Iron Spider: Homecoming

Rating: 8/10 (29 June 2017)

So here's my review of Iron Spider Homecoming.. ehm.. I meant to say #SpiderManHomecoming. It's an incredibly fun teen movie but it's not perfect. I think Tom Holland is a great Peter Parker, he's got the character down spot on. No offense to Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield but Tom Holland's version is like straight out of the pages. But with this reboot, they basically plaster Iron Man's previous drama on to Spider-Man in addition to the new tech-based suit, so I'm not sure if that's going to sit well with all the fans.
The events take place right after the colossal airport fight in "Captain America: Civil War," young Peter Parker/Spider-Man (Tom Holland) is stoked about helping Iron Man and looking forward to the next mission. But he seems to have been sidelined by his new mentor, Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) Peter goes about his high school life with his best friend and decathlon classmates, when Vulture (Michael Keaton) emerges as the new villain.
There's a bit of John Hughes influence in "Spider-Man: Homecoming" and that's a good thing considering Hughes was a legend when it comes to chronicling high school dramas, so it's natural for any filmmaker that's handling the same subject to be taking inspiration from his movies. I think Holland's fellow young co-stars are just as perfect in their roles. And Michael Keaton is superb. The movie doesn't have to keep hammering the whole working class man getting screwed over by the rich and powerful because Keaton himself already does a good job of conveying that. I enjoy the vibrancy of the chases because the movie keeps reminding us that Spider-Man can't go immediately from one location to another so Spider-Man has to hitch a ride or trespass a backyard or crashes a sleepover tent.
But because the humor really works, the drama has to come from somewhere else. They remove the origin story involving Uncle Ben and they also remove the "With great power comes great responsibility" essence, and they replace those with the dilemmas that Tony Stark had to experience in his previous film which asked the question of can a superhero be a superhero without his suit. To some, this might make sense so as to give us Spidey stripped down to his element. While others might see it as an effort to include Spidey in the MCU that comes with the risk of turning our friendly neighborhood hero into something else. The tech-based suit does provide some of the film's hilarious moments, but at times it makes Peter Parker/Spidey even more bumbling than he should be. So I'm not suggesting that iron-manizing Spider- Man is a terrible idea but clearly there are just too many MCU fingerprints all over what's supposed to be a Spider-Man new solo movie. The classic song might as well go like this "Spider-Man, Spider-Man, does whatever Iron Man can."
-- Rama's Screen --