Review: Spider-Man: Homecoming

After having aided Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) and The Avengers in a previous film, Spider-Man, AKA 15 year-old Peter Parker (Tom Holland) is back to his normal life at high school. His constant calls to a seemingly forever vacationing Stark serve more to piss off Stark chauffeur Happy (Jon Favreau) than anything else. Meanwhile, Parker’s best friend (Jacob Batalon) lets slip that Peter is best friends with Spider-Man, which is overheard by a girl Peter likes (played by Laura Harrier). Bigger problems come in the form of Adrian Toomes (Michael Keaton), a blue-collar salvage worker who gets screwed out of a salvage job by Stark’s company on all the destruction caused in the previous “Avengers” film. So not only does he have a grudge against all things “Avengers”, but before getting kicked off the job, he manages to salvage some technology and fashion himself a supervillain flying suit. Marisa Tomei is Peter’s hot Aunt May, Zendaya plays another student, Bokeem Woodbine is one of Toomes’ employees, and Donald Glover has a random cameo as a lowly crim.

Although not the worst “Spider-Man” film (that’d be one of the Andrew Garfield films), this 2017 Marvel adventure from director Jon Watts (something called “Cop Car”) is still pretty subpar. Sadly, the definitive “Spider-Man” film proves to be Sam Raimi’s 2002 film, which frankly wasn’t anything special, either. This one has its moments, but feels like ¾ a PG “Kick-Ass” and ¼ “Iron Man” with Spidey miscast in the role of Iron Man. Although some of it is funny and Michael Keaton is genuinely good as a blue-collar villain (who for at least the first quarter, isn’t entirely un-relatable), I couldn’t quite get my head and queasy stomach around his character trying to kill a teenager. That’s very, very dark for a “Spider-Man” film and seems much more in line with the more adult-oriented ‘graphic novel’ medium, not Marvel comics (Full disclosure: I’m a film buff, not a comic book/graphic novel reader, so I’m not anywhere near an expert). Yes, it’s true that Peter Parker is meant to be a high-schooler, but Tom Holland looks way younger than the previous Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield looked (And that’s because he is and so is the character I believe, now just 15 years-old). Mixed in with what seems like more of an “Iron Man” villain, it’s not remotely smooth. It’s actually pretty dark (darker than the “Iron Man” films, really), too dark for Marvel, if you ask me.

We start with an amusing implementation of an orchestral arrangement of a very familiar comic book/TV theme song over the Marvel logo. Jon Favreau probably has his best moments in the franchise here as Tony Stark’s now frankly grumpy but still loyal chauffeur. While I’ve never been on board with Robert Downey Jr.’s flippant approach to Tony Stark, I have to admit he’s managed to make it work better with each and every appearance Stark makes in these films. Here he’s in funny, flirty form in a manner that thankfully gels OK with the material and world. In particular, his flirty attitude towards Marisa Tomei’s Aunt May is pretty damn funny. I think the filmmakers use Downey/Stark’s lack of giveashit quite well here extending to Stark saving Spider-Man from danger on one occasion…by proxy whilst Stark is on vacation. That was genuinely funny.

On the downside, it took me a while to not absolutely hate Tom Holland as Peter Parker here. I mean, sure it’s cute that Spidey is an irritating ADHD millennial in theory, but a) Holland is too young and small-looking, despite probably having worked out in the gym a lot, to seem like a credible superhero taking on adult villains. He’s Spider-Boy and still looks like a 12 year-old in the suit. 2) It gets annoying quickly. A lot of the teen humour in the first half is genuinely funny and your mileage may differ, but for me I think this version of the character would’ve been better served up outside of the “Avengers” franchise. I did like the bit where Spidey stops a car thief only to realise it’s actually the dude’s car. Also funny is a group of ATM thieves wearing “Avengers” costumes. I liked that the superhero destruction of previous Marvel films has bled over into this to the point where characters are starting to mess around with Tony Stark’s hi-tech toys. We also get a funny cameo by a certain Marvel superhero now doing high school gym class videos, and later a ‘So, you got detention…’ video. After a while though, I still couldn’t shake the feeling that I should be worried about this poor kid getting beaten up or worse. That should never be the case in one of these films. I also felt that despite the participation of “Avengers” characters and Holland’s Spider-Man already debuting in a previous Marvel film, that this film had a totally different vibe that didn’t gel with the “Avengers” franchise. Even the light-hearted “Ant-Man” felt more organic than this film, which has a very distinct and different teen movie vibe whenever Michael Keaton’s character isn’t around. I just don’t think this character should’ve been a part of the “Avengers” universe, especially when this film doesn’t seem that connected to it beyond the cast/characters. There’s a brilliant end credits bit with the aforementioned Marvel cameo player trolling the audience, but the final scenes of the film seem pointless to me, despite a great final bit with Aunt May. I also found the character played by supposed millennial sensation Zendaya to be a total headscratcher. Her every reaction shot seems to suggest that a) Zendaya is apparently someone I should know, and b) Her character has some kind of importance. Well, not in this film at least. The character here is less than paper-thin.

The third attempt at a “Spider-Man” franchise, this one suffers from a complete lack of necessity, a lot of tedium, and a weird mismatch of superhero and villain that doesn’t sit well. I would’ve minded this film a lot less were it the first “Spider-Man” movie, instead it’s the 6^th film since 2002. I found this really slow, unnecessary, and cringe-worthy, I’m afraid. Michael Keaton and Marisa Tomei are good, the film isn’t. Indicative of too many cooks in the kitchen spoiling the broth, the screenplay is by the director, John Francis Daley (The remake of “Vacation”, “Horrible Bosses”), Christopher Ford (“Robot & Frank”), Jonathan Goldstein (the remake of “Vacation”), Chris McKenna (“Igor”, TV’s “Community”), and Erik Sommers (“The LEGO Batman Movie”, “Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle”) from a story by Daley and Goldstein.

Rating: C-