Spider-Man: HomecomingAs important as role models are when growing up, achieving success on your own terms is each person's individual responsibility. Spider-Man: Homecoming is a superhero movie about the eponymous web-slinger, Spider-Man, a.k.a. Peter Parker (Tom Holland), a fifteen year-old high school student in Queens, New York, whose talents have captured the attention of billionaire industrialist and Avenger, Iron Man, a.k.a. Tony Stark (Robert Downey, Jr.). Tony becomes Peter's patron, gifting him with a sophisticated superhero costume to compliment his abilities. But Peter discovers that he has a lot to learn before he is ready to join the superhero "major leagues".
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Spider-Man: Homecoming is a part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, although it isn't Spider-Man's first in the movie series--he had a minor role in Captain America: Civil War as a "recruit" of Iron Man's for a showdown with Captain America (Chris Evans), who cameos in Spider-Man: Homecoming through a series of school-administered public service announcements. Spider-Man: Homecoming avoids being an "origin" story for the iconic Marvel superhero, and the source of his powers are only referenced through a couple of lines of dialogue with Peter's best friend, Ned (Jacob Batalon). This narrative leap was done for reasons similar to Marvel's The Incredible Hulk--Spider-Man's origin is popularly known even among those unfamiliar with comic books, and has since been explored twice already in movies over the past couple of decades. Spider-Man: Homecoming embraces the idea of a superhero who is not an adult, but a smart and enthusiastic kid who goes to school with other students. Fans of the comics may be surprised to see several "sacred cows" roasted through the depictions of Spider-Man's supporting cast of characters. The formerly geriatric Aunt May has been made not only more age appropriate, but is widely regarded as physically attractive, and is played by native New Yorker, Marisa Tomei. Peter is part of the academic decathlon at his school, and his team includes senior Liz (Laura Harrier)--for whom Peter harbors a schoolboy crush--as well as the antisocial Michelle (Zendaya) and stuck-up rich kid, Flash Thompson (Tony Revolori), who are defiantly divergent from their comic book counterparts. Spider-Man: Homecoming walks the tightrope of representing an iconic character from the earliest history of Marvel Comics, while avoiding tired and overused cliches that often invite eye-rolling boredom. Case in point: despite Spider-Man: Homecoming exploring themes of "power" and "responsibility"--and how Peter comes to appreciate that delicate balance--arguably that most tiresome line from comics is never said once in this film. New York City itself is something of a supporting character in Spider-Man: Homecoming. Peter carries on conversations while in costume about his favorite sandwich shop, and gets chewed out by the tenants of a walk-up after accidentally setting off a car alarm while webbing someone using a "slim jim" to break into their own car. The film pays homage to previous incarnations of the wall crawler, from his prototype outfit--with a red hoodie that recalls the "Scarlet Spider" from the infamous "Clone Saga"--to the theme song from the 1967 cartoon, played during the opening credits. (The inclusion of The Ramones' "Blitzkrieg Bop" in the film is both an homage to their subsequent cover of this song and their origins from Queens, New York, just like Peter Parker.)
Spider-Man: Homecoming begins over eight years prior, where an alien race called the Chitauri left behind a copious amount of technology and devastation in the aftermath of The Avengers. Adrian Toomes (Michael Keaton) was a salvage contractor assigned to clean up the mess, but has his commission snatched away from him by "Department of Damage Control", a government division created by Tony Stark. The resentful Toomes chooses to keep the scraps of alien tech he and his crew had absconded with, and creates a black market salvage operation, following which he steals the leftovers from superhero battles to turn a profit. Although Toomes isn't directly called "Vulture", his defining characteristics are taken from the classic villain of the Spider-Man comics of the same name. Between his behavior and personal flight suit, he becomes a living embodiment of a vulture--scavenging morsels from clashes between bigger game. Toomes is embittered after his legitimate livelihood is ripped away from him, and becomes accustomed to a lifestyle of thievery and breaking the law. Spider-Man: Homecoming implies that he has been doing this for almost a decade and has made a rather comfortable living for himself by remaining under the radar of other superheroes, too busy with world-ending threats to notice him. But Toomes has fostered an entitlement complex, and is constantly chasing more loot. His henchmen include Herman Schultz (Bokeem Woodbine) and Jackson Brice (Logan Marshall-Green)--both of whom adopt the moniker of "Shocker", another member of Spider-Man's rogues gallery. His reaction at them selling devastating alien weapons to low-level thugs for petty crimes reveals that he is aware of a gap in which he can operate with relative safety, where superheroes don't stoop to stop him, and the police can't deal with him. But this mid-level operating zone proves to be just the right terrain for Spider-Man and Peter becomes the preeminent thorn in Toomes's side.
Prior to the events in Spider-Man: Homecoming, Peter was tapped by Tony Stark to participate in a gigantic royal rumble with the Avengers, crossing paths with the most famous heroes in the world--to say that he was starstruck would be an understatement. Peter keeps a personal video diary with his cell phone about his "initiation" into the "Stark internship" (his superhero cover story). This obsession with archiving everything both represents him as a millennial as well as being a nod to the comics, where Peter Parker took photos of Spider-Man's exploits as part of his job at the Daily Bugle. After the battle, Tony gifts a rolled-back spider suit for him to use, although Tony warns Peter to keep "low to the ground". Peter's enthusiasm overrides Tony's warnings, and he has Ned disable the "training wheels protocol", unlocking his suit's full potential before he knows how to use it to its fullest. Similar to Iron Man's J.A.R.V.I.S., Spider-Man's suit comes enabled with speech-enabled A.I. program to guide his newfound abilities, and Peter names his suit's personality "Karen" (voiced by Jennifer Connelly). Despite the fancy new suit, Peter doesn't feel that his abilities are of real value in his neighborhood, and the only crimes he seems to intercept are minor ones. He obsesses about being chosen for another "mission" by Tony Stark's right hand man, "Happy" Hogan (Jon Favreau), and drops his extracurricular activities one by one in favor of his moonlighting as a street-level superhero. Peter is untrained as a superhero, and his efforts to thwart crooks--like the hoods wearing Avengers masks and wielding Chitauri weaponry--mostly comes down to his quick reflexes. Peter dismisses his lack of experience out of hand and is ignorant of the dangers that come with pursuing a group of hardened thieves like Toomes and his crew; this leads to an event on a ferry that necessitates that Tony reclaims the suit. This scene mirrors events from Iron Man 2, in which Tony had to accept that he could not rely on his suit to do everything important, while underscoring the absence of a paternal figure in Peter's life. Peter is on the verge of throwing a tantrum and overreacts to Tony's reprimand; but it is a lesson Peter needs to learn so that he doesn't have to rely on objects or things given to him to feel complete. Tony wishes to keep Peter out of harm's way--burdened with the experience of seeing friends hurt terribly in his vocation--but isn't too proud to take some credit for guiding the young crimefighter on his road to maturity.
Recommended for: Fans of a superhero movie that avoids the tropes of an origin story and sidesteps cliches and predictable beats from the source material, while embracing the core elements that have made Spider-Man a perennial favorite. Spider-Man: Homecoming is a coming-of-age story as much as it is an action movie, and fits comfortably into the lattice of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Spider-Man: Homecoming begins over eight years prior, where an alien race called the Chitauri left behind a copious amount of technology and devastation in the aftermath of The Avengers. Adrian Toomes (Michael Keaton) was a salvage contractor assigned to clean up the mess, but has his commission snatched away from him by "Department of Damage Control", a government division created by Tony Stark. The resentful Toomes chooses to keep the scraps of alien tech he and his crew had absconded with, and creates a black market salvage operation, following which he steals the leftovers from superhero battles to turn a profit. Although Toomes isn't directly called "Vulture", his defining characteristics are taken from the classic villain of the Spider-Man comics of the same name. Between his behavior and personal flight suit, he becomes a living embodiment of a vulture--scavenging morsels from clashes between bigger game. Toomes is embittered after his legitimate livelihood is ripped away from him, and becomes accustomed to a lifestyle of thievery and breaking the law. Spider-Man: Homecoming implies that he has been doing this for almost a decade and has made a rather comfortable living for himself by remaining under the radar of other superheroes, too busy with world-ending threats to notice him. But Toomes has fostered an entitlement complex, and is constantly chasing more loot. His henchmen include Herman Schultz (Bokeem Woodbine) and Jackson Brice (Logan Marshall-Green)--both of whom adopt the moniker of "Shocker", another member of Spider-Man's rogues gallery. His reaction at them selling devastating alien weapons to low-level thugs for petty crimes reveals that he is aware of a gap in which he can operate with relative safety, where superheroes don't stoop to stop him, and the police can't deal with him. But this mid-level operating zone proves to be just the right terrain for Spider-Man and Peter becomes the preeminent thorn in Toomes's side.
Prior to the events in Spider-Man: Homecoming, Peter was tapped by Tony Stark to participate in a gigantic royal rumble with the Avengers, crossing paths with the most famous heroes in the world--to say that he was starstruck would be an understatement. Peter keeps a personal video diary with his cell phone about his "initiation" into the "Stark internship" (his superhero cover story). This obsession with archiving everything both represents him as a millennial as well as being a nod to the comics, where Peter Parker took photos of Spider-Man's exploits as part of his job at the Daily Bugle. After the battle, Tony gifts a rolled-back spider suit for him to use, although Tony warns Peter to keep "low to the ground". Peter's enthusiasm overrides Tony's warnings, and he has Ned disable the "training wheels protocol", unlocking his suit's full potential before he knows how to use it to its fullest. Similar to Iron Man's J.A.R.V.I.S., Spider-Man's suit comes enabled with speech-enabled A.I. program to guide his newfound abilities, and Peter names his suit's personality "Karen" (voiced by Jennifer Connelly). Despite the fancy new suit, Peter doesn't feel that his abilities are of real value in his neighborhood, and the only crimes he seems to intercept are minor ones. He obsesses about being chosen for another "mission" by Tony Stark's right hand man, "Happy" Hogan (Jon Favreau), and drops his extracurricular activities one by one in favor of his moonlighting as a street-level superhero. Peter is untrained as a superhero, and his efforts to thwart crooks--like the hoods wearing Avengers masks and wielding Chitauri weaponry--mostly comes down to his quick reflexes. Peter dismisses his lack of experience out of hand and is ignorant of the dangers that come with pursuing a group of hardened thieves like Toomes and his crew; this leads to an event on a ferry that necessitates that Tony reclaims the suit. This scene mirrors events from Iron Man 2, in which Tony had to accept that he could not rely on his suit to do everything important, while underscoring the absence of a paternal figure in Peter's life. Peter is on the verge of throwing a tantrum and overreacts to Tony's reprimand; but it is a lesson Peter needs to learn so that he doesn't have to rely on objects or things given to him to feel complete. Tony wishes to keep Peter out of harm's way--burdened with the experience of seeing friends hurt terribly in his vocation--but isn't too proud to take some credit for guiding the young crimefighter on his road to maturity.
Recommended for: Fans of a superhero movie that avoids the tropes of an origin story and sidesteps cliches and predictable beats from the source material, while embracing the core elements that have made Spider-Man a perennial favorite. Spider-Man: Homecoming is a coming-of-age story as much as it is an action movie, and fits comfortably into the lattice of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.