Spider-Man: Homecoming

So I saw Spider-man: Homecoming about a week ago. I thought that this review would roll off the keyboard really easily. There's a lot to say about the film and I have actually been really excited but nervous about this film. I've done two reviews on why I was cautious about Spider-man being apart of the MCU and not buying into his character quite yet because the truth was, Spider-man still could have failed at Marvel. 

The reason I haven't written this one yet is because the past week has seen an uptick in work and when I got home over the past week, the only thing I've wanted to do is go to sleep.

But I'm just relaxing now, I thought I'd get on and bang out the regular review for this film. Hopefully I can knock out the spoiler review this weekend but let's take this one step at a time. One of the benefits of waiting a week after reviewing a Marvel movie is you get past the initial shock of the film and you start to pull the things that really were memorable as opposed to cool just when you see it.

Spider-man: Homecoming takes place not that long after the events of Captain America: Civil War. If you watched the trailers, you probably saw Peter Parker (played by Tom Holland) video blogging the events of Civil War like a kid his age in this point in time would do. I do think these scenes would have been funnier if I hadn't seen them already but I'm not a huge stickler for that in this case so I'll let it slide.

A couple months pass by and Peter is itching to become an Avenger and do more missions with his hero Tony Stark (played by Robert Downey Jr.). Stark gives him a new suit that he wants to try out but he feels like he's being held back, especially since he only answers to Stark's bodyman Happy (played by Jon Faverau).

Meanwhile, Peter is making his way through his... freshman? sophomore? year in high school. He's got his buddy Ned (played by Jacob Batalon) who becomes one of the only people to know Peter's secret identity. Now I personally had moments where I wanted to punch that kid in his face. He figures out that Peter is Spider-man and just continuously bugs him about it, especially when they're in public. And then he starts pressuring Peter to use Spider-man for personal gain and I know that leads to a scene where Peter shows his true character as a guy who isn't going to do something like that, but it really made Ned kind of an annoying character more than a helpful side character. Again, he's not bad, he just got annoying at times.

Then there's his friend Michelle (played by Zendaya). I don't know if people liked her in this film, but I didn't. She didn't really do much for the story... like at all and she was just kind of a caricature of the quiet social activist loner for the majority of the film. Think April Ludgate from Parks and Rec except not really funny.

The thing I liked about this cast of high school students was that it was pulling kids who were very similar but they still exemplified both characters from Spider-man lore but also famous stereotypes from classic high school movies with a modern twist. For example, Michelle. While I have a lot to say about her, she was supposed to be inspired by the quiet Allison Reynolds from The Breakfast Club.

Tony Revolori plays Flash Thompson. Now in the past, Flash has been played by strong jock looking guys like Joe Magliano. I thought it was an interesting choice to have him still be a bully but be a bully in Peter's social group. They're in the same organizations and so Peter can't really escape him.

And then there's Liz (played by Laura Harrier). Liz is a senior and obviously she's the girl that Peter has a crush on. These kids aren't the main focus of the film but I thought it was important to point them out because I imagine they'll continue to be characters in future Spider-man outings and I thought they did a good job with them.

The main conflict comes when Peter runs across a gang of criminals armed with alien technology they've harvested from the battlegrounds of past Avenger films. This gang is lead by Adrian Toomes or The Vulture (played brilliantly by Michael Keaton).

And honestly, Keaton is my favorite part of the film. There's a lot to love about this film and I will talk about that, but Adrian Toomes is the best MCU villain to date. I never thought I'd be saying that about The Vulture. A low level street villain who isn't as grandious or impactful as Robert Redford's character in The Winter Soldier, or Ronan the Destroyer from Guardians of the Galaxy. Adrian Tooms is just your normal dude who got put in a shitty situation and decided he wasn't going to take it anymore. He starts his little gang of scavengers and Peter takes it upon himself to do some detective work and figure out who The Vulture is and bring him in. All the while dealing with the realities of life in high school and the responsibilities that come with being Spider-man and growing up.

When Marvel announced that Spider-man Homecoming was going to be a coming of age story, very much in the same vein of a John Hughes film, I was a little wary and I wasn't really wild about that prospect.

I personally thought that we've seen enough of Spider-man in highschool, why don't we switch things up like do adult Spider-man, or maybe Miles Morales. Just doing high school Peter Parker seemed like it was doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.

But this film is a coming of age super hero story. And when I say that, I mean that this is Spider-man's origin story without it actually being his origin story. We've heard the same stuff over and over again about how Peter Parker was bit by a radio active spider and he is blessed with fantastic powers that make him Spider-man, but when his uncle dies he learns the lesson of with great power comes great responsibility. We know all of that. This is Spider-man going from your neighborhood Spider-man into a true hero and that was the great part about the character.

While Spider-man has been doing this for a little bit, he is still getting his wits about him and trying to figure out exactly how to be the superhero he wants to be. Along the way he gets some help from Iron Man, but this is definitely not an Iron Man team up movie. Robert Downey Jr shows up about 4 times in the entire film but he's more of an idol for Peter to try and impress. That along with the fact that he's maneuvering his way through high school, just makes this a really great story that I didn't know that I wanted but when I saw it I just really enjoyed it. And the other part was, it didn't feel too pandering.

One thing Marvel has been doing with their films as of late is basing it way too much on the humor of situations and not really taking themselves too seriously... And they still do that in this film and it's annoying. But one of the ways they do that is usually jumping onto some kind of gimmick or comedic ploy like the music or references to either past films to make the nerds geek out or old movies to make you feel like some kind of classic feel to it that isn't usually there.

With Spider-man Homecoming, I felt as though they were trying to put a flavor of humor and nostalgia into the film and it worked a little bit better than it has in the past. There were a couple 80s movie references that were kind of fun, the music was entertaining, and overall it just had the feeling of a coming of age story that I really liked.

Now does everything work in this film? No. I thought the pacing was a little bit off. It's a delicate balance this movie had to go through in having it be a superhero film and be a high school coming of age tale. I think the movie manages to be both a lot of the time but at other times it feels oddly paced and a little uneven on certain places.

Also... I hate when they do this but this movie seemed to ether be promoting movies that I don't think have even been put into development yet, or they just got a bunch of people to come play roles that didn't need that much star power behind.

For example, Donald Glover plays this street criminal named Aaron Davis. Davis is supposed to be the uncle of Miles Morales and was really only put in this film to tease the audience about a future of Morales coming into this universe. Again, time is being taken out of this film to plug another movie that hasn't even started production yet.

And why the hell was Hannibal Buress in this film. He just plays the gym teacher in this film and he maybe has like 5 lines in total. Buress is a funny guy... why was he even in this film.

But man I hope Tom Holland stays our Peter Parker for a while. He's incredibly charming and he does a great job at blending the two personas of Peter Parker the timid kind hearted nerd and Spider-man the cocky spunky hero. I think what I liked about this interpretation, and maybe this is just comparing against Macguire and Garfield is that, again, this is a coming of age story and he's figuring out his voice, not only as a masked vigilante, but as a kid. He also didn't spend so much time making banter about the bad guys and just saved the day a lot better. He was written very well.

I don't think he shined nearly as much as Michael Keaton did as Adrian Toomes, but on one hand you've got Tom Holland, an up and comer who is younger than I am, and then you've got Michael freaking Keaton. It's not exactly a fair comparison.

I want to watch this film again and get an idea how I really feel about it. I liked it because it was a confined story. It didn't over the top grand, but it was a personal story and you need those. It also had more heart than the other more recent personal stories like Ant-Man or Doctor Strange. It's still a little early to see exactly what I think of it but right now, I highly recommend going out to check out Spider-man: Homecoming.

But those are my thoughts on Spider-man: Homecoming. What did you think of it? How does it compare with the Sam Rami Spider-man films and how does it compare to the Marc Webb Spider-man films? Comment and Discuss below! You can also send me your thoughts on Twitter @MovieSymposium as well as send me your requests for films I should review in the future. If you follow me on Twitter you can get updates on future movie news and reviews coming out of this blog.

I'll leave you with this. So a while back there was a film of Andrew Garfield reacting to the new Spider-man trailer. Then it was Tobey Macguire reacting to that video and now it's Tom Holland reacting to all of it. Enjoy!