As a young boy I grew up with Spider-Man on television in perhaps the finest adaptation of the comic book character thus far; the 1994 series on Fox Kids that lasted for 5 seasons. So whenever I think of Spider-Man I compare it to how it stands up against this series. Spider-Man: Homecoming I believe suffers from the same mistake that all three series of the films have followed; all of the series start off with Peter Parker in high school rather than college, and for some reason, other than Andrew Garfield, the character was depicted as a short, nerdy, obnoxious young man. Not sure why. And there is no mystery really to the character either; he comes off as a best pal to the city of New York, rather than fighting crime and then retreating to the shadows, or rooftops. So the film starts off with Spider-Man aka. Peter Parker as a huge fanboy of the Avengers while also fighting them in Captain America: Civil War. Then it switches to after that part and how difficult it is for him to adjust without the action in his life, and then he goes looking for it without realizing the danger that is involved. He runs into "The Vulture" also known as Adrian Toomes played brilliantly by Michael Keaton, who ends up being more than the young super-hero can handle and thus Iron Man/Tony Stark gets involved. Honestly, watching a film about obnoxious teenagers during the throes of high school isn't really that interesting to me. Tom Holland I suppose is the exact kind of Spider-Man that the producers wanted, so in that regard the young actor did a fine job with his performance; I just didn't care for his representation, or the fact that he was some short, nerdy kid. Is there a reason he couldn't have been taller, and had a deeper voice. Michael Keaton as the vulture was the best character and really the best part of the entire film. He was interesting and compelling, yet also sympathetic, and he also had the great villainous attitude, not to mention his character was design was pretty cool when he was in costume as "The Vulture". Robert Downey Jr. played Tony Stark as he always does, except he came across as preachy, so he was really more of a distraction than a benefit to the film; the character needs to be able to stand on its own without being propped up by other major characters from the franchise. Marisa Tomei as Aunt May is definitely a new take on the traditionally older character, and it works alright, but she seemed more like an afterthought than anything. Jon Favreau as Happy Hogan who acts as Spider-Man's handler came across as pointless; just another character from the Marvel universe to add in just because they can. The rest of the cast was okay, although Peter's high school friends and compatriots were more than a little annoying.
Jon Watts directed the film, and all I have to say is that hopefully he will improve on the sequel. Apparently the more writers a film has does not necessarily equal a better screenplay; Jonathan Goldstein, John Francis Daley, Jon Watts, Christopher Ford, Chris McKenna, and Erik Sommers all had a hand in writing the screenplay. The story was good, but as I mentioned before Peter should have been in night college and doing his freelance photographing work at the Daily Bugle. Another problem I had with the screenplay was the humor; for some reason acting stupid and then trying to pretend like you're all cool is supposed to be funny. It's been appearing in a lot of films as a humor style and it really needs to go away, and it was unfortunately quite prevalent in this film. The music by Michael Giacchino wasn't really that inspiring either, which is a huge bummer because he usually is an excellent film composer, and it just didn't come across this time. The cinematography by Salvatore Totino wasn't that great, and considering the darkness of "The Vulture" character it should have been, not to mention with the acrobatics of Spider-Man should have added a whole new dynamic to the film.....and it didn't. The action sequences between "The Vulture" and Spider-Man were okay, but felt kind of like "same old-same old" type that you have seen in all of the Marvel films that have been released thus far. This should be combated by having new and fresh approaches to these films, and for some reason original thinking is experiencing repression in Hollywood currently much to their average box-office profits. There wasn't much that I liked or enjoyed about this film, and it was only Michael Keaton's incredible acting talent that saved me from turning the screen off. If you're a comic book fangirl or fanboy then you'll probably eat this film up. If not, don't waste your time on it. Watch the 1994 Spider-Man television series; it was on Netflix for a while, and for me thus far that remains the definitive Spider-Man.Spider-Man: Homecoming clip
Spider-Man: Homecoming interviews
Spider-Man 1994 series clip
