Spiderman: Snoozefest

Rating: 4/10 (14 July 2017)

Is the MCU now immune to negative reviews? Such is the love for Tony Stark and co. that anything they now appear seems impervious to fan boy criticism. Spiderman: Homecoming has been receiving glowing praise with some critics going as far to say this is the best Spiderman film yet and the best superhero film of the year so far. I sometimes thought as if I was watching a different film then, as to me this was big disappointment. I was bored watching it, and I felt like most of the audience was too. There was no laughter in the cinema during the 'comedy' moments, just lots of uncomfortable fidgeting.
After calls from fans to 'give it back Marvel 'it was great to see Spiderman appear with other Marvel hero's in the excellent Civil War, something that most us did not think we would ever see.
But maybe this is case of be careful what you wish for, as despite Marvel providing creative input, this feels like the lest Spiderman like Spiderman movie so far. SpiderIronman may be a better title or Ironspider?
Spiderman's suite is provided by Tony Stark, and aside from not being able to fly, works pretty much the same as his own suite. It has a similar heads up display, and array of weapons to select from, its own attachable drone and most its equivalent to Jarvis, called Karen (voiced by Jennifer Connelly, wife of Paul Bettany, aka Jarvishmm)
It just didn't feel like I was watching Spiderman with all these gadgets. I did hope towards the end that maybe this was on purpose so when he was striped of them he would rely on his own ability. But this it was not be and he gets them all back.
This film try's hard to be funny and cool, with throwbacks to 80's John Hughes films. And in case you didn't get that, one scene even has a TV randomly placed showing the same John Hughes film it is paying homage to. Very meta hey? And when Peter Parkers best friend wears the Spiderman mask, its funny because he's fat right? Ahh good one lets all laugh at the fatty. The constant attempts at humour and usual MCU quips, strip the film of any tension.
Michael Keaton's Vulture could have been a great villain but is wasted. People hate on Spiderman 3, but at least I was never stifling yawns watching that. The opening fight in that film with Harry Osborne was far more exciting than any encounters Spiderman has with the Vulture here. The Vulture is a flying villain, so that should set up some vertigo inducing aerial battles through and over the city. But the best confrontation they have is sitting in a car.
Spiderman himself seems to be the cause of his own problems. He's the most accident-prone superhero this side of Mr Magoo. In this film he manages to indirectly blow up the Washington Monument, tear a ship in half and crash a plane into a beach, taking a fairground ride with it and possible killing dog walkers taking a stroll by the sea.
There is no sense of awe in this film. None of the epic and dizzying web swinging action we saw back in the Sam Raimi films. The actions scenes are lacklustre and ends in messy and scrappy CGI fight on a plane, of which somehow both Spiderman and the Vulture survive crashing and exploding on impact.
It speaks volumes when the recently shown preview of Spiderman on PS4 has better Spiderman action than this film provides at any point.
At the end of the film, a very annoying hipster girl who pops up now and again reveals her name is Michelle, but people call her MJ. What? Surely this is not going to be MJ? Michelle? Although I did read recently that producer Kevin Fegie has stated this is not the new Mary Jane. If that is so, why the MJ line? Just trolling for the sake of it. Hopefully this is not the 'real' Flash Thompson or 'real' Shocker either.
The film feels cheap. Its hard to say why, but it looks and feels like a kids film. Was it the director? Hard to say. I am big fan of his previous two releases. The best part of the film is the aforementioned stand off between Toomes and Parker in the car, which shows though the directors horror credentials. The film needed more of this, to generate tension and threat for our hero to come through. Sam Raimis horror skills also showed through on his films with that bruising fist fight between Goblin and Spiderman and the infamous hospital scene in Spiderman 2. Scary, brutal and brilliant. Such a shame we don't have these kind of scenes anymore.
I really hoped for something fresh and new with this but what we have is still very much Spiderman by committee, only now with added MCU cameos.
It's a shame but we will probably never get another Spiderman film that comes close to the greatness of Spiderman and Spiderman 2.