Review of Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017) by Rob O — 15 Jul 2017

In a beautiful world, there wouldn't be another 150 million dollar comic book movie every month, but despite how much Coldplay might incessantly assert it, we don't live in a beautiful world. And despite the fact that we do get another 150 million dollar comic book movie this month, there have been many worse, much less, very few that have accomplished what Spiderman: Homecoming has managed to do.

Instead of giving us a third origin story from a franchise that still has trouble escaping the origin story formula, they just drop us in the middle of the action. Peter Parker is just your every day, incredibly intelligent, physically impervious high school kid who happens to fight crime with his special spider powers.

He still has trouble talking to girls, and he has a nerdy sidekick. He isn't a brooding shell of a man at 15 years of age, war-torn and spiritually derelict with a vendetta against the criminals who murdered and desiccated his loved ones.

He's just a kid who jokes around with his friends and feels a moral imperative to use his powers for the benefit of those around him. And Michael Keaton as the opportunistic arms dealer/techno-villain The Vulture is well cast with properly written motivations.

At its core, it is a wholesome teen action/comedy/drama that would actually benefit from ditching all of the tie-ins with the larger Marvel cinematic universe, but then you wouldn't have several of the major plot points.

As for political commentary, much like The Dark Knight Rises, it equates the Occupy movement (and any other progressive idealists who want to end income inequality) with an opportunistic sociopath that ultimately meets his comeuppance due to hubris and overestimating his power, all the while lionizing an extremely wealthy vigilante who doles out "justice" free from the confines of the law.

Underneath that awfulness is a fairly innocuous and occasionally endearing character study. There are definitely worse movies your teenager could be watching right now, but not all of them have Chris Martin's jade vagina egg-peddling wife in them.