Spiderman Homecoming no spoiler review
9.0 out of 10
The good:
- It is a fresh take on Spiderman. For all that some didn't care for the Andrew Garfield Spiderman in the first reboot, I actually didn't mind him all that much. But I did agree with the common complaint that those movies were a reboot no one asked for. Those movies were starting in the hole in terms of being a reboot of a movie series that was still fresh in people's minds. So the MCU reboot of Spiderman should have been operating in an even larger hole: a second reboot in ten years. But the movie doesn't feel like a tired retread. It doesn't rehash Spiderman's origin. It doesn't parade Uncle Ben's death on screen. And it focuses on the high school experience of Peter Parker in a way that felt reminiscent of the early comics and in a way all the previous movies seemed to mostly avoid. At no time was I telling myself "I've seen this before" and that's a really important thing for a movie about a comic book character that has had five movies in fifteen years starring the character.
- It expands the MCU in style and substance. Critics have been saying the Marvel movies are all the same, and audiences will get tired of them, since about Iron Man 3. And then we got Winter Soldier, Guardians of the Galaxy, and Ant-Man in succession. In my opinion, Marvel has done an excellent job of making each MCU movie unbeholden to the traditional superhero genre: Winter Soldier is a spy thriller, Guardians is a space adventure, Ant-Man is a heist movie. Spiderman Homecoming is a teen comedy/drama. It even directly references Ferris Bueller's Day Off (twice, if you are paying attention). Although Tony Stark and Iron Man are in the film, the movie isn't about Iron Man. It is really about growing up, and learning who you really are inside. In the comic books Peter Parker was always portrayed as someone that was just like any other teenager, with the same problems as any other teenager, who also had this other part of his life that he had to learn to balance. The superpowers make it an MCU movie, but Peter could have easily fit into the Breakfast Club.
And yes, I recognize this was a Sony (Columbia) movie. But I'm giving full credit to Marvel Studios for this one, because it so very obviously has the fingerprints of Marvel Studios all over it.
- The villain is great. A common complaint about Marvel movies is the villain is often the weak part of the movie. Spiderman Homecoming does not have that problem. Michael Keaton plays a nuanced, understandable, relatable, and yet viscerally evil villain. Keaton delivers a performance that rivals if not exceeds Alfred Molina's DocOc. I can't say much without spoilers, but Keaton made the Vulture a bad ass, and that's amazing.
- Ned. Having Peter have a friend like Ned was very important in my opinion. It gave him a confidant, an ally, someone who was looking out for him, and someone who would anchor him to "real life." One problem with both the Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield incarnations is that they were, except for love interests, loners. That made them too introverted, too represeed, and a bit too unrelatable. Having friends, and a best friend in particular that knows he is Spiderman (no spoiler, that was given away in the trailers lots of times) creates an important dynamic where Peter cannot turn too inward when dealing with the heavy problems he has. There is always an element of tragedy and responsibility and pressure around the character of Spiderman: he often feels like he has the weight of the world on his shoulders. This makes him too emo in the Garfield movies and borderline psychotic in the Maguire movies. In homecoming, it just makes him every other teenager that thinks they have the world's worst problems. Ned keeps him human.
The bad:
- Honestly, anything I say here would be nitpicking. The pacing could have been a little better? That's almost always true. I wish the character of Liz was a bit more fleshed out. She is a little underutilized.
The just plain weird:
- Is there a heterosexual male in New York that doesn't have the hots for Aunt May?
Overall:
In my opinion, if this isn't the best Spiderman movie it felt like the best rendition of the Spiderman I grew up with. I was worried about Tony Stark being added to the backstory of Spiderman, but in Homecoming the story isn't about Spiderman being mentored by Stark, it is about him realizing that he needs to find his own way. And that doesn't take anything away from the character of Spiderman. And it is a sneaky origin story without being a direct origin story. Instead of telling the story about how Peter Parker got spider-powers, it tells the story of how Peter Parker grows from being "the spider-man" to being Spider-Man. It folds becoming Spiderman into a part of Peter Parker starting to grow up and figure out who he is and who he will become, like every coming of age story.
Oh yeah, and there are two post credits scenes. Make sure you stay to the very, very end. Have patience.
