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Update: July 6, 2017
Dragonlord's Review of SPIDER-MAN: HOMECOMING (No Spoilers)
Bottom Line: Perfectly captures Peter Parker's quintessential high school life, Spider-Man: Homecoming is fresh, funny, and boatloads of fun. Welcome home, Spidey.
After the disappointing critical and box office performance of Amazing Spider-Man 2, the franchise was headed for a disaster. Sony Pictures didn't have a clue what to do next. They were already planning a soft reboot of Spider-Man in a Sinister Six movie, which they did a poor job of selling and which no one wanted to see. Sony was also considering an all-female Spider-Man characters spinoff and even an Aunt May solo movie. Ay yai yai.
Sony was NEVER going to let go of the Spider-Man movie rights and they would have just continued to reboot it with most likely catastrophic results. Then, Marvel Studios came to the rescue. They offered to make Spider-Man movies for Sony (Sony will keep the movie rights and profits). In exchange, Spider-Man will finally appear in the Marvel Cinematic Universe where he belongs.
Spider-Man's soft introduction in last year's Captain America: Civil War was a smashing success. Audience loved the character's youthful, infectious exuberance and hyper-kinetic action. Thinking that this moment wouldn't come, fans finally got to see the Web-Slinger interact and battle various iconic MCU characters. The next obstacle is would the audience accept another reboot solo movie of the Wall-Crawler? Homecoming casts all those doubts away because this one is a winner.
Marvel Studios did everything right with Homecoming. They forwent with the origin story, Uncle Ben wasn't even mentioned once at all. They focused on Peter Parker's high school life and not just a glance or dabble but really went all out from start to end. Not a peep about Norman Osborn, Harry Osborn or Gwen Stacy which was smart since they're all played out from the last two installments.
Star Tom Holland makes a very strong case to being the best Peter Parker of all three movie iterations. Tobey Maguire's Peter Parker was a bit sheepish, a bit mopey but all around great. Andrew Garfield was decent but the angry emo schtick got old real quick. Holland's performance is just dynamite, full of energy, innocence, charm and high-spiritedness but also excels in some heavy drama when need be.
Continuing his role from Civil War, Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) continues to play the mentor to Peter and it's a good fit for Stark as he and Peter have a good dynamic going on. For those fearing that Iron Man would overwhelm Spider-Man in his own movie, you can rest easy, Stark only appears in a few scenes. Good job by Jon Favreau as a grumpy Happy Hogan and Peter's liaison to Stark.
Michael Keaton was thoroughly enjoyable as the main villain Adrian Toomes a.k.a. The Vulture. Keaton just enhances every scene he is in on the film and his Vulture was a formidable physical threat. The Vulture could have been one of the best MCU villains if they just pushed the boundaries a bit more but they held back, opting to give him a more humane side to his character. Toomes' blue-collar backstory was also enjoyable and a nice change from the standard villain wanting to rule or destroy the world.
Marisa Tomei's Aunt May doesn't have much to do in the film, which is another smart move by Marvel since they don't want the film to be bogged down by unnecessary (and potentially downer) subplots. Just keep it light and breezy. Marisa still looks gorgeous and sexy even at 52.
What's a high school movie without a bunch of colorful characters surrounding the main character. Ned (Jacob Batalon) is Peter's best friend and is just an all-around fantastic sidekick. He matches Peter in nerdiness and enthusiasm, and his conversations with him are hilarious. Although he isn't the cliche jock bully the character is mostly associated with, Flash (Tony Revolori) was very effective in playing Peter's school nemesis. Michelle (Zendaya) is the amusing, snarky oddball who keeps on popping up unexpectedly.
What's impressive about Marvel Studios' offerings is most of their movies have different genres spliced into them. Captain America: The Winter Soldier was an espionage action thriller. Ant-Man was a heist comedy. Doctor Strange was a supernatural actioner. Guardians of the Galaxy was a space hi-jinx adventure. And now, a teen coming-of-age high school movie from Spider-Man: Homecoming.
Co-writer and director Jon Watts superbly captures the essence of the 80s John Hughes movies as well as some of the 90s teen flicks like Can't Hardly Wait. It's to their credits that even if you remove the superhero aspects from the film, Homecoming would still be as entertaining and enjoyable just as a standalone high school movie. There were even moments in the film where I thought the superhero main plot was a killjoy as I wanted to see what happens next in Peter's personal life.
The action is fast and frenetic but a bit clumsy which makes sense since Spider-Man is still a newbie in crimefighting. The costume looks good except it could use some more accentuation on the black lines because there are times it looked like CGI even when it's an actual person on a suit.
One thing I am not too keen about the Spider-Man suit is it’s too hi-tech. There's even an A.I. (voiced by Jennifer Connelly) that greatly assists Spider-Man in everything he does. First of all, the talking A.I. is Iron Man's schtick. Second, a great part of Spider-Man's charm is his ability to tackle problems with his ingenuity. So having a supercomputer telling Spidey the answers to everything takes away some of the fun. These are just minor quibbles I have and doesn't really affect the quality of the film.
Disappointed with Michael Giacchino's main theme for Spider-Man. It was decent but not overly memorable. At times it teased the theme song for the 1967 Spider-Man cartoon show ("Spider-Man, Spider-Man, Does whatever a spider can") but never fully commits to it during the movie.
I've always said that it was a mistake for the first Spider-Man movie (2002) to let Peter graduate high school midway through the film and felt that they should have spent at least two movies exploiting his senior high years. Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige agrees as the next two Homecoming sequels will still be set in high school. This really shows Feige truly understands the essence of the character and shows his maturity by not rushing the character's growth. Now let's hope Sony doesn't screw this up.
Overall, Spider-Man: Homecoming is fantastic, fresh, funny, and boatloads of fun, and the best Spider-Man movie since Spider-Man 2. Stick around for two post-credits scenes. Welcome home, Spidey.
The funny opening video blog sets the right tone for the movie. It was also cool seeing Peter’s behind-the-scenes journey to Civil War. They immediately followed it up with a quick but very informative glimpse at Peter’s high school life. Didn’t notice it until later but I was smiling throughout the whole two segments.
A lot of people will have a problem with Flash being latino and/or being short and smart. Rather than rehash the big, sports jock bully archetype, I think it’s a fresh take on the character who has appeared twice in both movie iterations and nothing came out of it. By making the character smart, Flash’s frequent interactions with Peter would seem normal since they run around in the same circle at school.
There’s something very cool with the way they depicted the Vulture and the way his crew revere/fear him. When his crew got into some trouble, they’re hesitant to call and annoy him but they do because they know he can bail them out. It’s also pretty cool to see the Vulture when he’s in heist mode, especially when he detaches himself from the suit.
There was a little Sinister Six vibe going on with the Vulture’s crew. You have the Vulture, Tinkerer (Michael Chernus) and two Shockers.
A lot of people thought that Vulture would make for a lame villain. I’ve always disagreed with that statement and said many times that if they just upgraded his look and suit, he would be a fearsome villain. And I was right. Love that Vulture’s wings also act as appendages for his arms and that the metal feather tips are like scissor blades.
Donald Glover plays a small-time criminal named Aaron Davis. In the comics, Davis is also known as the Prowler. In the Ultimate Comics Universe, the Prowler is Miles Morales' uncle. In the movie, Aaron mentioned he has a nephew. It's a nice Easter Egg teasing Miles Morales in the MCU.
Nice touch on Peter having a fear of heights during the Washington Monument scene.
The plot twist of the Vulture being Liz Allen’s dad was a pleasant surprise. I did not see it coming and I’m glad that I didn’t read any spoilers about it. The kitchen scene that followed was pretty tense and Peter’s facial expression being flooded with all kinds of emotions was well done.
Peter freaking out and crying after being buried underneath concrete rubble was a great scene. It reminded us that underneath it all, he’s still a kid. Then there was the hero moment when Peter musters up all strength to free himself from the rubble. Comic book fans will instantly recognize this as a homage to one of the character’s iconic feats (The Amazing Spider-Man #33). It’s a good scene but I wish the Vulture threatened to visit Aunt May and that would have been the primary motivation for Spidey to free himself.
Peter losing to the Vulture in their ending battle was unconventional but a nice spin from the standard hero overcoming the odds to win the day trope. And keeping the Vulture alive at the end was smart as they’re thinking long-term as opposed to Sam Raimi’s trilogy where they’re killing iconic villains left and right.
Zendaya, who plays Michelle Jones, reveals at the very end that her friends call her "M.J." At first I thought Michelle is Mary Jane but it could be a different character altogether. The question now is will Mary Jane Watson still show up in the future or is Michelle taking her place as Peter’s love interest.
Michelle seemed very observant, which makes me think that she secretly knows Peter is Spider-Man.
Michael Mando (Nacho in Better Call Saul) is playing a thug named Mac Gargan. In the comics, Gargan is the Scorpion. At the first post-credits scene, Gargan says to Toomes that he has friends on the outside, possibly alluding the coming of Sinister Six.
When Gargan asks Toomes if he knows the identity of Spider-Man, Toomes lies and denies it. Could this be the start of a redemption arc for Toomes or he just wants to get his revenge all to himself.
It’s revealed that Homecoming takes place 8 years after the events of the first Avengers movie. Since Avengers takes place in 2012, Homecoming would be around 2020. This contradicts with what happened in Captain America: Civil War which took place in 2016. In Homecoming, only a few months have passed after the events of Civil War. All of this is a non-issue if they just said that Homecoming takes place 5 years after the first Avenger movie.
Aunt May finding out about Peter is Spider-Man and screaming, “What the Fu…!” was a great ending. I wholeheartedly approve of the idea of May learning Peter’s secret since it will provide some compelling interactions and a deeper connection between the two of them in the sequels.
Peter’s Spider-Sense seems to be non-existent in this film. Kevin Feige says it’s still there but done more internally, like an instinct or second nature to Peter. This might sound blasphemous, especially coming from a huge Spider-Man fan, but I am okay with the Spider-Sense gone. In a movie or TV setting, it’s kinda’ hard to find some justifications why he keeps on getting tagged if he had Spider-Sense (this would be similar to why smart fans complain why The Flash keeps getting hit when he’s moving at super speed). And since you don’t want your hero to be untouchable with the villains unable to even make physical contact with him, it’s understandable if they’re trying to tone down his Spider-Sense.
I love that Peter turned down being an Avenger. For comic book fans like me who think the 1960s to 1980s series were the best years of the character, the idea of him being an Avenger wasn’t as appealing. He works best as a solo crimefighter that gets to interact and team-up with various Marvel teams from time to time. If he is an Avenger, it sort of signifies that he has finally made it, his financial troubles are over, the public will adore him and no longer think he is a menace, law enforcement will no longer try to arrest him. Part of the charm of the Spider-Man’s mythos is that he is a constant loser, for every battle he wins, he loses at home, at school, at his job, or at his love life. But despite all these struggles, he perseveres and that’s why he is a hero.
RATING: 8.5/10
Link to previous thread: http://forums.sherdog.com/posts/131523619/
Dragonlord's Review of SPIDER-MAN: HOMECOMING (No Spoilers)
Bottom Line: Perfectly captures Peter Parker's quintessential high school life, Spider-Man: Homecoming is fresh, funny, and boatloads of fun. Welcome home, Spidey.
After the disappointing critical and box office performance of Amazing Spider-Man 2, the franchise was headed for a disaster. Sony Pictures didn't have a clue what to do next. They were already planning a soft reboot of Spider-Man in a Sinister Six movie, which they did a poor job of selling and which no one wanted to see. Sony was also considering an all-female Spider-Man characters spinoff and even an Aunt May solo movie. Ay yai yai.
Sony was NEVER going to let go of the Spider-Man movie rights and they would have just continued to reboot it with most likely catastrophic results. Then, Marvel Studios came to the rescue. They offered to make Spider-Man movies for Sony (Sony will keep the movie rights and profits). In exchange, Spider-Man will finally appear in the Marvel Cinematic Universe where he belongs.
Spider-Man's soft introduction in last year's Captain America: Civil War was a smashing success. Audience loved the character's youthful, infectious exuberance and hyper-kinetic action. Thinking that this moment wouldn't come, fans finally got to see the Web-Slinger interact and battle various iconic MCU characters. The next obstacle is would the audience accept another reboot solo movie of the Wall-Crawler? Homecoming casts all those doubts away because this one is a winner.
Marvel Studios did everything right with Homecoming. They forwent with the origin story, Uncle Ben wasn't even mentioned once at all. They focused on Peter Parker's high school life and not just a glance or dabble but really went all out from start to end. Not a peep about Norman Osborn, Harry Osborn or Gwen Stacy which was smart since they're all played out from the last two installments.
Star Tom Holland makes a very strong case to being the best Peter Parker of all three movie iterations. Tobey Maguire's Peter Parker was a bit sheepish, a bit mopey but all around great. Andrew Garfield was decent but the angry emo schtick got old real quick. Holland's performance is just dynamite, full of energy, innocence, charm and high-spiritedness but also excels in some heavy drama when need be.
Continuing his role from Civil War, Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) continues to play the mentor to Peter and it's a good fit for Stark as he and Peter have a good dynamic going on. For those fearing that Iron Man would overwhelm Spider-Man in his own movie, you can rest easy, Stark only appears in a few scenes. Good job by Jon Favreau as a grumpy Happy Hogan and Peter's liaison to Stark.
Michael Keaton was thoroughly enjoyable as the main villain Adrian Toomes a.k.a. The Vulture. Keaton just enhances every scene he is in on the film and his Vulture was a formidable physical threat. The Vulture could have been one of the best MCU villains if they just pushed the boundaries a bit more but they held back, opting to give him a more humane side to his character. Toomes' blue-collar backstory was also enjoyable and a nice change from the standard villain wanting to rule or destroy the world.
Marisa Tomei's Aunt May doesn't have much to do in the film, which is another smart move by Marvel since they don't want the film to be bogged down by unnecessary (and potentially downer) subplots. Just keep it light and breezy. Marisa still looks gorgeous and sexy even at 52.
What's a high school movie without a bunch of colorful characters surrounding the main character. Ned (Jacob Batalon) is Peter's best friend and is just an all-around fantastic sidekick. He matches Peter in nerdiness and enthusiasm, and his conversations with him are hilarious. Although he isn't the cliche jock bully the character is mostly associated with, Flash (Tony Revolori) was very effective in playing Peter's school nemesis. Michelle (Zendaya) is the amusing, snarky oddball who keeps on popping up unexpectedly.
What's impressive about Marvel Studios' offerings is most of their movies have different genres spliced into them. Captain America: The Winter Soldier was an espionage action thriller. Ant-Man was a heist comedy. Doctor Strange was a supernatural actioner. Guardians of the Galaxy was a space hi-jinx adventure. And now, a teen coming-of-age high school movie from Spider-Man: Homecoming.
Co-writer and director Jon Watts superbly captures the essence of the 80s John Hughes movies as well as some of the 90s teen flicks like Can't Hardly Wait. It's to their credits that even if you remove the superhero aspects from the film, Homecoming would still be as entertaining and enjoyable just as a standalone high school movie. There were even moments in the film where I thought the superhero main plot was a killjoy as I wanted to see what happens next in Peter's personal life.
The action is fast and frenetic but a bit clumsy which makes sense since Spider-Man is still a newbie in crimefighting. The costume looks good except it could use some more accentuation on the black lines because there are times it looked like CGI even when it's an actual person on a suit.
One thing I am not too keen about the Spider-Man suit is it’s too hi-tech. There's even an A.I. (voiced by Jennifer Connelly) that greatly assists Spider-Man in everything he does. First of all, the talking A.I. is Iron Man's schtick. Second, a great part of Spider-Man's charm is his ability to tackle problems with his ingenuity. So having a supercomputer telling Spidey the answers to everything takes away some of the fun. These are just minor quibbles I have and doesn't really affect the quality of the film.
Disappointed with Michael Giacchino's main theme for Spider-Man. It was decent but not overly memorable. At times it teased the theme song for the 1967 Spider-Man cartoon show ("Spider-Man, Spider-Man, Does whatever a spider can") but never fully commits to it during the movie.
I've always said that it was a mistake for the first Spider-Man movie (2002) to let Peter graduate high school midway through the film and felt that they should have spent at least two movies exploiting his senior high years. Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige agrees as the next two Homecoming sequels will still be set in high school. This really shows Feige truly understands the essence of the character and shows his maturity by not rushing the character's growth. Now let's hope Sony doesn't screw this up.
Overall, Spider-Man: Homecoming is fantastic, fresh, funny, and boatloads of fun, and the best Spider-Man movie since Spider-Man 2. Stick around for two post-credits scenes. Welcome home, Spidey.
The funny opening video blog sets the right tone for the movie. It was also cool seeing Peter’s behind-the-scenes journey to Civil War. They immediately followed it up with a quick but very informative glimpse at Peter’s high school life. Didn’t notice it until later but I was smiling throughout the whole two segments.
A lot of people will have a problem with Flash being latino and/or being short and smart. Rather than rehash the big, sports jock bully archetype, I think it’s a fresh take on the character who has appeared twice in both movie iterations and nothing came out of it. By making the character smart, Flash’s frequent interactions with Peter would seem normal since they run around in the same circle at school.
There’s something very cool with the way they depicted the Vulture and the way his crew revere/fear him. When his crew got into some trouble, they’re hesitant to call and annoy him but they do because they know he can bail them out. It’s also pretty cool to see the Vulture when he’s in heist mode, especially when he detaches himself from the suit.
There was a little Sinister Six vibe going on with the Vulture’s crew. You have the Vulture, Tinkerer (Michael Chernus) and two Shockers.
A lot of people thought that Vulture would make for a lame villain. I’ve always disagreed with that statement and said many times that if they just upgraded his look and suit, he would be a fearsome villain. And I was right. Love that Vulture’s wings also act as appendages for his arms and that the metal feather tips are like scissor blades.
Donald Glover plays a small-time criminal named Aaron Davis. In the comics, Davis is also known as the Prowler. In the Ultimate Comics Universe, the Prowler is Miles Morales' uncle. In the movie, Aaron mentioned he has a nephew. It's a nice Easter Egg teasing Miles Morales in the MCU.
Nice touch on Peter having a fear of heights during the Washington Monument scene.
The plot twist of the Vulture being Liz Allen’s dad was a pleasant surprise. I did not see it coming and I’m glad that I didn’t read any spoilers about it. The kitchen scene that followed was pretty tense and Peter’s facial expression being flooded with all kinds of emotions was well done.
Peter freaking out and crying after being buried underneath concrete rubble was a great scene. It reminded us that underneath it all, he’s still a kid. Then there was the hero moment when Peter musters up all strength to free himself from the rubble. Comic book fans will instantly recognize this as a homage to one of the character’s iconic feats (The Amazing Spider-Man #33). It’s a good scene but I wish the Vulture threatened to visit Aunt May and that would have been the primary motivation for Spidey to free himself.
Peter losing to the Vulture in their ending battle was unconventional but a nice spin from the standard hero overcoming the odds to win the day trope. And keeping the Vulture alive at the end was smart as they’re thinking long-term as opposed to Sam Raimi’s trilogy where they’re killing iconic villains left and right.
Zendaya, who plays Michelle Jones, reveals at the very end that her friends call her "M.J." At first I thought Michelle is Mary Jane but it could be a different character altogether. The question now is will Mary Jane Watson still show up in the future or is Michelle taking her place as Peter’s love interest.
Michelle seemed very observant, which makes me think that she secretly knows Peter is Spider-Man.
Michael Mando (Nacho in Better Call Saul) is playing a thug named Mac Gargan. In the comics, Gargan is the Scorpion. At the first post-credits scene, Gargan says to Toomes that he has friends on the outside, possibly alluding the coming of Sinister Six.
When Gargan asks Toomes if he knows the identity of Spider-Man, Toomes lies and denies it. Could this be the start of a redemption arc for Toomes or he just wants to get his revenge all to himself.
It’s revealed that Homecoming takes place 8 years after the events of the first Avengers movie. Since Avengers takes place in 2012, Homecoming would be around 2020. This contradicts with what happened in Captain America: Civil War which took place in 2016. In Homecoming, only a few months have passed after the events of Civil War. All of this is a non-issue if they just said that Homecoming takes place 5 years after the first Avenger movie.
Aunt May finding out about Peter is Spider-Man and screaming, “What the Fu…!” was a great ending. I wholeheartedly approve of the idea of May learning Peter’s secret since it will provide some compelling interactions and a deeper connection between the two of them in the sequels.
Peter’s Spider-Sense seems to be non-existent in this film. Kevin Feige says it’s still there but done more internally, like an instinct or second nature to Peter. This might sound blasphemous, especially coming from a huge Spider-Man fan, but I am okay with the Spider-Sense gone. In a movie or TV setting, it’s kinda’ hard to find some justifications why he keeps on getting tagged if he had Spider-Sense (this would be similar to why smart fans complain why The Flash keeps getting hit when he’s moving at super speed). And since you don’t want your hero to be untouchable with the villains unable to even make physical contact with him, it’s understandable if they’re trying to tone down his Spider-Sense.
I love that Peter turned down being an Avenger. For comic book fans like me who think the 1960s to 1980s series were the best years of the character, the idea of him being an Avenger wasn’t as appealing. He works best as a solo crimefighter that gets to interact and team-up with various Marvel teams from time to time. If he is an Avenger, it sort of signifies that he has finally made it, his financial troubles are over, the public will adore him and no longer think he is a menace, law enforcement will no longer try to arrest him. Part of the charm of the Spider-Man’s mythos is that he is a constant loser, for every battle he wins, he loses at home, at school, at his job, or at his love life. But despite all these struggles, he perseveres and that’s why he is a hero.
RATING: 8.5/10
Link to previous thread: http://forums.sherdog.com/posts/131523619/
