The latest product from the Marvel Studios factory is Spider-Man: Homecoming, a co-production
with Columbia Pictures, that company making less an admission of failure and
more a signal of strong showbiz jealousies. The Sony subsidiary hasn’t been
able to make a Spider-Man feature as good as Sam Raimi’s since letting him go,
but surely the powers that be were only interested in loosening the reins on
their rights to the character when they saw the consistent huge grosses and
quality control over at the Marvel Cinematic Universe. They didn’t want to do
right by the character so much as do right by their producers and stockholders.
Still, the result is precisely what you’d hope and expect from bringing in the
people who brought us the whole Avengers product
line. It’s brightly lit and full of good-humored banter, features a great cast
of familiar faces playing colorful characters, and stops every so often for a
dazzlement of colorful CG. Though the formula’s getting tired, this new entry
manages a high degree of charm and fast-paced entertainment (and even a few
genuine surprises). In addition to the predictable polish and routine beats of
a Marvel plot machine, this widget has a sweetness and an energy that makes it
slightly better than average. It’s good fun.
Picking up during the events of last year’s Captain America: Civil War, where this
new interpretation of Spidey was first introduced recruited by Iron Man to be a
potential second-string Avenger, Homecoming
finds Peter Parker (Tom Holland) initially excited to be one of the gang.
(This movie’s biggest uphill climb is having to bounce its continuity out of
what was easily the MCU’s worst movie, a dull grey 147-minute slog.) Alas, his dreams will not be coming true any time
soon. Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) gifts him a souped-up supersuit and tells
him to stick to being a friendly neighborhood Spider-Man. The boy’s just
fifteen, after all. There’ll be plenty of time to be a real hero when he’s
older. This leaves the kid antsy and eager to prove himself, and allows the
movie to stretch out with what’s always best about Spidey’s appeal: his
average, every day, everyman problems. He has homework, an extracurricular
academic challenge team, a cheerfully nerdy best friend (Jacob Batalon), an
unrequited crush (Laura Harrier), a bully (Tony Revolori), a sweet prickly
teammate (Zendaya), and a kind aunt (Marisa Tomei). He has a lot on his plate,
plus the whole sneaking out every evening to patrol the streets, swinging from
buildings to stop bike thieves and ATM bandits.
Writer-director Jon Watts (of the small, tense, kids-in-over-their-heads
thriller Cop Car) and his five
co-writers understand the inherent charm of Spider-Man. They make him a
relatable stressed-out teenager, just trying to fit in and do well at school
while testing his powers. (They’re great, after all, and so, too, are his
responsibilities.) With a bounce in its step, the movie makes like its hero and
juggles the demands placed upon it quite skillfully. It weaves itself into the
fabric of the MCU with better deftness than some of its inferiors, rooting its
villain (The Vulture, played by Batman and Birdman himself, Michael Keaton)
motivation in the aftermath of The
Avengers. One of the more memorable villains in this mega-franchise, his
backstory has him with a contract to clean up the damage from the alien battle,
a lucrative deal that gets pulled when SHIELD classifies the high-tech debris.
Now he’s flying in a makeshift jet-propelled wingspan, making his money on the
black market, smuggling gadgets stolen from the various film’s climactic
calamities (Winter Soldier’s D.C.
craters, Ultron’s rattled fictional
city, and so on). He and Peter – little guys hoping to make big marks – both have
struggles proving themselves in this new outsized ecosphere of heroes and
villains, which gives their clash a little charge. Keaton’s world-weariness
plays nicely against Holland’s adorably boyish happy-to-be-here excitement,
making for a compelling conflict.
Because the bad guy’s a local low-level troublemaker, he
first shows up on Peter’s radar. Since the boy has trouble convincing Stark’s
assistant (Jon Favreau) to take his calls, he feels obligated to put a stop to the
mystery man’s bad deeds as he continually crosses paths with the evil plot. All
this and the big dance, too. There’s the usual roster of fun character actors
popping up to give the zippy plot some added wit and texture (Donald Glover, Bokeem Woodbine,
Hannibal Buress, Angourie Rice, Martin Starr, and Michael Mando among the
pleasant surprises popping up in tiny roles). They keep things pleasant and
crackling with an agreeable comic charge between big splashy two-page spreads
of action – leaping between buildings and off monuments, tussling with henchmen
and saving civilians – that make for the usual superhero shenanigans. These are
all suitably loud and explosive, but also swing with Spidey’s nimble
acrobatics. Watts has managed to make a movie sparkling with enough fun and invention
that its small piece pumps some life back to the larger franchise puzzle. It
simply feels good to spend two hours with a character whose biggest conflict is
wanting to contribute more positive impact in the world than he can manage.
It’s easy to root for him.
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