Review of Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017) by Mauricio M — 09 Sep 2017

Spider-Man Homecoming isn't the best Spider-Man movie. It's not even the second best Spider-Man movie. In fact, I can say that it's not even better than The Amazing Spider-Man (the first one). Both of those movies seek to achieve (but fail at) different things. Amazing Spider-Man failed under its own ambition (of being an untold story while not really telling anything), and Homecoming fails because of its lack of that same ambition. (I don't know which one is worse though.).

There are no emotional stakes in this movie that I found to be engaging. It comes nowhere near close to the level of emotional impact that the first two Sam Raimi films had. Spider-Man Homecoming feels rather inconsequential and bland.

The characters are fine, for the most part (except for the annoying friend of Peter Parker that tries too hard to be relevant for the story). However, they're not memorable. And if they are, then they are memorable for all the wrong reasons.

Tony Stark is definitely a third wheel in this movie. I don't see why he needed to be in this movie. And I don't know why his tech had to be such a pivotal part of the movie. The fact that it was Tony Stark who designed the iconic Spider-Man suit makes this Spider-Man look like an inept child. Which he is (kind of).

And I also couldn't past how inaccurate this movie was to the comics. I know, it's seems rather inconsequential to complain about comic book inaccuracies in an MCU movie (since they never cared for comics that much), but as a Spider-Man fan, it bothers me.

Since when Aunt May is a hot milf that swears like a redneck? Since when Flash Thompson is a rich scrawny brown kid who has no physical attributes of a jock? Since when Vulture is a father of Liz Allen? Since when Tony Stark became the central figure of Spider-Man? Spider-Man was already a long-lived hero when Iron Man first appeared in the comics. Since when Peter was educated in a special school founded by Tony Stark? Peter Parker was going to a regular school for middle-class kids.

But even despite its inaccurate interpretation of Spider-Man's history (with a lot unnecessary changes), and the lack of emotion and interest in its one-note story that has no identity of its own and uses someone else's work (*cough* John Hughes *cough*) as its framework, it's still decent enough to be entertaining.