Spider-Man: Homecoming

Yes, you should go see the movie.

Spoiler: He doesn't wear those headphones with that jacket. (Source)

Seeing the Spider

When I was, I don't know, eight or nine, I owned a Spider-Man comic (I believe it was Amazing Spider-Man 361 or 362) that had exciting news in it: a Spider-Man movie would be released soon.

The next bit of news I heard about Marvel was that it was going bankrupt. (For more details, this article walks you through the big parts.) I was worried that my favorite comic book superhero would never get a chance to be on the silver screen--and, even worse, that his parent company might go under.

Fortunately, Marvel pulled through. Eventually, we got the Sam Raimi Spider-Man and its two sequels, and though the third was easily the weakest entry, all of them represented a unified vision and tone for the franchise (though, yeah, the third one is atonal, but...well, moving on).

When I first saw Spider-Man, I was about two months out from starting my mission. Back then, they didn't have midnight showings--or day-earlier advanced screenings--for big blockbusters. There were rules about when you could see a movie, and I had a pal who worked at the nearby movie theater. He was going to watch the movie at 12:01 on 3 May 2002 and invited me to hang out with him and his fellow coworkers and watch the movie. It was casual--one guy brought pizza--and felt more like a dozen people slumming it in their parent's basement than a proper movie screening.

When that movie ended, I did something I've never done before: I stumbled out of the movie theater. I was dazed and amazed by what I had just seen, and I ended up going back to the theater regularly to watch it. Later, when the DVD came out, I was in Hollywood Hills, Florida, tracting (knocking on doors to see if anyone wanted to hear the gospel message). One person, who didn't answer the door but had their window open, was watching Spider-Man. I recognized the introductory music immediately. I urged my companion to move along--as a missionary, I wasn't supposed to watch movies (among other rules) and hearing that theme music wasn't making it any easier to obey.

So this version of Spider-Man became my version of Spider-Man in a lot of ways (though he wasn't throwing out his quips nearly enough).

Honestly, the orange clashes with the red and blue, but I won't complain. (Source)

It takes a couple years for a movie to be made, so Spider-Man 2 came out about three weeks after I came home from my two year voluntary evangelical excursion for the locally predominant religion. I saw that one in California (where we were vacationing) with one of my best friends and his family. When we walked out, my dad joked, "I see why you like it so much: It has a redhead running around in a wedding dress." Considering I was at the stage of trying to figure out how to propose to my redheaded girlfriend, this was a not-untrue observation.

Coming Home

The cinematic landscape has changed as it's running through its teenage phase where people dressed up in outrageous costumes tell preposterous stories with lots of explosions and make obscene amounts of money. This bubble will one day burst, but I'm enjoying it thoroughly for now. It feels good to have my geek cachet be validated in ways that I could only have dreamed of as a kid. And it also feels good to have Spider-Man "come home" to the Marvel universe, instead of being outside it. The two Amazing Spider-Man films were...fine, for me. In retrospect, they are very weak entries into Spider-Lore, though Andrew Garfield felt more like a teenager than Tobey Maguire ever did. I enjoyed seeing Gwen Stacy as the love interest, but there were too many imbalances in the plot for either film to land the way they could have/should have.

So it's no surprise that Homecoming is a pun: the Homecoming dance at Midtown High plays into the latter half of the film, and Spider-Man is now at "home" with the rest of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Indeed, the broader story of the Avengers is integral to this film, which makes it feel like a natural companion and logical progression of the MCU's larger story arc instead of a shoehorned, cash-grab film. I haven't seen Guardians of the Galaxy: Vol. 2 yet, but I did see Dr. Strange, and though it's exciting to have Benedict Cumberbatch in the MCU, the film itself felt tangential to the broader plot (let's call it the Avengers' Initiative). The first Guardians had that, too, with the Infinity Stone being the only connection to the Avengers' Initiative. 

Those are fine, so far as they go. They broaden the scope of the MCU, allowing us to feel like there are threats and heroes, drama and romance, and all the other melodramatic components of a Marvel movie in an area that isn't confined to New York City. They help make the worlds richer because of that connective tissue and they also allow the films to take place somewhere besides the Big Apple. Even the street-level work from the Netflix series of Daredevil, Jessica Jones, and Luke Cage add that additional texture that is so enjoyable from the Marvel properties. 

Spider-Man: Homecoming splits the difference. It's street-level in a world where the streets have been permanently changed by the Avengers. It's connected to the larger machinations by virtue of the alien detritus left behind in the Battle of New York. Peter Parker wants to be a part of the Avengers, and uses his street-level work to try to "graduate" into the big leagues. In other words, the world of Homecoming is firmly in a New York that has to live under the threat of alien invasion--the past is Peter's present, and it all works very well.

The film itself is lighthearted enough to give us a different tone that most other MCU properties (the Guardians films being an exception) don't. While they all maintain a good dose of bathetic comedy, only the Guardians and Spider-Man give us action/comedy films. Iron Man's wit can't overcome the darkness of the torture and war crimes that come about, and Captain America's films are based upon the traumas of war and psychological rape. So...yeah, it's nice to have a kid sprinting through a golf course as the sprinklers turn on because he doesn't have any buildings to web-sling from. That's refreshing.

In terms of pacing and story, it all goes together very well, with plenty of shout outs and Easter eggs. It isn't an origin story, per se, but it's still the origin of Peter coming to grips with the power that he has. It's less of a coming-of-age story and more of a recognizing-one's-mistakes story, but that works well. Having the actor look and feel like a teenager made a large difference, and his nervousness, frequent mistakes, and obvious "I'm in over my head but I think I can make this work if I just try harder" mentality all combine to make an endearing--though significantly less competent--character. In terms of the early Spider-Man stories, that makes a lot of sense, and they use that source material well. (I won't say why, but at one point, Spider-Man gets hit by a lot of rubble. This iconic comic is brought to the screen, and that made me happy.)

Many consider this one of the best comics made, and certainly the best of the Silver Age Spider-Man mags. (Source)

Uncle Ben isn't featured at all, which is a strange choice, and The Daily Bugle isn't a feature of the film--or, indeed, the world. Despite these small picked nits, I felt that I was getting a bright, exciting, enthusiastic Spider-Man, more in line with the logical expression of a teenager having superpowers and hardly knowing what to do with them. I loved how diverse the cast was, from Liz to Nate to even the principal, showing a sense of the melting pot that is New York. While I'm not the biggest fan of the costume design (the best one, hands down, was from Amazing Spider-Man 2), it grew on me as the film went on. 

Yeah, the costume was probably the best part of ASM2. (Source)

In sum: Yes, I loved it. Yes, you should go see the movie.

'Nuff said.