Spider-Man Homecoming - Seen It (spoilers allowed)

Cafe Society
1

I guess I should leave some spoiler space so the first paragraph will not reveal anything plot specific.

There have been rather too many Spider-Man movies in the last 15 years. I really enjoyed the Tobey Maguire, Sam Raimi films, even emo-Peter in the third one, though that had plenty of other problems, and the fourth was going to have the Vulture in it, I believe played by John Malkovitch.

Then there were the rebooted movies that covered the exact same ground in almost the exact same way and contributed nothing new, but their third was also planning to have The Vulture as the bad guy, I seem to recall.

Now the rights have reverted, at least partially, back to Marvel to control and they’ve taken him back to High School age, keeping him there for as long as they can stretch it, and The Vulture is finally here on screen, played by Batman. I mean Birdman. I mean Michael Keaton.

It is a good movie. It’s fun, exciting, funny, thrilling, spectacular, amazing, and worth seeing. But it does suffer from Spider-Man Exhaustion, and feels like we’re covering the same ground one more time. It’s a little better at it, it avoids an origin story retelling, and doesn’t have any Osbornes or the usual array of girlfriend characters, and the focus is very much on Peter being a clumsy kid in High School, and his dream to be a part of the Avengers, neither of which has been in the other movies, but everything else is very familiar and, aside from being handled really well and having great humour throughout, may be a bit much to take if you’re not a dedicated Marvel/Superhero/Spider-Man fan. The casual viewer might justifiably be over it.

Having said that, I recommend it. It is entertaining to the very end* and has a lot of secondary characters who are fun to watch too. And a couple of surprise character cameos from other Marvel films mixed in. I look forward to seeing where the next movie takes things, scheduled for July 2019 already.

*To the very very very end

2

My husband and I saw it last night. It was a lot of fun - especially the “Peter as a clumsy kid” moments. We (and the theatre) laughed a lot.

I especially loved the first 5 minutes, with the footage. Great to see some things from unexpected angles. I also liked Peter’s friend Ned. The scenes after Peter disables the training wheel protocol on the suit were also funny. I liked the lecture scene between Stark and Peter (shown in the trailers a bit), especially knowing where Tony has come from.

And when the pieces finally fall into place for The Vulture - great acting by Michael Keaton.

:smiley: I agree. Very entertaining - to the very end!

3

Yes! That was great writing and great acting. No need for stretching out feigned ignorance, it was handled really well.

4

Looking forward to this. I skipped the middle re-boot sequence, so I may not be quite as burnt out as some.

5

AFAIK, in every S-M movie to date, Peter Parker (improbably) is already personally acquainted with the bad guy: Sandman killed Uncle Ben, Doc Ock was his teacher, Green Goblin was his friend’s dad. Does he know the Vulture besides fighting him as S-M?

6

I agree with all the positive reactions above. I’ve loved every Marvel movie since Iron Man (though I didn’t see the Hulk movies) and this was no exception. Even though it will add fuel to the “I’m so tired of superheros/reboots” crybaby whining, I’m thrilled we have 3 extremely good superhero movies in the theaters right now. I wish a theater here would show a triple feature. I may do it myself.

Peter doesn’t know Vulture prior to their interactions, but if improbable connections bother you, you should brace yourself, expect a face palm moment then just relax and go with it.

7

Saw it last night with a bunch of pre-teens and everyone enjoyed it. I liked the first two McGuire films, was meh on the third and the first Garfield one, and skipped the last one. So I had been pretty much done with the character until Sony brought in Marvel.

  • I liked the use of the old TV-show music over the opening titles.
  • I liked teen-age Parker. The reviewer on NPR was underwhelmed and said that Peter and his friends didn’t act like real teenagers and he compared them to Mickey Rooney-Judy Garland type teens from the '30s, but I was reminded of the teen movies of the 80’s where you have the awkward teen, the awkward-er best friend, the crush, the weird outsider who turns out to be cool. Instead of Rooney/Garfield I thought of Anthony Michael Hall and Molly Ringwald (if AMH got bitten by a radioactive spider).
  • Keaton was, as usual, terrific. Especially in his initial scene and the one in the car with Peter, but really in every scene he was in he took the focus.

I did think the movie was too long (2:15 or so?) and I wasn’t a huge fan of sidekick Ned. I also wish they had done more with Marissa Tomei. More Marissa Tomei is always good. I’m not going to deny I’ve got a thing for Aunt May.

I really like Jon Favreau, and he’s done great work as a director, but I felt his acting was off in this one. I liked him in Chef but here he just seemed uncomfortable and not because he was handing out in a high school bathroom.

I don’t want to spoil it but Peter does learn they have an unlikely connection, but that’s after they’ve already become adversaries.

8

I saw it last night and really liked it. Tom Holland was great as Spider-Man and Peter Parker. The action was pretty good, although I couldn’t tell what was happening a few times in the fights with Vulture. It was really funny, the whole theater was laughing out loud a lot.

I really liked that there was a good villain with The Vulture. So many comic book movies have poorly defined villains or the villain has poorly defined goals and motivations, but Vulture made sense in the story, and Michael Keaton was great as him. Also his wings were pretty cool.

Tony Stark was inconsistent but I guess that’s kinda his thing. It should be predictable that if you give a high school student a million dollar suit with weapons he’s going to use it. And then he yelled at Peter after the ferry incident, but then Peter did the exact same thing again and tried to capture the baddie just with a lot more inherent danger since he was in his homemade costume, and then Tony acted like he’d learned his lesson. He was lucky that the plane didn’t crash into a populated area.

9

Keaton was incredible in this movie. So creepy and threatening and intimidating and yet you could see the desperation to provide for his family there too. A very human villain who didn’t WANT to be a supervillain and tried his best NOT to attract attention. An incredibly realistic take on a guy like that. Loved Tom Holland, and also really liked Jacob Batalon’s Ned Leeds. I cracked up when the dean walks in on him in the library during the dance when he’s coordinating Peter’s mission and asks him what he’s doing and he stutters “looking at porn?”
Best Spider-Man movie by far.

10

I liked it quite a bit. I liked the way the story grew out of the events of the Avengers. Tooms may be one of the best Marvel Movie villains.

I liked his entire storyline. When Agents of SHIELD was first announced, this was the kind of villain I expected. In fact he would have made a great season one Big Bad if they had gone in that direction.

The Twist shocked me and then shocked me again. At first I thought it was a hostage situation and then realized what was really happening. Really well set up.

So what villain was the guy from Better Call Saul playing? The mid credits scene makes it clear he isn’t just some thug.

And the final post credits scene was masterful and serves us all right :slight_smile:

11

I really liked Ned, and I liked that allowed Peter to have someone to play off of and get excited about being Spider-Man.

I heard he’s Scorpion, I don’t know who that is but he did have a scorpion tattoo and exoskeleton arm thing on in that mid credits scene.

I loved the post credit scene, and all the Cap cameos.

12

I just got back from seeing it. I loved it! Tom Holland was great and Keaton played a terrific Vulture. The action sequences were well done and fun, as Spiderman action should be. And lots of great comedy. The plot elements of Stark mentoring Parker were also well done.

All in all, Spiderman plays well as a dorky teenager because it is very fitting with his overall demeanor. I was surprised that there wasn’t a scene of Stark chewing out Parker for all the damage he caused while chasing the van. I was really expecting it.

The Captain America videos were great. 100% Cap. And the last one was just too funny.

Oh and Aunt May’s last line was a literal LOL.

I’d go see it again for sure. I’ll probably even pick it up on bluray when it comes out.

13

I liked Vulture as the villain as well. Keep it simple. He’s just a thief. A successful thief, with dangerous weapons, but just a thief. Not every movie has to be about saving the world.

14

Just saw it – thought it was great. If not a top-tier MCU movie than it’s at the top of the 2nd tier. Keaton was terrific as Vulture, and I’m glad he lived. One of the best Marvel villains, IMO.

15

Massive spoilers follow with my thoughts.

I really enjoyed it. As a huge Spider-man fan, I’m hardly exhausted. In fact, if they rebooted Spider-man every year I’d happily watch it. So maybe the fact that I really liked it doesn’t mean that much.

Firstly, it’s a cliche to say that Tobey Maguire was the better Peter Parker and Andrew Garfield was the better Spider-man, but there is something to it. Maguire potrayed the nerdy, shy, outcast Peter Parker and Garfield did a great job of the wise cracking smartass Spider-man. The problem is both played their counterparts the exact same way. Maguire’s Spider-man was kind of a nerd and Garfield’s Peter Parker was a wisecracking smartass. The hope for the new movie was that it would manage to capture the Maguire Parker and the Garfield Spider-man.

Now, I’m not sure if Tom Holland really portrayed Peter as an outcast all that well. We’re told that everyone hates him and thinks he’s weird, and by told I mean the other characters keep saying that everyone hates him and thinks he’s weird. But with the exception of Flash Thompson constantly referring to him as “Penis Parker”, they don’t really seem to act like they hate him. Hell, he even manages to go to the dance with the girl he likes. But it still did a pretty good job of portraying nerdy Peter and smartass Spider-man. Sure, Peter Parker didn’t really know how to be Spider-man, but you could still see the difference when he put on the suit.

On that note, the film did a good job showing Peter Parker learning to be Spider-man. Each film series has done this progressively better. The Sam Raimi films showed him discovering his powers, but once he knew he had them there seemed to be no learning curve. The Andrew Garfield films were a little better in this regard, but still he seemed too confident early on. Here, I liked how he was making mistakes and not 100% sure how to be Spider-man. I think this is because the film isn’t bogged down trying to retell the origin story, so it can go into more detail on things like this.

Likewise, each film series has progressively gotten better at depicting the work/life balance of Spider-man/Peter Parker. It was an important plot point in Spider-man 2, but way less important in the first and third. Amazing Spider-man was a little better, but even then not so much. This one really showed Peter constantly missing out on things by being Spider-man. The dance, the contest, school, yada yada yada.

Now, the Vulture. I wasn’t expecting much, as he’s not one of my favourite Spider-man villains and the Marvel movies have a track record of mediocre bad guys. But I was pleasantly surprised. His motivations made sense, and I liked how small scale his whole villain plan actually was. And I liked that they threw in Shocker as a smaller villain, though I don’t know why they needed two.

I really liked the minor inversion at the end. Any other film would have him in the crappy Spider-man suit for the first two thirds and put him in the “classic” suit right at the end. It was cool how they switched that around. But it annoyed me that, even though it was obviously going to happen from the moment Tony took the suit away, they had to repeat the voice over just to make sure the audience would know what they were saying.

Seriously movie, give us some credit.

Also, I got some fanboy giddiness when the suit identified one of the guys on the boat as “Mac Gargon”. Though the film now has robbed me of the chance to spend the next two years speculating on who the villain will be in the sequel.

Some things I didn’t care for, though.

Why did his friend need to know he was Spider-man? It feels like since Robert Downey Jr announed “I’m Iron Man” in 2008 that superheroes don’t have secret identities anymore. It didn’t bother me too much, but it did take away quite a bit of tension. Then again, I prefer this to a hypothetical scene where said friend is complaining about Peter constantly disappearing.

Also, while I did laugh at the end… Aunt May should not know Peter is Spider-man. But I’m going to be annoyed no matter what way they go with this. If in the next movie she’s well aware of it then I’m going to be annoyed. If Peter comes up with an excuse (“it’s just a copy Tony Stark gave me, I’m not really Spider-man”) then the film has lied to the audience and I’m going to be annoyed.

Also, Mary Jane’s name is Mary Jane. Not Michelle. And on that note she’s not April from Parks and Recreation or Daria.

Finally, two complaints that are less about this film specifically and more about the MCU in general. I laughed at the post credit scene, but seriously can we just stop with them? The film goes for over two hours, there’s a ton of ads at the start, and now you want us to sit and wait for the credits to finish?

Also, I never noticed it until I saw this video, but the music is really boring in MCU movies, with the exception of Guardians of the Galaxy. The rendition of the 60s theme was cool, but that was it. The music was the same basic stuff they have in all the movies. And I like the Ramones, but filmmakers need to learn that they have more than one song.

In the end, while I really enjoyed this movie, I think my biggest problem with it is that it’s just another MCU movie. It looks like them, it sounds like them, it feels like them. Say what you will about the Sam Raimi trilogy, but they had their own style. (The Amazing Spider-man not so much, to be honest). Even without Iron Man and all the other characters, I think you could tell it’s an MCU movie. Not that that’s necessarily a bad thing, but I worry that will hold the series back a bit if it moves forward.

But let’s not end on a down note. I really liked it. Spider-man 2 is still my favourite, but this one’s up there.

16

It’s was just…ok.

17

I thought it was strange that Toomes had been in the alien-weapons business for years, and yet the only crime we see or hear about is the one attempted ATM robbery and maybe the Donald Glover character might’ve used a fancy gun to whack a guy, but not too fancy. Further, every crime we see Toomes’ gang attempt is to get more materials for weapons, not knocking over armored cars or banks or such.

Basically, I’m unclear on how Toomes’ revenue stream works.

I’m glad they didn’t run the origin story again, but shouldn’t there have been at least a passing mention of how Peter let a thief get away and it didn’t end well? I can see him walking into the dance, all intimidated, then regaining his resolve.

18

Wow, what a great assessment! I have never heard the “Tobey is a better Peter, Andrew is a better Spiderman” thing before, but it’s completely spot on. Pretty much everything else you said I agree with wholeheartedly.

I enjoyed this movie much more than I thought I would. I, too, love Spiderman and I think this movie got almost everything with him exactly right.

To disagree with the above poster, I actually liked the little changes they made. They were able to make Spiderman different enough for a fresher take on him, but not so different that they change/ruin the character.

If Scorpion is going to be the villain in the next movie, I wonder how they’re going to do him? IIRC, he was never that spectacular other than a tail that spits acid. He’s a worse/more boring Doc Ock. Unless they go really crazy and somehow put the Venom suit on him, but I doubt that because it’s been confirmed that Venom won’t be in the MCU.

All in all, a great movie. I enjoyed it WAY more than I thought I would and it’s right up there in the upper echelon of MCU movies.

19

How is Aunt May related to Peter in this continuity? No Ben is mentioned. She is either has mom/dad’s sibling or an unrelated person in a highly inappropriate relationship with a teen; a place Tony Stark also began reaching late in the movie.

20

Sugar Momma. Spiderman gotta eat. :smiley: