Spider-Man: Homecoming is the latest reboot of the Spider-Man character and also the follow-up to his cameo in Captain America: Civil War. Tom Holland, the new Peter Parker / Spidey, made a great first impression in Civil War and he continues that impression in the new movie. Too bad the movie isn’t as good as its cast and is mostly just a good enough flick. Not great, not good, but… good enough.
The flick starts with its villain (played by the excellent Michael Keaton) immediately after the events of The Avengers. He plays a working stiff who got the contract to help clean up after that movie’s big fight in NYC. Things go wrong with the job but he makes off with some of the alien weaponry and manages to scavenge (almost Vulture-like, you might say) other goodies from other superhero fights and he makes a business of it. Clean-up, scavenging, and weapons dealing.
Meanwhile, Peter Parker, fresh off his adventure in Civil War, is impatiently waiting for Tony Stark to give him a call for the next Avengers mission. But that doesn’t come so he’s stuck being a friendly, neighborhood Spider-Man instead. He looks up to Stark and The Avengers and Captain America presents pre-taped PSA’s to the school (even though, as a teacher grumbles, he’s probably a war criminal now).
In other words, this movie is steeped in a generational self-awareness of all these Marvel Cinematic Universe. The series has gone on so long that we get to see both a teenager who grew up with these characters but also a perspective of how the regular folks see these events.
So I have nothing against the script – it’s solid and pretty consistent without many moments where it feels like there are plot holes or even big ads for future movies. That last part is important since the whole movie is technically an ad for future Spider-Man movies but it manages to be that without making it feel forced. Because that is what the movie is about: Peter Parker wants more missions, wants to be graduated to the A team. So finally Marvel managed to do a good job of incorporating the fact this is just part of an ongoing story by making it the actual story.
Also, this is one of the few Marvel movies where the villain is actually good. It helps that Keaton is just really good at his job and the script helps him as well. There’s more to the villain than we usually get from this series and we can see he’s not that bad a guy. He’s a villain but you can see his point of oview. And there’s a great scene between him and Parker in a car that just oozes great acting on both their parts and puts Keaton over the top.
All that said, I still hold to the fact this is a good enough movie. It’s got a lot of solid stuff going on but the overall pacing is a little too loose. It’s interesting and all seeing Peter Parker as an average high school kid and all the problems he has while also holding down a part-time job being the local superhero. But it does spend a lot of time covering these bases and it doesn’t do it poorly, but I still wanted them to pick up the pace or at least make what they had snappier. Perhaps teenagers will connect to this more than I did…
The action sequences are also just ok. Good enough. I neither loved nor loathed them. That is, except the end fight sequence that actually just got kind of boring. That’s a problem. This goes along with an overall light touch the film has – it’s more interested in comedy than great, heroic moments. The Staten Island Ferry scene that is all over the trailers seems to be trying to pull off a dramatic “Spider-man stops the subway train” moment from Spider-Man 2 but fails badly. It was just a scene like most others.
And finally there’s a good mid-credit sequence and a kind of great post-credit scene. Probably the most amusing post-credit scene since Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. Speaking of which, there’s a perfectly timed Ferris Bueller reference in the movie as well.
So, yeah, this is a real mixed bag. There’s a lot to commend this flick for, yet its pacing and lackluster action scenes rob it of greatness. I enjoyed the movie… even though I sometimes was hoping it would move along faster. It was tonally slight and more interested in gags than any actual gravitas. I’d be damming the movie by saying this feels about as inconsequential as Thor 2…
Score: 80