Rating of
3/4
Spider-Man: Homecoming - Review
Matthew Brady - wrote on 07/10/17
"WHAT THE F***"
I had my doubts with "Spider-Man: Homecoming" and I wasn't really looking forward to it. There were something about the way it was marketed that turned a lot of people off, including me. With Tony Stark taking over half of your movie poster is pretty bad and made me worried that the movie isn't going to be all that focus. And the fact this is the third reboot of the character. I don't know why Marvel always hire indie film markers to direct these type of big budget films after one or two hits. However, after seeing John Watts previous work with "Cop Car" and "Clown", I was slightly interested.
Luckily, my fears didn't come true.
What could have been a stale and boring, since this is the third reboot, but surprising turned out to be a breath of fresh air with the new direction it took. "Spider-Man: Homecoming" is more of a comedy than anything else. It took things and toned down in terms of it trying to be cinematic. I love how small the scale is. The world isn't at strike and not every superhero story needs to have a scenario where the world will literally end if the heroes don't stop it.
Tom Holland (as for right now) might be the best on-screen version of Spider-Man I've ever seen. Holland performance sells the awkward and the nerdy side to Peter. He makes mistakes and only wants to do good, so he must literally become the Spider-Man. Just to be clear, it's not doing the origin again, but taking this character in a direction that I've never seen in the other adaptations.
Michael Keaton as the Vulture was by far a much better villain compared to the previous ones. It also helped that Keaton performance was pretty terrific and the scene when he threatens Peter was pretty intense. Like, you understand his character and most of the time he isn't even in the Vulture suit. He's isn't out for revenge, just a businessman dealing with weapons and Spider-Man keeps getting in the way.
Without spoiling anything, but there's a twist in the movie that I thought was so brilliant and the way it was executed was superb. It actually did shock me and added more conflict to Peters life. How I didn't see it coming was beyond me.
The weakest elements of the film are the same with other Marvel movies, which is characters (mostly one of the Avengers) showing up for the soul purpose of setting up upcoming movies. Feels more shoehorned in than having these characters not have a presence to the story. Good thing Tony Stark and Happy Hogan (Jon Favreau) have characters to them and didn't drag the film down. However it still feels shoehorned in.
Just like in "Civil War", it isn't visual pleasing when it comes to cinematography and color.The movie was hilarious for the most part, although some humor was trying a little too hard for a laugh. I couldn't take the movie serious when it needed it to be.
Overall Rating: While "Spider-Man: Homecoming" is missing the heart and soul of the Raimi films, but stands on it's own as a fresh start. The writing was great, the performances from everyone was great, and did things that actually surprised me.
