Movie Review: Spider-Man Homecoming

Spider-Man: Homecoming [2017]

Spider-Man Homecoming is the...  fifteenth? Sixteenth? Movie in the media juggernaut that is the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and that's before we count like 8 or 9 seasons of television over at ABC and Netflix. Now superhero movies tend to be commonplace nowadays, and this is Spider-Man's sixth outing to headline a movie all by himself.

One of the biggest hyped-up moments of Captain America: Civil War, other than the whole superhero fight thing going on, is the inclusion of Spider-Man into the Marvel universe. After years of Sony fighting and refusing to cooperate with Marvel, somehow a miracle was struck and a Spider-Man within the MCU was given to us. While the recent weeks were plagued with bouts of controversy regarding Sony's own "Sony-Marvel Cinematic Universe" and whether it's in-continuity with the bigger MCU (basically, I think that it's going to be headlined by other Spider-Man bigshots like Venom and Black Cat, while Spider-Man himself will remain off-screen and it can kinda pass off as being part of the MCU? Something like that?), but let's talk about this movie itself. 

Spider-Man is a superhero that holds a special place in my heart. Tobey Maguire's geeky portrayal of Peter Parker was iconic as he swung through the skylines of New York City back in 2002, revitalizing the concept of a serious-but-fun superhero movie alongside 2000's X-Men. Spider-Man struck a chord with many kids all over the world because he's, well, a kid who's given great power and thus have to learn to use them responsibly. He's not a billionaire genius, he's not an demi-goddess, he's not the god of thunder, he's not the last survivor of a dead world. Hell, he's not even old enough to drive! While Andrew Garfields' Amazing Spider-Man series has been met with rather unfair controversy (the movies, while not amazing, were not terrible at all), Tom Holland's more youthful version seen in Civil War was met with relatively unanimous praise. He's a lot younger than either of Garfields or Maguire's Spider-Men, and he marries various aspects of both portrayals that make them likable, being a hero of the small people, having to balance school life and superheroing, trying to prove that he is good (to Tony Stark if not the New York public this time around)... Spider-Man as a superhero in general has always been one that stuck close to the ground -- not just in-universe, but also out there. He's a character arhcetype that is supposed to strike a chord with the younger members of the audience who's also struggling with school and dating and internships and being a geek.

I suppose there's a fair bit of meta-commentary too, where Tom Holland's Spider-Man constantly being compared with his two predecessors would make the creators be as neutoric as, like Peter in this movie, every single action, every single casting call, is met with huge scrutiny and comparison by the fanbase.

But here we have it, in 2017, nearly a decade after Iron Man launched the Marvel Cinematic Universe... a Spider-Man movie set in the MCU. And is it everything you'd hope it would be? Yes and no. Like this year's earlier Wonder Woman, it's a very solid origin story, an entertaining movie through and through, has a great character arc for the protagonist... but doesn't really deviate much from the general superhero movie formula. Which, in my opinion, is perfectly fine!

We start the movie a brief recap of the events of Civil War from Spider-Man's point of view, where he records his manic experiences with the long-suffering Happy Hogan, featuring some neat cameos from the scenes in that movie, and the sheer thrill that he's finally part of the Avengers, holy shit, he stole Captain America's shield and everything! And then he's returned back into New York and he's just... chomping at the bit to do something bigger. Peter Parker's story here is one of soul-searching, as he searches for a bigger meaning and a bigger role in life, as he tries to get out of his father figure's (well, Tony Stark is more jerk-ass mentor/big brother than father, but the comparisons are made) omnipresent watch and try to solve things by himself.

The origin story is briefly glossed by, with the radioactive spider bite mentioned in passing and Uncle Ben's death alluded to but not spoken out loud, and, well, it focuses more on Peter's journey to try and prove that he is better than the kid in underoos that Tony Stark thinks he is. The movie alternates between three or four sub-plots that is masterfully intermarried together in the final act: there is Spider-Man trying to work through his now super-advanced suit's capabilities; there is the school stuff where Peter's superheroics causes him to bail out on his friends all the time; there is the Vulture's own story; and there's Happy being a dick. It's amazing how all the sub-plots end up being interconnected with each other in the end -- Peter's otherwise-irrelevant high school girlfriend turns out to be Vulture's daughter, and that ride in the car as Vulture starts to piece together that Peter is Spider-Man is tense as all hell. And it's a plot twist that was foreshadowed but I certainly didn't see coming. The plot twist that the big moving job that Happy keeps talking about is actually the thing that Vulture wants but keeps resisting to raid up until the final climax is less subtle, but also well done. 

I feel that without this intermingling of superheroics and civilian life -- Peter using the Decathlon trip to Washington D.C. to fool Happy's supervision in order to investigate the Vulture; Liz being Vulture's daughter; Ned hacking into the spider-suit to unlock its full potential -- the movie would be a lot more annoying. The school life stuff is a double-edged sword. Put in too little of it, and you'll suffer from the 'overstuffed and lifeless' complaints that Amazing Spider-Man and Spider-Man 3 suffered from. Put too much of it and you're wondering why the fuck is this marketed as a superhero movie and not a teen comedy. And while the cast of the teachers and school classmates do try their best, the school stuff tend to be relatively weaker in my opinion -- although seeing the cringe-worthy 'oh man, Peter has to bail on his friends in this super-important-socially party' is definitely a clasic Spider-Man moment. 

Tom Holland's portrayal is amazingly youthful -- the man's 21, but his generally more boyish and tinier look than the previous two actors who played the web-slinger means that you totally buy that he's not legal to drive yet. It does help that the other characters he interacts with -- Tony Stark, Happy Hogan and Vulture -- are all so much older than him, making all the 'kid' and 'boy' insults make a fair amount of sense.

Tony Stark is the main MCU representative in the movie, although Vulture's whole motivation was partly caused by scavenging all those funky alien and hydra weaponry. Tony acts as Peter's distant mentor, putting a 'training wheel protocol' on Peter's spider-suit and forcing Happy to keep a constant watch over Peter. There are some great lines in the movie that really show how much Tony's progressed since 2008 -- "if you're nothing without the suit, you don't deserve it" is a great callback to the original three Iron Man movies and "I want you to be better" is also a neat bit to the fuck-ups Tony has done throughout Age of Ultron and Civil War. His overprotectiveness over Peter, thanks to involving him in a superhero-beat-up in Civil War, while not made explicit, is also seen here where the man's so scared that Peter's dead -- Tony really feels like an angry father in the scene after the boat. There is significant comparison that Tony does to his own distant father, and it's clear that Tony sees Peter as more than just an intern as he swoops down to rescue Peter twice in this movie -- during his first encounter with the Vulture and in the boat scene -- but thankfully doesn't show up for the climax. Tony's role as a sponsor and a mentor is definitely done well, and I did like him very much respecting Peter's wish at the end and pretending that, yeah, sure, totally a test. 

Happy is hit with a dose of adaptational jackassery in this movie, although his loyalty has always been to Tony so seeing him as this dick who just refuses to give Peter the time of the day is something I can buy. There is significantly more Happy than I thought it would be in the movie. Happy's role is a lot simpler, and probably more antagonistic than peole expected, but eh. 

A good majority of the movie thankfully just focues on Peter Parker -- Tony and Happy are a constant shadow, but doesn't intrude in the movie at all. A good chunk of it is just Peter's journey with his 'friend in the chair' Ned, who's an excitable geek stand-in for the audience. He geeks out over Spider-Man, he does double duty as dude-in-distress, geeky friend and, well, 'dude-in-the-chair'. He's... mildly irritating, but not the worst supporting character I've ever seen. I'm a bigger fan of Karen (K.A.R.E.N.?) the Suit Lady, Peter's own personal Jarvis, who gets unlocked by Ned halfway throughout the movie. I'm a big fan of Karen just trying to give Peter so many options which his suit can do. It's a great power up on Spider-Man's capabilities, with its technological spy enhancement, drone buddy and other capabilities helping to be a more technologically-inclined adaptation of Peter's classic Spider-Sense. The fact that the suit also helps Peter to better control his webbings -- web grenades, web barrage and all sorts of cool gimmicks -- is definitely also welcome... but no moment made me squee harder than when he spreads his web wingsuit.

I can't believe I went this far without talking about the Vulture. The MCU has had its share of boring, flat villains in recent movies -- Kaecillius, Ronan, Whiplash and Malekith being the biggest offenders -- but they went an extra mile with the Vulture. Vulture is played by the original cinematic Batman himself, Michael Keaton, and boy, it's definitely well-done. The fact that the first scene shows Adrian Toomes being screwed over by big corporations -- Stark Industries itself -- is definitely a great mood-setter. Toomes is someone who put everything he has into this new project to salvage the Chitauri technology in New York, only for Stark to take over. And, yes, tony's plans is probably to keep the technology out of dangerous hands but at the same time, it did screw over Toomes. And since then, Adrian Toomes has been working under the radar as a black market seller of powerful weapons. It's a great concept, one that's not exactly fresh but always nice to see. He operates under the radar so he's nowhere as flashy as your Mandarins and Winter Soldiers, but equipped with a small crew with anti-gravity guns and electrical gauntlets and Toomes's own vulture suit (which looks fucking awesome and puts Falcon's bird suit to shame) they run a decent operation.

Of course, this is where Spider-Man finds himself in. You can definitely sympathize with Vulture's motivations and unlike most villains who are just evil for evil's sake, Vulture's motivation -- to build a comfortable life for his family -- is very much understandable. He also operates relatively under the radar especially early on in the movie, berating his troops for shooting weapons in the public, and refuses to do what his buddy Mason (a.k.a. Spider-Man villain Tinkerer) keeps telling him to do. But as Spider-Man encounters the guns on the streets, and starts to investigate the operation, things start to unravel. Toomes's crewmates start to walk out or rebel and Toomes keeps trying to keep things together. Deals are foiled, robbery attempts are foiled, his crewmates are captured or deserted, and he keeps promising his wife that this is going to be 'the last one'. There's no denying that Vulture selling weapons of destruction down to random street thugs is evil, but when you get to see him at home, being a good loving father to Liz (that was still a surprising scene) it's hard not to feel for him. The fact that he's played by Michael Keaton definitely helps.

The two Shockers (the first doesn't really matter) and Tinkerer don't actually do much, which is exactly fine. Shocker has enough scenes acting as Toomes's main muscle, while Tinkerer's main role is just, well, to tinker. After several other Spider-Man movies overloaded with villains who struggle against each other to get adequate screentime, it's definitely the right move to pick one and stick with it. We also get a brief cameo by Mac Gargan (a.k.a. the Scorpion) as a random criminal that tries to buy Vulture's technology before he gets dumped into the ocean, but he doesn't do much either while still being memorable enough to work as the mid-season stinger for what I presume is going to be a Sinister Six themed sequel. I'm only superficially familiar with Spider-Man villains, but I think they did a relatively good job with all that's involved here. 

The action scenes were okay. The fight at the bank felt off, but Vulture and Spider-Man's fights on the plane and on Vulture's base are neat to look at, and while we don't actually see Iron Man and Spider-Man team up against a villain, Iron Man did show up with a new suit to help hold the boat together.

There were some weaker moments, certainly -- I thought both Liz and Michelle, while decently acted, were very flat characters who are 'flat love interest' and 'other girl' respectively. The transformation of Flash Thompson from being a physical bully to a general academic/social rival douchebag is a bizarre one but ends up not mattering in the long run, and there's a bit more Ned than I thought there would be. Generally a lot of the school stuff just barely worked for me, though that might be personal preference -- I certainly see a lot of praises for Peter's high school life scenes, so if that's what it takes to make more of this, then okay, why not?

Overall, it's a great superhero movie. It doesn't do anything particularly new, and there were some weaker moments in Peter's civilian life scenes, but Peter, Tony and Vulture are all well-acted and well-scripted, making the movie definitely pretty enjoyable.

Marvel Easter Eggs Corner:

• MCU continuity nods:
• The opening scene with Toomes and the giant Chitauri ships and guns, obviously, take place after the Avengers.
• Various weaponry, including Chitauri guns, a lesser Ultron's pulse-hand cannons, a lesser Ultron's head, Iron Man arc reactors, Crossbones's gauntlets and a couple of older Iron Man suits, are seen at various points as plot devices that Vulture and Spider-Man fight over.
• The Avengers Tower is officially abandoned and the team moves to the 'facility up North', which was seen in Age of Ultron and Civil War. Happy and Tony also mentions that Vision has a room there, which we saw in Civil War. 
• Events directly prior to Spider-Man joining the fight in the climactic battle of Civil War is seen from Peter's perspective, inlcuding the 'Underoos' scene and Ant-Man growing into Giant-Man. The actual airport battle is also shown later on in a Youtube video Peter watches in class.
• The Sokovia Accords from Civil War is taught in Peter's class. There was also a brief comment about how Captain America is technically a war criminal from Peter's coach.
• Pepper Potts and Happy Hogan, both being absent since Iron Man 3, make a return. Pepper and Tony apparently have made up after their off-screen breakup in Civil War. 
• Happy's note that he's been saving the engagement ring since 2008 is a callback to the year Iron Man was released, directed by Happy's actor, Jon Favreau. 
• Principal Morita's office has a photograph of his grandfather, Jim Morita, who was one of Captain America's soldiers in Captain America: The First Avenger. Both Moritas are, of course, played by the same actor. 
• The Damage Control company appeared all the way back in Iron Man, and was credited for fixing the fallout from the Iron Man/Iron Monger battle.
• The opening Marvel logo is heralded with an epic orchestral remix of the old cartoon Spider-Man theme song. 
• Tony calls Peter a "friendly neighbourhood Spider-Man" several times throughout the movie, which, of course, is a moniker his comic-book counterparrt often uses. 
• In one of Peter's classes, there is a lot of pictures of important scientists. Among them are Bruce Banner, Howard Stark and dr. Abraham Erskine. 
• Stan Lee has a cameo, of course, as a random New York resident. Also having a cameo is Captain America as part of videos used in detention and gym class.
• The bank burglars with Avenger masks have masks based not on the movie versions of the characters, but the Silver Age versions of the characters -- most notably seen on Thor, who sports a Viking beard in the MCU and is clean-shaven in the comics.
• Iron Man's armour, while looking similar to the rest of his armours before, has a more silver paintjob based on Ultimate Iron Man. 
• Thor's belt of strength is called Megingjord, if any of you are curious. I know I was.
• Peter's 'homemade' Spider-Man suit is based on Ben Reilly's Scarlet Spider suit, complete with hoodie, except with the colours reversed. This homemade version was briefly seen in Civil War in blurred Youtube video shots. 
• Iron Man giving Spider-Man a super-advanced spider-suit brings to mind the Iron Spider Armour from the comics, which is one of the bigger plot points of the comic book version of Civil War. The following scene with Tony introducing Peter to journalists is also similar to his public unmasking in that comic.
• Karen telling an upside-down Spider-Man to 'kiss her' is most likely a reference to the iconic upside-down kiss in the 2003 Spider-Man movie, whereas Spider-Man saving Liz from falling down the elevator shaft is framed similarly to Gwen Stacy's death in Amazing Spider-Man 2. 
• Aaron Davis notes how he's worried for powerful weaponry being fired in the neighbourhood where his nephew lives. Aaron Davis, in the comics, is the identity of the superhero Prowler (which is apparently shown in Karen's database as his criminal nickname), whereas his nephew is Miles Morales, otherwise known as the second Spider-Man.
• Mac Gargan has a scorpion tattoo on his neck, alluding to his comic-book alter ego, the supervillain Scorpion. He also alludes to other villains colluding together to take down Spider-Man, which is a reference to the Sinister Six team, a group of Spider-Man villains that band together to take down the Spider. 
• Jackson Brice (a.k.a. Montana in the comics) is the first Shocker that gets killed by the Vulture. In the Spectacular Spider-Man cartoon, he donned the Shocker mantle, though in nearly every other adaptation of Spider-Man, Herman Schutlz is the Shocker.