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‘Spider-Man: Homecoming’ Mixes Things Up & Spins A Fresh, New Web of Tales (Movie Review)

I think I’m one of the few people in the world who liked the third Sam Raimi Spider-Man film and you better believe it that I was bummed when the fourth in the series was nixed.  However, I did also adore Andrew Garfield as the next incarnation of Spider-Man and had high hopes for how they could pull off a Sinister Six film.  Sadly both of these projects also fell by the wayside too.  While I have nothing against Tom Holland as the rebooted Spidey I just don’t like how he was shoehorned into the Civil War storyline sans backstory or anything of the sort.  What made it worse for me was his Spidey suit is completely Stark tech.  While I never really believed a high school student could make such a cool superhero costume I am just not enamored by the fact that minus the web shooters its all Stark’s creation.  So now that I have all that off my chest it’s time to digress because like it or not we have the start of yet another Spider-Man franchise dubbed Spider-Man: Homecoming.  The only difference is this time our Spidey lives in the heart of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU).  Let’s talk more.

I’ll spare you with all the Sony/Marvel Studios relationship mumbo jumbo of how this milestone came to be.  Do you really care about how they reached an agreement?  I don’t.  All I care about is whether or not it all makes sense and of course is it any good.  So if you’re keeping count Spider-Man: Homecoming is now the sixteenth film of the MCU.  Wow, huh?  The film is directed by Jon Watts, off a screenplay by the writing teams of Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley, Watts and Christopher Ford and Chris McKenna and Erik Sommers.  Wow again!  That’s a hell of a lot of writers.  That makes me feel uneasy “write” there.  Ha ha.  Anyway, our superhero movie here stars Tom Holland, Michael Keaton, Jon Favreau, Donald Glover, Tyne Daly, Logan Marshall-Green, Marisa Tomei and Robert Downey Jr.  In a nutshell Spider-Man: Homecoming is about Peter Parker (Holland) trying to balance the awkwardness of high school life with being the superhero Spider-Man as he faces our villain in the outing, the Vulture (Keaton).

Spider-Man: Homecoming takes place two months after the events in my favorite Marvel film (yawn), Captain America: Civil War.  I’m sorry, but I just don’t know what it is.  After the magic of two Guardians of the Galaxy movies I’m spoiled by all the fun you can have outside of planet Earth.  I will say this though that I had a hoot with last year’s Doctor Strange and looking froward to the new Thor outing this year, but I digress.  So like I was saying there’s this nerdy lad Peter Parker.  He has a powerful mentor/friend in Iron Man, Tony Stark.  However, he’s still really a boy.  The conundrum of the matter is he’s in high school and what a bummer it must be to be a dweeb with superhuman powers, which you can’t tell anybody about.  So needless to say he struggles walking that fine line of  being an ordinary, geeky high school student in Queens, New York City while fighting petty crime as his superhero alter ego Spider-Man.  It doesn’t help matters either that a new threat has emerged out there, also known as the Vulture in comics lore.  Tony doesn’t want Peter causing any problems so he does that terrible thing we all saw in the trailers.  He takes away Peter’s tech heavy Spidey suit.  This is obviously the part where we sound the horns for the um…coming of age lesson/story that follows.

All in all, I had an absolute blast with this new incarnation and take on our friendly neighborhood Spider-Man.  I can’t believe I am saying this too as the various theatrical trailers did absolutely nothing for me.  I guess it’s like they always say don’t judge a movie by its trailer or is that a book by its cover?  Oh well it doesn’t matter.  What matters is how they playfully mix things up in the familiar Spider-Man lore we all know and love and ultimately how fresh it all feels.  I don’t mean that in a Fresh Prince of Belair kind of way, but instead I’m referring to how they ingeniously recycled familiar plot points and brought them into the modern day world we all currently inhabit.  In other words there’s a lot less white people in this one compared to the previous entries with the The Amazing Spider-Man 2 being the exception to that rule with Mr. Blue Balls.  All the Tony Stark enhancements and tech parts of the new 1.5 million dollar suit, which I initially thought I would hate the most going in are the parts I ironically adored the hell out of.  It was all baked into the fun and games section of the screenplay and it’s with those moments that you’re afforded to have an absolute blast with.

Last but not least let’s talk characters.  I never had anything against Tom Holland going in.  I just did not care for Civil War.  However, let me say this now and get this off my chest.  Tom Holland made the perfect Peter Parker from his geeky actions and words all the way down to his spectacular non-verbal cues and facial expressions.  He just owned it and I couldn’t be prouder of him.  His high school sidekick Ned (Jacob Batalon) was a laugh riot as well.  Much to my surprise even one of my favorites, Logan Marshall-Green, played a hand in rounding out the villainous team led by the always effective veteran actor, Michael Keaton (formerly known as Batman).  Having Robert Downey Jr. and Jon Favreau reprising their roles respectfully was just icing on the cake.  What really made me giggle inside with glee like the little geek boy I am were all the cameos and surprises.  I won’t ruin them here, but boy oh boy are they so much fun.  So yeah I take back every ill word I said about Spider-Man: Homecoming and its trailers.  I had a lot of F-U-N with it.  I adore the way they mixed things up, surprised us with rich MCU cameos and delivered one clever twist I somehow never saw coming.  This may be one of my most favorite MCU films yet behind the Guardians series.  Sadly though it doesn’t make me like Civil War anymore than I did going in.  Ha ha.  You can’t always have your cake and eat it too.

Spider-Man: Homecoming officially opens everywhere nationwide on July 7th.  There are two post credit scenes, one during and one afterwards.  However, the credits in themselves are quite entertaining too.  So my priceless advice to you is to swing on into theaters next week and definitely check it out!

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