Spider-Man Homecoming Review · 7:29pm Jul 8th, 2017
Welcome home, Spidey. You have new neighbors to play with, and the landlord is a lot better about his tenants. Granted, it smells about the same as your old place but that’ll air out if you give it time.
TL;DR - this movie has the unenviable task of making Spider-Man fun and new and interesting and unique after five movies about him already. The odds are against it going in. It passes, at least, but it won’t wow you.
So, the good, first of all. The movie doesn’t even touch a semblance of an origin story. We only get a token nod to Peter being bitten by a spider in a “blink-and-you’ll-miss-it” dialogue bit, there’s no Uncle Ben, no Oscorp or the Osborns or any of the usual stuff you expect. This is the second installment of a Spider-Man saga where Marvel skipped the first part because we all know it by now. A smart move, too.
The movie expresses thematically what the Raimi and Webb movies had to spell out in dialogue - the “great power, great responsibility” stuff, and the double life problems. They show Peter having to avoid being social to spend time as Spider-Man, and mention he’s dropped out of or been kicked out of a lot of extra-curricular activities to be Spider-Man more. They don’t hammer in that he’s sacrificing his life to be Spider-Man, but we understand that through other events. The “great power” stuff is kinda the crux of the movie. We see Peter having fun swinging around cracking wise while fighting crooks, but then shit gets real and he’s out of his depth. The kid has to grow up and realize he’s not playing at being a superhero, he is a superhero, and if he wants to be the part he has to act the part.
So, this movie takes a different approach to Peter. There’s very little angst and not much romance focus, putting it at immediate odds with the Raimi and Webb films. This movie is about Peter wanting to be a superhero and have fun stopping crime and saving the world, and getting a hard dose of reality about what that means. That is the emotional core of the movie, Peter realizing what kind of man and hero he wants to be, and the ultimate decision he makes in the final sequence is a satisfying one. Though it does make me think that when Petey inevitably shows up in the third Avengers, it’ll be a betrayal of this resolution.
The movie’s weak link, as usual for Marvel - the villain. And the problem is, they really did try to make him a good villain, to make him interesting and even a bit sympathetic. But they failed. The TL;DR of the Vulture - he was a construction worker who got kicked off a job by Tony’s clean-up crews, and turned to making weapons using stolen alien and Stark tech to make ends meet. I shouldn’t need to spell out the problems with that backstory, the biggest being that it’s a big jump from “construction worker” to “black arms energy weapons seller.” Like, they put in an eight year time skip, but that just seems like a way to not explain how he got up to this point. And really, with a guy selling energy weapons on the black market for years like this, SHIELD/Hydra never came sniffing, or any of the Avengers including Tony? It’s only just now this stuff is coming out?
That said, the villain was a complete failure until the third act, with the big reveal - Peter’s love interest Liz is his daughter. And ho boy, when that door opens and Peter is staring into the face of the man he knows to be behind the weapons he’s been tracking, man the tension. And then they get in the car and as Liz is talking about how Peter is never around at times when Spider-Man is there, you see the Vulture put the pieces together. They stop, Liz gets out, and he stays behind to “have the dad talk” with Pete. This is a very good, tense scene, and you really don’t know what’s going to happen. He shows his noble nature here; since Spider-Man saved his daughter’s life, he lets Peter off the hook with one warning to back off.
In the climax, I was expecting Vulture to do a good turn. They crash in an amusement park damaging a ride, and I was expecting him to help Peter save the innocents there, or at least not stop him from doing it. But no, they have their final confrontation, Peter saves his life and leaves him webbed up for the authorities. In the post-credits scene a prison inmate tells him he has friends outside who’d love a piece of Spider-Man, but Vulture keeps his mouth shut and refuses to tell him Peter’s identity. Again, you can tell they were trying to make this guy complex and sympathetic and honorable in his own right, but it falls flat. The major problem is that “construction worker-turned-black arms dealer” backstory that just doesn’t work.
Other good stuff. Peter’s friend is fine, a little annoying but he’s helpful and fun. You know Peter’s love interest is disposable since she’s a canon foreigner. All along they were hinting at a secondary love interest for the boy, and as it occurred to me “hey, did they give her a name” I remembered they did, it’s Michelle, but of course she has a nickname she likes and yeah it’s MJ, there we go. Tony is good here, Happy is good, they stress the father-son dynamic a bit too much but it works. Pepper is back, good to see Paltro again after the last two Tony appearances awkwardly wrote her out.
So yeah, movie is fine, does some new things, does some old things well. Fighting against the strain of five previous movies is a tough sell, but it makes a good effort and succeeds, it just doesn’t excel.
I thought Vulture was awesome! Yeah, the idea that one of his construction crew can reverse-engineer alien tech into weapons is unbelievable, as is the idea that the authorities never went looking for this guy before. But Michael Keaton's performance was great, as was the look and feel of his suit. That scene where he's about to kill Spiderman, but then he sees the box of loot and is like "screw this, time to get the goods and get out of here" was an interesting departure from other Marvel villains. It was never personal for Vulture, just business.
And heck, alien weaponry reverse-engineered by some guy on the street is still more plausible than the old origins for Vulture and the Shocker, where several guys just invented the technology without help of alien tech and then used it for petty crime instead of patenting it.
4595951 Thing is, the Vulture stuff could easily be solved with or two two lines - have one of the crew mention they used to work for Stark Industries until their lab was shut down during the company restructuring, and this construction gig is all they could get after a string of failed ventures at other places.
Solves all of the problems - explains how they can do this stuff, explains why they so easily turn bad, heightens the Vulture’s hate for Stark, and works his backstory further into the MCU.
4596001 That would definitely have made the Vulture and his gang much better, I agree. Raised him from an 8 to a 10/10.
Loved this movie. Vulture killed it and the set up for the future is so perfect! Sinister six and Miles Morales! This is gonna be a fun ride! I give the movie a unbiased 10/10 as a movie it was great...as a spiderman movie? Perfect. Great villain...great story...great supporting cast....easter eggs for days...references for YEARS...emotion and heart in so many scenes(vulture lair scene had me misty eyed) action set pieces? Some of the best we've seen from spiderman in a movie (say what you want the set pieces in amazing spiderman were top notch) and more importantly it was a SPIDERMAN MOVIE not ironman homecoming or anything like people initially thought. Can't wait for the sequel... Calling it now villains will likely be Scorpion and or Kraven with possible aid from Mysterio or if they are REALLY BALLSY they'll use Doc Ock as a tribute to Spiderman 2 but we will see.