Just the Ticket #102: Spider-Man Homecoming
In this modern age, I don't like the fact that critical voices are often contrary for the sake of being contrary. Do I still find them entertaining? Yes. Do I allow them to influence my own desires, tastes, and opinions when it comes to actual entertainment media? Sometimes, but only when reinforced by more knowledgeable, credible voices. In truth, sometimes, I don't agree with either the contrarian opinion or its more scholarly reinforcement. Amazing Spider-Man and its sequel are widely regarded among critical and fan voices as the worst Spider-Man film efforts since Spider-Man 3, which I didn't hate, but merely thought was an average production that left a slightly bitter taste in my mouth when it was all over. Amazing, on the other hand, I loved. Its sequel was of considerably diminished quality, but had that addictive aspect that had me wanting more and angered me only when I discovered later that none of the epic plot setups therein would be given resolution. Like Spider-Man 3, the Amazing films were not terrible in and of themselves, but merely terribly handled: shaken and thrown about and dropped to the point of breakage like an angry film producer's cell phone.
I do not like the idea of being contrary for its own sake, but I found myself looking at the review quotes on the cover of Spider-Man: Homecoming ("The best Spider-Man ever! ****") before and after watching the movie, and going, "nope."
Perhaps it was nostalgia (a word that I think comes from the Latin for "painful knowledge" or something like that) that blinded me to the film's quality, or perhaps it was residual junkie anger that instead of a resolution to the Amazing Spider-Man 2, we got...this. Another re-boot.
Also--and don't boo me off the internet for this, but I'd appreciate some discourse on the subject--I didn't think Civil War was all that great, either. Sure, it was a change in character dynamics and a way to expand the MCU by separating the growing roster, but it was just average. I honestly think Iron Man 2 and Thor: The Dark World were better installments. And what was touted as one of Civil War's wow moments simply amounted to Spider-Man babbling and nerding out over Tony Stark.
The planned film--which I am about to review--that came from this cameo is a benefactor of what I like to call "the Obama Effect." That is, people were so fed up with George W. Bush (a white, Southern Republican, and the Amazing Spider-Man films in this analogy) by election time that they latched on to Barack Obama, a candidate who was as far from George W. Bush as possible (a well-spoken, black Democrat, and the Spider-Man: Homecoming in this analogy). It didn't matter that his middle name was Hussein, or that a syllable of his last name sounded like "bomb." The people wanted to get as far from the previous eight years as quickly as they possibly could, and Obama was...Just the Ticket. Now, I personally thought that after the initial shock of his election wore off, Obama was a great president, perhaps one of the best presidents we've ever had. And this is where the analogy falls apart because Spider-Man: Homecoming is not the President Obama of Spider-Man films. It's overrated as a result of the critical backlash associated with the three Spider-Man films before it. That isn't to say Homecoming is a bad film, only that I didn't feel as connected to it as I did to past Spider-Man efforts. Sam Raimi's trilogy had a powerhouse cast and a nostalgic, horror-camp atmosphere. The two Amazing films had a serialized narrative, an art-imitates-life romance, and demonstrative 3D elements that lent them the sense of being comic books in motion. By comparison, Homecoming is just...there.
Starting with the title, it's called Spider-Man: Homecoming because Peter is now young enough to be a freshman in high school (and Aunt May is now so young that she's hot enough for Tony Stark to hit on her), and it's about to be, you guessed it, Homecoming. Granted, it's also a symbolic gesture to the fact that the licensing and intellectual property of Spider-Man have partially reverted back to Marvel (that Spider-Man as a product has effectively come home), but it's also kind of an uninspired choice, otherwise.
The characters are, for the most part, a response by Marvel to recent claims that they--like the rest of Hollywood--had been blatantly white-washing prominent characters in other MCU titles like Iron Fist and Doctor Strange. Ned Leeds (once a Hobgoblin in the comics) is now a fat, Pacific Island kid. Flash Thompson, rather than a bullying football star, is now just an Indian quiz-bowler who also happens to be a mildly irritating asshole.
On the subject of bullying, I get that it's not cool or socially acceptable to portray real bullying in visual media anymore, especially in a Disney property like this, but I remember reading issue after issue of the early Amazing comics and seeing Flash disrespect and outright physically abuse Peter over and over again until one day, Peter challenged him to a boxing match. In the cartoons, Flash was constantly shoving Peter into lockers. They even came to blows in both the original Sam Raimi film and the first Amazing film, and in every medium where Peter fought back, he either kept pace with Flash or just owned him from the jump. And when I found out that Flash had later put his bullying ways aside in the comics to become a soldier, and then the first person ever to bond with Venom and not go insane, I was blown away by it. Mainly because many of the bullies in my own life have surprised me by putting their old ways aside and rising to (more realistic levels of) greatness.
Now, we get a Flash that is so bland and uninspired by comparison (his best material consists of calling Peter, "Penis Parker," and begging the principal to have Parker expelled from high school for basically no reason) that there is no way that he possesses either the edge as a character or the physical human ability to bridge the gap to Agent Venom status. That'd be like Amadeus Cho becoming the Hul--oh, never mind.
Betty Brant is never in the same room as Peter, and their relationship (while one of the most short-lived of all of Peter's romances) not only predates Gwen Stacy, but also proportionally had as much angst and drama to it as any of Peter's other comic book entanglements. Why did they focus on Liz Allen, of all people? She's just the stereotypical crush girl. True, they do rub off some of the canonical Betty Brant drama onto Liz to make her more interesting, and it provides some of Homecoming's best moments, but again, she's just a bland, high school stereotype otherwise. And while we're on the subject of romance, what the hell is Zendaya supposed to be? Her character's initials are "M.J." to "remind you of that dynamic," but her name is Michelle, so she's not Mary Jane Watson. Like most of the Midtown High cast, she's just kind of there, waiting to be thought of as interesting while the rest of the world explodes in the background.
Ned, while ethnically and physically out of character, is a refreshing source of comic relief; the fanboy's fanboy and sort of perspective character to Peter's arachnid exploits.
As for Peter himself, it's initially more of the Civil War same, with him acting like the Amazing Spider-Puppy and trying to earn Tony Stark's approval with an annoying amount of bones and figurative leg-humping. That Stark gave him a suit and that Ned has to be his "guy in the chair" (a trope filled by the likes of Oracle, Felicity Smoak, Cisco Ramon, Martian Manhunter, Rip Hunter, and White Canary on the DC television side of things) detracts from just how smart comic book Peter actually was. We do see by the late second and early third acts (when Peter is forced to resort to his old Spider-Pajama Suit) that he crafted his own web shooters prior to meeting Stark and suiting up for his one scene in Civil War, but comic book Peter could have not only designed a suit on par with what Iron Man gave him in the MCU, but he wouldn't have needed someone else to hack into such a suit for him. I mean, he improvised a web-parachute by issue three, for Pete's sake. Homecoming Spidey needed to get locked in a room and have an artificial intelligence train him on how to use his suit properly. Granted, he did use science to hack his way out of said room, but he still needed the help of said AI ("Suit Lady," a.k.a. KAREN) to do the math for him. Even in the 1960's, Spider-Man was smarter than that. Perhaps because back then, he had to be. Here's where I would rant once again about how technology is making people stupider, but I've done plenty of that already. And why would you gloss over the origin story?
The best part of Spider-Man: Homecoming, aside from Ned's comic relief, were the villains and all of the moments, comedic, action-packed, and dramatic, that they provided. When I first heard that the movie would feature The Vulture and The Tinkerer and Scorpion and TWO Shockers, I thought that Marvel had not learned a damned thing from Spider-Man 3 and Amazing Spider-Man 2, and they were villain-stuffing again. But where Sony lost focus in the former two, Marvel established a clear hierarchy, with Michael Keaton's Vulture (a lazy, on-the-beak casting choice that actually works, even though Birdman was one of the worst movies I've ever allowed through my optic nerves) as the sole main villain, the two Shockers as disposable muscle, Scorpion as a tease cameo for a possible sequel, and The Tinkerer as Vulture's "guy in the chair," who sits and, well, tinkers. I think that if they had tried to pit both Shockers against Spidey at once, and/or given The Tinkerer an army of robots for Spider-Man to fight, bad territory might have been tread for a third time. The means and motives of Vulture and his gang appropriately straddle the line between street-level thuggery and genuine threats, making them perfect introductory foils for the up-and-Homecoming hero. The Vulture suit is awesome and terrifying to look at, and Keaton brings a brand of charisma and general personality to the character that we haven't seen from him in a very long time, if ever. And I thought Bokeem Woodbine was so good in Fargo that I wouldn't mind him coming back for a second run as the Herman Schultz version of Shocker in the sequel.
I don't generally give superhero movies (or movies that I have any positive things to say about) anything lower than a B. But I'll make an exception here. I laughed more than expected, I was mildly interested at times, and I think that, since Guardians Of the Galaxy Vol. 2, Marvel has hit their stride in the villain category. But I just didn't connect with Homecoming as much as I had the last five Spider-Man films or most of the MCU titles (by which I mean not Civil War or Homecoming). It just felt slightly above average. So that's how I'm going to score it.
C+
Work is much less hectic this week, so I'll try to get back to the Grimm Fairy Tales Retrospective and my usual posting schedule, so tune in for more of what's to come from what came before.
Ticketmaster,
out.
I do not like the idea of being contrary for its own sake, but I found myself looking at the review quotes on the cover of Spider-Man: Homecoming ("The best Spider-Man ever! ****") before and after watching the movie, and going, "nope."
Perhaps it was nostalgia (a word that I think comes from the Latin for "painful knowledge" or something like that) that blinded me to the film's quality, or perhaps it was residual junkie anger that instead of a resolution to the Amazing Spider-Man 2, we got...this. Another re-boot.
Also--and don't boo me off the internet for this, but I'd appreciate some discourse on the subject--I didn't think Civil War was all that great, either. Sure, it was a change in character dynamics and a way to expand the MCU by separating the growing roster, but it was just average. I honestly think Iron Man 2 and Thor: The Dark World were better installments. And what was touted as one of Civil War's wow moments simply amounted to Spider-Man babbling and nerding out over Tony Stark.
Starting with the title, it's called Spider-Man: Homecoming because Peter is now young enough to be a freshman in high school (and Aunt May is now so young that she's hot enough for Tony Stark to hit on her), and it's about to be, you guessed it, Homecoming. Granted, it's also a symbolic gesture to the fact that the licensing and intellectual property of Spider-Man have partially reverted back to Marvel (that Spider-Man as a product has effectively come home), but it's also kind of an uninspired choice, otherwise.
The characters are, for the most part, a response by Marvel to recent claims that they--like the rest of Hollywood--had been blatantly white-washing prominent characters in other MCU titles like Iron Fist and Doctor Strange. Ned Leeds (once a Hobgoblin in the comics) is now a fat, Pacific Island kid. Flash Thompson, rather than a bullying football star, is now just an Indian quiz-bowler who also happens to be a mildly irritating asshole.
On the subject of bullying, I get that it's not cool or socially acceptable to portray real bullying in visual media anymore, especially in a Disney property like this, but I remember reading issue after issue of the early Amazing comics and seeing Flash disrespect and outright physically abuse Peter over and over again until one day, Peter challenged him to a boxing match. In the cartoons, Flash was constantly shoving Peter into lockers. They even came to blows in both the original Sam Raimi film and the first Amazing film, and in every medium where Peter fought back, he either kept pace with Flash or just owned him from the jump. And when I found out that Flash had later put his bullying ways aside in the comics to become a soldier, and then the first person ever to bond with Venom and not go insane, I was blown away by it. Mainly because many of the bullies in my own life have surprised me by putting their old ways aside and rising to (more realistic levels of) greatness.
Now, we get a Flash that is so bland and uninspired by comparison (his best material consists of calling Peter, "Penis Parker," and begging the principal to have Parker expelled from high school for basically no reason) that there is no way that he possesses either the edge as a character or the physical human ability to bridge the gap to Agent Venom status. That'd be like Amadeus Cho becoming the Hul--oh, never mind.
Betty Brant is never in the same room as Peter, and their relationship (while one of the most short-lived of all of Peter's romances) not only predates Gwen Stacy, but also proportionally had as much angst and drama to it as any of Peter's other comic book entanglements. Why did they focus on Liz Allen, of all people? She's just the stereotypical crush girl. True, they do rub off some of the canonical Betty Brant drama onto Liz to make her more interesting, and it provides some of Homecoming's best moments, but again, she's just a bland, high school stereotype otherwise. And while we're on the subject of romance, what the hell is Zendaya supposed to be? Her character's initials are "M.J." to "remind you of that dynamic," but her name is Michelle, so she's not Mary Jane Watson. Like most of the Midtown High cast, she's just kind of there, waiting to be thought of as interesting while the rest of the world explodes in the background.
Ned, while ethnically and physically out of character, is a refreshing source of comic relief; the fanboy's fanboy and sort of perspective character to Peter's arachnid exploits.
As for Peter himself, it's initially more of the Civil War same, with him acting like the Amazing Spider-Puppy and trying to earn Tony Stark's approval with an annoying amount of bones and figurative leg-humping. That Stark gave him a suit and that Ned has to be his "guy in the chair" (a trope filled by the likes of Oracle, Felicity Smoak, Cisco Ramon, Martian Manhunter, Rip Hunter, and White Canary on the DC television side of things) detracts from just how smart comic book Peter actually was. We do see by the late second and early third acts (when Peter is forced to resort to his old Spider-Pajama Suit) that he crafted his own web shooters prior to meeting Stark and suiting up for his one scene in Civil War, but comic book Peter could have not only designed a suit on par with what Iron Man gave him in the MCU, but he wouldn't have needed someone else to hack into such a suit for him. I mean, he improvised a web-parachute by issue three, for Pete's sake. Homecoming Spidey needed to get locked in a room and have an artificial intelligence train him on how to use his suit properly. Granted, he did use science to hack his way out of said room, but he still needed the help of said AI ("Suit Lady," a.k.a. KAREN) to do the math for him. Even in the 1960's, Spider-Man was smarter than that. Perhaps because back then, he had to be. Here's where I would rant once again about how technology is making people stupider, but I've done plenty of that already. And why would you gloss over the origin story?
The best part of Spider-Man: Homecoming, aside from Ned's comic relief, were the villains and all of the moments, comedic, action-packed, and dramatic, that they provided. When I first heard that the movie would feature The Vulture and The Tinkerer and Scorpion and TWO Shockers, I thought that Marvel had not learned a damned thing from Spider-Man 3 and Amazing Spider-Man 2, and they were villain-stuffing again. But where Sony lost focus in the former two, Marvel established a clear hierarchy, with Michael Keaton's Vulture (a lazy, on-the-beak casting choice that actually works, even though Birdman was one of the worst movies I've ever allowed through my optic nerves) as the sole main villain, the two Shockers as disposable muscle, Scorpion as a tease cameo for a possible sequel, and The Tinkerer as Vulture's "guy in the chair," who sits and, well, tinkers. I think that if they had tried to pit both Shockers against Spidey at once, and/or given The Tinkerer an army of robots for Spider-Man to fight, bad territory might have been tread for a third time. The means and motives of Vulture and his gang appropriately straddle the line between street-level thuggery and genuine threats, making them perfect introductory foils for the up-and-Homecoming hero. The Vulture suit is awesome and terrifying to look at, and Keaton brings a brand of charisma and general personality to the character that we haven't seen from him in a very long time, if ever. And I thought Bokeem Woodbine was so good in Fargo that I wouldn't mind him coming back for a second run as the Herman Schultz version of Shocker in the sequel.
I don't generally give superhero movies (or movies that I have any positive things to say about) anything lower than a B. But I'll make an exception here. I laughed more than expected, I was mildly interested at times, and I think that, since Guardians Of the Galaxy Vol. 2, Marvel has hit their stride in the villain category. But I just didn't connect with Homecoming as much as I had the last five Spider-Man films or most of the MCU titles (by which I mean not Civil War or Homecoming). It just felt slightly above average. So that's how I'm going to score it.
C+
Work is much less hectic this week, so I'll try to get back to the Grimm Fairy Tales Retrospective and my usual posting schedule, so tune in for more of what's to come from what came before.
Ticketmaster,
out.
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