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Sunday, July 9, 2017
Spider-Man: Homecoming is Overrated
After the North Korean hacking incident in late-2014, Sony faced some serious difficulty with trying to keep itself afloat for a good while. What resulted was Amy Pascal stepping down as the head of Sony’s film division, and compromising with Disney to allow Spiderman to be a part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. I’ve talked before in the past, that while it was cool to bring Spiderman into the MCU, I was already hooked on “The Amazing Spiderman” films by Marc Webb and starring Andrew Garfield. That, and I felt that Marvel was just going to use Spiderman as a marketing tool to get people more in seats, despite having several other already developed characters that still make bank. When it came to “Captain America: Civil War,” I thought the film was good and Tom Holland was a very good Spiderman, he didn’t really feel like he belonged in the film. Same with Ant-Man. They were both just thrown in there for that one scene, and that’s it. It felt really forced.
It kind of bugged me that people were jumping on the Tom
Holland band wagon when “Civil War” came out, yet they didn’t even wait to see
if this kid could hold his own in a solo film, which is what I did…and of
course, they decided to rush in a solo Spiderman movie, pushing the release
dates of other Marvel films back a movie going season. Now, this had me worried
for several reasons:
1.
It’s too soon
for another Spiderman reboot – When “The Amazing Spiderman” films were coming out, we
had already established that the Sam Raimi trilogy was over and times were moving
on. The last film may have been a hit, but it was given mixed reviews, and
people wanted a redo. Plus, “Spiderman 3” and “The Amazing Spiderman” were 5
years apart from each other, so there was enough time to settle in. There was
only 2 years between “The Amazing Spiderman 2” and “Civil War,” where we bring
Spiderman back, and the following summer has him in his own movie. The pacing
doesn’t feel right.
2.
Young Peter
again – I know one of the main traits that people love about Spiderman is that
he’s not as experienced as other superheroes and that he’s growing to adapt to
his life being balanced as a superhero…but I feel like Marvel should have gone
with a different Spiderman instead of Peter. I love Peter and all, but if
Marvel wants to do something new with Spiderman, adapt a different one. They
say they want to be more diverse with their casting, so why not go with the
Miles Morales Spiderman. It would be fresh.
3.
No good
marketing for this movie – One of the first signs of how a movie draws you in,
is the trailer. It’s supposed to get you sucked in to what’s about to come, and
pump you up for a brand new Spiderman in the Marvel Universe…but when I first
saw the trailer for this movie, it just looked like crap. Same goes for the
rest of the trailers and marketing that kept appearing. Even with the inclusion
of Michael Keaton as the Vulture, it looked so…generic. And yet, everyone else
on the internet, even some people calling me up, saying “They did it! They
finally got Spiderman right!” and I’m over here thinking like Mugatu at the end
of “Zoolander,” thinking “doesn’t anyone else notice this? I feel like I’m
taking crazy pills!”
4.
The people
attached to this – This was my biggest concern going into this new Spiderman
movie, and that’s what people seemed to brush off or didn’t fucking care. It
was a film being produced by Amy Pascal, who last produced the latest
“Ghostbusters” film; Jon Watts, who directed “Cop Car” and “Clown” which
weren’t very good; and lastly, there was Jonathan Goldstein and Jon Francis Daily,
who wrote the film “Vacation” with Ed Helms. It was plagued with several bad
signs, popping up left and right, and yet people weren’t even thinking about
this at all.
But…I decided to be optimistic about this. I went to a
pre-screening on June 28th, a week before the film’s release, thinking “Please don’t
suck! Please don’t suck! Marvel, do something you haven’t done since 2014, and
PROVE ME WRONG!” And for the first time viewing it, I gave my vlog review for
my initial thoughts, and I had said the film was alright at best...but after giving it some time and really letting it sink in, I started to feel myself liking it less and less. And after seeing it get the near universal praise it was getting, I felt that something wasn't right, but I wasn't sure what. And then it came to me...I hated this movie.
So what exactly didn’t work about movie? Well, for starters,
the comedy is awful. There were moments that were supposed to be funny, but I
just sat there in silence. I was probably the only one who wasn’t laughing in
that entire theatre, so it’s official: I’m surrounded by idiots. It’s “Vacation”
all over again. Hell, there were only two laughs I got out of the entire movie:
one was the last end credits scene where Capt. America comes out in a PSA
format to talk about patience, and the other was when Zendaya Coleman gave
someone the bird. This brings me to my next problem, which is the supporting
cast being useless. Aside from Robert Downey Jr. popping up in that ferry
scene, everyone in the cast just doesn’t seem that important to the story or
just there to be annoying ass-hats. Zendaya Coleman does fine with what she’s
given, being this Daria-esque character with the one or two funny moments, but
I didn’t really see a point to her being there. Flash Thompson, who is usually
a bully that Peter has to deal with, is not really Flash Thompson. I mean, I
like Tony Revelori, and I’ve seen him do good in films like “The Grand Budapest
Hotel,” but I don’t buy him as Flash. He’s just a scrawny dumb jackass who acts
more like Allen Gregory than he does Flash. Hell, the worst thing he does to
Peter in this entire movie is call him “Penis Parker.” …dick jokes aren’t funny
anymore, people. The love interest, Liz Allen, really doesn’t have much
character to her, aside from “the love interest.” How…riveting. Marissa Tomei
as Aunt May doesn’t really do much in this film either. She’s just there…because
Spiderman needs an adult figure to live with, and to do some stupid joke at the
end. The best friend, who from what I’m told is supposed to be Miles Morales’
friend in the comics (again, why not do Morales?!), was easily the most
irritating part about this movie. Every line of dialogue, every form of
delivery that he gave, and just about everything else was horrible. I was
already sick of him in the trailers, but the film made him much more annoying than
I was expecting.
Looking back on it, it felt like this film was more of a
film about the Vulture than it was Spiderman. The movie starts and ends with
him, and he’s the one who actually has a motive throughout the film. He’s a
construction cleanup worker who got screwed out of his job, and decided to use
what weaponry he salvaged to keep his family afloat. Problem is that this is not called "Vulture: Homecoming," it's called "SPIDERMAN: Homecoming!" So that begs the question,
what’s Peter’s motive throughout the film, aside from stopping the selling of illegal
weaponry? To be part of the Avengers? Well,
that’s not really as strong as Vulture’s motive. I mean, sure, there’s that one
heist at the bank some guys made with the gadgets, but that’s about it. I get
that they don’t want to rehash the same old Uncle Ben dying trope again, but
they could have at the very least brought it up, give some kind of motive for
Peter to do what he does. Also for a film called “Spiderman: Homecoming,” homecoming
is more of a cliff-note than anything. It would have been cool if it played a
bigger part in the movie, like if Peter was trying to win Liz Allen’s affection
to get her to go with him to homecoming, or if the final battle is AT
homecoming, but no. Nothing. If you just called the film “The Spectacular
Spiderman,” it probably would have been easier to do, and differ it from the
other films.
The score felt weak too. Don’t get me wrong, I
love Michael Giacchino, one of my favorite composers working today, but aside
from his epic rendition of the classic Spiderman theme from the 60’s, there’s
nothing really that stands out about his music. Compared to Danny Elfman and
the late James Horner’s scores, Giacchino’s feels more like something you’d
hear from Steve Jablonsky’s works. That, and the action scenes, felt very inconsequential. I didn’t feel any tension with any fight scene,
unlike previous Spiderman or Marvel film. The parade fight in the first Raimi
film, the train fight from the second one, the fight in the high school and
Oscorp in the first Webb film, the power line battle with Electro in the second
Webb film, even the fight scenes in “Spiderman 3” got pretty brutal. Nothing in
“Homecoming” really got me worrying about what was going to happen with
Spiderman at all. It just felt like they did an action scene because they were
worried that our audience was getting bored.
There were two things that I at least liked in this movie: Tom Holland as Spiderman and Michael
Keaton as Adrian Toomes, the Vulture. I’ve admitted that I thought Tom Holland
was a good successor to Andrew Garfield, as he really puts a lot of effort into
his performance, both physically and mentally. And while some of his dialogue
is stupid, his charisma is what makes it worth it. I was really happy to see
the Vulture finally put in a Spiderman film, possibly having either Ben
Kingsley or John Malkovich in the role, but Keaton was perfect timing. Coming
off of the success of his Oscar nominated role in “Birdman,” I can tell Kevin
Feige looked at that and thought, “let’s make him a REAL Birdman.” And like I
said, I thought the story arc they did with him was way better than with Peter.
And with a strong motive like that, he’s easily one of the better villains that
MCU has given as of late, along with Ego in “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2”…it’s
just a shame the movie wasn’t as good as these two were.
I know I’ve been sounding very harsh, but that’s
how I feel about “Spiderman: Homecoming.” It’s kind of like when
people saw “The Phantom Menace” when it first came out; people wanted to
believe that it was a good movie, but they felt something was wrong. That’s how
I felt about this movie. It’s a prime example of a film where the more I thought
about it, the worse it gets. Aside from Tom Holland and Michael Keaton, there
isn’t much else that I liked about it. I hated the comedy, the supporting cast
felt useless, and it just feels like filler…actually, yeah, that’s what this
film feels like. It’s filler for the next Marvel movie. Look, I get why some
people would hate any of the previous Spiderman films, but this is one where I’m
confused as to why people are loving it this much.
I hate to be that guy, but “Spiderman:
Homecoming” is Marvel Studios worst film, and is the most overrated film of
2017!
Tuesday, July 4, 2017
Saturday, July 1, 2017
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