Much like with my Guardians of the
Galaxy: Vol. 2 review, I find myself again conflicted. Spider-Man: Homecoming (SMG) is a good movie, but a lot of the
minuscule changes does bring me out of it just a little. But, once again, I’m
getting ahead of myself. Let’s get to it.
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| Would he really need the headphones? I feel that Tony would have built some into the mask. |
We start in the beginning. Way in
the beginning, just after the Chitauri invaded New York. A local salvage company
run by Adrian Toomes was contracted to perform the city’s clean up. Toomes is
obviously elated with this turn of events, as the massive damage and tons of
Alien tech means a pretty big windfall for him and his company. Unfortunately,
things take a turn when their operations are taken over by the U.S. Department
of Damage Control (DODC). This new agency, developed in part by Tony Stark, is
tasked with this and all future massive clean ups caused by the Avengers or
other heroes. Toomes is, to put in nicely, infuriated that he’s been pretty much
ruined by government meddling. But, he does have a bit of inspiration. See, his
crew still had some Chitauri tech they’ve salvaged but didn’t turn over. His
idea? Rip it apart, look it over, and see if they can’t make some improvements.
His crew, with few other options, agree.
We flashforward eight years, and
see Peter’s trip to fight alongside Team Iron Man during the Civil War. After
things had calmed down, Tony drops him off back at his Aunt May’s, leaves him
with the Stark Tech Spidey-suit, and promises to call him if anything big happens.
Two months later, and absolutely nothing big has happened. We see that Peter
has pretty much been obsessing over his ‘Stark Internship,’ as he calls it, and
has pretty much reoriented his life around being ready to answer the call. This
includes dropping out of most of his after-school programs, and largely tuning
out his friend, Ned. He keeps himself busy fighting minor crimes, helping
others, and calling Happy Hogan to pester him about the next big mission. Happy
was put in charge of looking after Peter’s well-being, FYI. Things start making
a turn when he comes across an armed ATM robbery. The robbers are outfitted
with super advanced laser cutting tools and some sort of anti-gravity gun. He’s
able to stop them, but loses the baddies when he saves a local convenience
store owner. He tries to tell Happy about it, but the man is clearly all kinds
of done with working as Peter’s liaison. Peter, wrapped up in his thoughts, kind
of accidentally reveals his superhero identity to Ned. Really hard to lie to your
buddy about being a hero when he sees you literally crawl on the ceiling. Ned
spends the next few days grilling Peter about all the nuances of being a hero.
Sometime later, they’re invited to
a party thrown by local hottie… is it weird I’m saying that about a teenager? Looking…
looking… oh, thank goodness, her actress is 27. She’s a drop dead gorgeous
local hottie, then. Why are they at the party? Well, the boys heard that said
hottie, Liz, has a crush on Spider-Man. The teens have a half-cocked planned about
Peter showing up at the party, then coming in as Spider-Man to show off. He
could get some attention from Liz, and get local bully Flash Thompson to shut
his trap. They seem to forget the important bit that if Peter’s in costume,
drawing attention to Peter not being there, might be detrimental to the whole
secret ID thing. Thankfully, Peter’s dumb plan is interrupted by the sight of a
few mushroom clouds. Oh, that’s not something to be thankful for.
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| Michael Keaton is rocking that giant bird suit. |
He comes across an arms deal
between local screw up Aaron Davis and two of Toomes’ goons. One Herman
Schultz, he appears to be Toomes’ right hand man, and Jackson Brice, a trigger-happy
idiot that goes by ‘The Shocker.’ Given his usual Alias, this is a major step
up for Brice, just saying. Peter stops the deal, and chases the goons across
town. He gets close to stopping them, but unfortunately, they called the boss.
Toomes suits up and flies in. The Vulture throws Peter around and drops him
into the river. He’s saved by Tony, who sends a remote-controlled Iron Man suit
to save him. He warns Peter to stay out of this and let Tony and his people
handle things, but Parker’s oh so rarely stay out of trouble. On his trek back
into town, Peter recovers one of the weapons that was lost in the chase.
Back at the lair, Toomes berates
his goons for all the damage they caused, and Brice for showing off the weapons
far too openly. He fires Brice, but then Brice lets slip that he may just let
slip all he knows about the operation. Toomes turns him into ash. Literally… he
thought it was an anti-gravity gun. He takes Brice’s gauntlet from the dust
pile, tosses it to Shultz and says he’s the Shocker now.
Peter and Ned look over the weapon,
and uncovers the alien power cell within it. They’re nearly found by Schultz,
but Peter is able to slip a tracking device onto him. After a few hours
waiting, they learn the lair in all the way back in Maryland. Which is quite fortuitous,
as the school’s Decathlon team is on their way to DC for the national
championship. And guess who used to be their star member? That’s right, Peter
Parker. Once in DC, Peter bugs out to chase Toomes’ goons. Beforehand, though, he
and Ned disable the suit’s built in tracking device, and disable the ‘Training
Wheels’ protocol to give Peter full access to the equipment. He finds Toomes’
crew, and interrupts the big buzzard stealing from a DODC truck. Unfortunately,
Toomes’ in his Vulture gear overpowers Peter, and traps him in the DODC truck,
and later the DODC facility. Peter misses the decathlon, but learns something
very important. That the Chitauri core will turn into a bomb if it’s
irradiated. Shoot. He escapes the DODC in the morning, and arrives just in time
at the Washington Monument to see the core detonate, threatening Ned, Liz and
most of his classmates. A smart-ass gal named Michelle didn’t go on because she
didn’t want to celebrate a monument that may or may not have been built by
slaves. Smart girl. Peter shows off some acrobatics, and saves everyone in the
nick of time.
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| Why just the one glove? Shocker always had two before now... |
Back in New York, he tracks down
screw-up Aaron Davis and convinces him to let Peter know where the next weapon
exchange will be. Why? One, Peter willingly offered himself up to protect Davis
when the two goons thought the deal might be a set up, and Two, because he’s
scared of those weapons and doesn’t want to risk his kid nephew from getting on
the business end of one. Hint hint, subtle hint. Where is the next deal taking
place? On the Staten Island Ferry with a crime boss named Mac Gargan. Peter
charges in, and disrupts the buy, but things get royally screwed up. FBI guys
show up and start shooting, Toomes gets in gear and starts blasting, and Peter’s
interference causes the ferry to split and start to sink. Peter is able to save
the day, due in large part to an assist from Iron Man. Tony is furious at Peter’s
recklessness, and demands the suit back. Peter tries to keep it, but Tony isn’t
having it.
Peter’s life gets back to normal
for a bit. He gets back into school, he and Ned hang out, and he even gets a
date to the titular Homecoming dance from Liz. Hooray. Things hit the fan
again, though, when he goes to Liz’s for their date. Imagine his terror when
Adrian Toomes answers the door. Now, I initially thought he somehow learned
about Peter’s identity and threatened his little girlfriend. You know, like
every other Spider-Man villain, ever. But no, actually, Adrian Toomes is in
fact the last man on earth to threaten Liz. Why? He’s her dad. Oh crap. Peter
is obvious tense, but things only get worse when Toomes’ actually uses his
brain. I know, it’s totally shocking, isn’t it? He figures out Peter’s ID and none-too-subtly
threatens Peter to stay out of his business and show Liz a good time.
Unfortunately, Peter can’t bring himself to do it. Especially when he figures
out that Toomes’ new plan is. He’s going to rob a Stark Industries’ jet, as it
moves the last of the Avenger’s tech to their new facility upstate. So Peter is
going up against Vulture, his goon Shocker, and all he’s got is his handmade
costume, and Ned as tech support. Shoot.
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| One of the smallest, but funniest roles I've seen in a while. |
The good first, as always. Stellar
cast across the board. Tom Holland, Michael Keaton, Jon Favreau, Robert Downey
Jr., Marisa Tomei, Donald Glover, the list goes on. I’ll call special attention
to Jacob Batalon as Ned, and Zendaya as Michelle Jones. Both steal every
flipping scene that they’re in. Jacob especially as he’s in more scenes
overall. He’s the tech guy, and just a massive fan boy to Peter form the moment
that he finds out his best friend is a superhero. Zendaya, who I swear has at
most twenty lines, made me laugh every single time. EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. She’s
just a delight. The effects are amazing, I especially like the movie design of
the Vulture. His giant cleaving wings are stunning. The story is, as I’d hoped,
more or less down to earth. Peter, having tasted what the life of a hero could
be like, is hungry for more, and chomping at the bit to prove himself. His’
head is in the clouds, but he needs to learn to keep his feet on the ground.
Toomes’ arc, while completely not tied into the character he is base on, is
relatable. All he wants is to provide for his wife and daughter, regardless of
the costs. Very relatable, and not the least bit forced feeling like with Sandman
in Spider-Man 3. It’s also funny.
Really, really funny. If it’s not a sight gag with Michelle or this random
student in a tiger mascot costume, it’s a quip from Peter or Ned. I don’t think
I went ten minutes without a minor chuckle. They still haven’t gotten down the “Peter
makes jokes during a fight” thing down just yet, but they’re making progress.
The bad is minimal, but definitely
there. A lot of the changes in this film feel like they were done simply to be
different from the comics and previous movies. Michael Keaton’s Vulture isn’t
really the Vulture, he’s Norman Osborn. Think about it, a villain hellbent on
getting his way regardless of the costs, flies around on an over-sized and scary
machine, and who’s defeat will ruin the life of someone that Peter cares about.
Sure, Liz Allen… I mean, Liz Toomes is better looking than Harry Osborn, but they
have a lot in common this go around. Tony’s filling in for Uncle Ben, since we
can’t have that “great power” line again. And Michelle Jones is soooo Mary Jane
Watson that they used the same initials for her nickname. You can’t fool me, an
MJ is an MJ. Ned is much the same. They don’t say his last name is Leeds, but
he bares resemblance to Ned Leeds, an old school fre-enemy of Peter’s. My
understanding is that for both cases they wanted to reference the comics but
not be ‘tied down’ by the canon surrounding the two but... come on. I don’t
think anyone, that matters anyway, would care if Michelle Jones is the movies Mary Jane, or that Ned
might one day find himself in an orange hood astride a glider. Finally, the
fights are all a little anti-climactic. Spider-Man vs. Vulture round 1, lasts about
fifteen seconds. Just enough to lift him off the ground and dropped into a
river. Round 2, some good licks are laid on both sides, but again, over in
under a minute. And Round 3 is pretty much Peter dodging Toomes until the
buzzard is distracted. Again, a real quick fight. Finally, I find it a little
hard to believe that a government agency wouldn’t notice that a sizeable amount
of highly dangerous tech is missing. Like, come on, if I was in charge of
Damage Control, my guys would be cataloging every nut, screw, and bolt. Just
saying. So yeah, problems are minimal, but there.
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| I love everything about this kid. |
Final note, this movie is jam
packed with Spider-Man characters. Pretty much everyone with a speaking line is
at least loosely tied to a comic book character. Michelle (MJ) Jones, Ned
(Maybe) Leeds, Adrian Toomes aka Vulture but basically Norman Osborn, and Liz
Allen-Toomes have been mentioned before, but here are a few more. Jackson Brice
usually goes by the code name Montana, a rope trick expert and leader of minor
villain henchmen for hire the Enforcers. Herman Shultz is recurring merc
villain The Shocker. Aaron Davis is Spider-Man anti-hero the Prowler, and he
nephew he mentioned has been confirmed to be Miles Morales, a future Spider-Man.
Mac Gargan, with his large arthropod tattoo, will more than likely one day don
a large battle suit and call himself the Scorpion. Adrian has tech support from
Phineas Mason, better known as the Tinkerer, a tech designer and information
broker for the Marvel villains. Student news anchorwoman Betty Brant (another
of Peter’s former love interests) makes a few appearances. And finally, there
is Principle Morita. This isn’t really a reference to a comic character, more a
reference within a reference. His actor, Kenneth Choi, had previously played
Jim Morita in Captain America: The First
Avenger. It’s never said out loud, but, given the WWII era photo on his
desk we see at one point, it’s safe to assume that the principle is supposed to
be the son, grandson, or possibly great-grandson of the former Howling
Commando. Our cup runneth over with minor characters.
This is an A- movie. It has a
decent pace, all-star cast, and a good script. While some of the numerous
changes might turn off a comic purest, none of them were so horridness as what
you find in Fantastic Four (2016). It’s
a more lighthearted story, which I think is great for those whom may feel that
the latest string of Marvel and DC movies are a little too dark for their
tastes. Don’t let the fact that this is another reboot deter you from seeing
this, as Spider-Man has finely, truly, come home. At least in this humble nerd’s
eyes.
Twitter: BasicsSuperhero
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