Awful, horrible, totally detestable, a betrayal in every sense of the word.

Rating: 1/10 (29 October 2017)

For evidence of myth to our cultural identity and sanity, look no further than movies, and perhaps more poignantly, comic books, most obvious in the gold and silver ages.
Joseph Cambell: "On this immediate level of life and structure, myths offer life models. But the models have to be appropriate to the time in which you are living, and our time has changed so fast that what was proper fifty years ago is not proper today. The virtues of the past are the vices of today. And many of what were thought to be the vices of the past are the necessities of today. The moral order has to catch up with the moral necessities of actual life in time, here and now. And that is what we are not doing. The old-time religion belongs to another age, another people, another set of human values, another universe. By going back you throw yourself out of sync with history. Our kids lose their faith in the religions that were taught to them, and they go inside."
Spider-Man is completely unique. He has trouble paying his rent. He is unpopular and can't get the girl, his aunt nags him, he has to work to get through school, he's bullied, an orphan, an outcast, and despite his super powers, struggles with the same everyday life issues as everyone else, an "everyman," flawed, enduring grief and loss, going through identity crisis, full of fear and insecurity, his expressiveness released the moment the suit is donned (the opposite of the god-like, omnipotent "hero"), reveals our all too human failure and vulnerability (and hence resulting in escapism), for even with his accidental powers, he could not save or protect his loved ones, and living in the real world of Hell's Kitchen and New York City only makes him all the more real. Due to the common problems we all experience, we can all relate to the fantasy of escaping into super human grandiosity wishes (the rock star, the astronaut, the Indiana Jones adventurer), for Heroes with personal problems allows us to suspend disbelief, supercharged by awe, due our connection and attunement with the struggles of the hero. Stan Lee realized, most genuinely, if someone is just pretending to be a regular person but is secretly really a superhero, then the implication is this: "they aren't really like you and me at all." Superman PRETENDS to be nerdy and unsure of himself, but he's not really. So all those kids who are really nerdy and unsure of themselves fail to relate to him, because the message is "he's not REALLY like you, it's just a trick." But Peter Parker isn't pretending to be a normal guy and a nerd, he really IS those things. So the implication is, perhaps there's a hero deep down inside of you as well, because that superhero Spider-Man looks cool in his costume and everyone thinks he's so confident, but inside he's just like you and me.
And now we have Homecoming, an unforgivably polished, fully funded betrayal; the acting, screenplay, cinematography and special effects though superb, effectively exterminate the true voice of the actual character, one who despite all odds rises above his terminable uniqueness to become a heroic community leader, like MLK. As much as I felt unease at the overly simplistic and childish Tobey McGuire portrayal, at least Sam Raimi and the rest refused to bow down to corporate producers and stay true to the myth, unlike this sordid piece of overproduced trash. And as for the cutely portrayed John Favreau and Robert Downey Jr., do you two have any integrity? Do you not have enough money yet? I guess not, for money is more important to you than creating a movie millions upon millions of adolescents could have grasped onto, relate to, and find some meaning in, you two absolute failures as creative artists.
And as for the vulture, in the comics was a diseased, repugnant utterly sorrowful being, without family or friends, who replaced the disillusionment of the working class failure/hero with a megalomania cal charlatan dressed in the pale, paltry robes of the true revengeful vulture, one who preys upon the carcasses of resentment, ugly beyond recognition, abandoned by all he had left, his meaningless job, is unforgivably counterfeited here, replaced by a numbly glib and smugly empty, boringly hollow Michael Keaton (whom I suspect did a by the numbers performance by the chains imposed by his enabling handlers). It makes me sick to my soul as we regale and worship this antithesis, pounding one more nail into the coffin lid on the myth of spider man. This sickening piece of trash is a fraud, a lie, made all the more detestable and despicable by the gate-keeping, flaccid meaninglessness of the creative killing producers. Boycott this film with every fiber of your being. Boycott it I say! Boycott it in defiance of the mythology it discounts, discredits and invalidates. Boycott it I say! Boycott for nothing else than another manifestation of the soulless, numbers crunching, vapid surface level symptom it is. Boycott it because you know you love the real and true Spider-man, the one who tried to rescue Mary Jane but failed, the one whose resentment resulted in the death of Uncle Ben, the one who gave you hope that you too, in all your nerdy, pockmarked abandon, could get the girl and be cool despite all the odds. Thanks.