whose interactions with Peter spoke to the way life kept grinding him down, and whose opinions on Spider-Man (positive or not) were undercut with a sense of weary preoccupation. It made New York feel alive.

The New York of Homecoming, while pleasant and non-confrontational in a way that works for the movie’s inoffensive tone, feels more like a red carpet laid out for Peter Parker. The local deli worker for instance, Mr. Delmar (Hemky Madera), engages in amusing banter with Peter, but like Peter’s classmates, he lies in wait. The camera cuts to him only in anticipation of Peter, whose arrival endows him with a sense of character and lived reality specific to Peter, and Peter alone. Delmar, and his mostly empty store, feel as if they exist for Peter and no one else (an extra even watches Peter enter and promptly moves away from the counter).