Deconstructing Spider-Man:Homecoming Movie - Good vs Bad

[Cmbmool]

Now let it be known, I have seen the Lego Batman film, and if it wasn't for various medias via Video games and trailers, I would have had a good time, but then I would ended up spoiling myself later.

I haven't seen Wonder Woman nor have I seen the Guardians of the Galaxy Vol.2. I'm waiting until their on DVD, like I did for the Lego Batman film.

Still this brings me to my personal review for Spider-man: Homecoming and let me say....it was good.

I do have my own complaints about the film, but overall it was a good movie.

Lets start with the good first:

1. Diverse casting was a good idea. I love how the individuals in the casting play off themselves.

2. Callbacks to the sources. Now I haven't seen the "Amazing" films, but I have seen various callbacks to the Original Sam Rami Films and even the comics. So it's great to see Marvel in control of this movie and seeing the subject being treated properly and fairly like its source material.

3. Balancing act...I have to give Holland credit upon balacing the two roles of Peter and Spider-man. I think he can hold his own as the new Spider-man.

4. Michael Keaton as the Vulture was GREAT!! Truly heart-wrenching and it relates back to my #2 point on the good side of this film. I mean I could almost see it like a middle ground between the Sam Rami films or at least where they were original suppose to go if it wasn't for the "Amazing" Films.

Now on to the BAD stuff and believe me I have a few complaints about this movie:

1. Sony, but that's a WHOLE OTHER TOPIC.

2. Remember when I said that Diversity cast was positive thing, it was a Negative thing too. By themselves the cast was wonderful in their roles and I know they're establishing this as a different version of Spider-man, but as a fan of the character and knowledge of his mythos...it was a bit unsettling seeing certain cast members in younger roles.

Which brings me to 3. NED LEEDS!!!

For Spider-man fans who are new, Ned Leeds was one of Peter's supporting characters, but he was also tricked into becoming the Hobgoblin in the 80s and ended up dying. A death in comics the still stick to this day surprisingly.

Now Ned in the film was rumored to be Miles Morales' pal Genke, I think his name was, and BOY how I wish that was true. The film version of Ned was ANNOYING!!!

I mean the person that Played Ned was good, but the character Ned was ANNOYING!!! I mean it almost made you want to pull you hair out and say HUSH!!!

4. The Suit...this film answers the question what is Spider-man without the suit, but....I am a bit annoyed that Tony "made the classic suit" via Upgrade for Peter. ��

We had 3 Spider-man films where Peter made his own tech and two where he adapted the works of his parents via the "Amazing" films. We do See the web-shooters that he made, but for Tony to make the entire suit and even "child-proof" just doesn't scream Spider-man to me. Spider-kid maybe, but then again it's my own opinion.

Overall it was a good film, it had a few laughs and a nod or two to the films predecessors. Don't believe what you truly read about the film until you see it yourself, but Spider-man Homecoming was an okay good film.

What makes Spider-man so unique is that he isn't just a street level hero. He is, but he also takes on threats that the Avengers tend to overlook and almost become bigger problems in the future. Venom excluded.

If you want to show people who Spider-man truly is I would recommend the first 2 Sam Rami films. As they're the "Superman" for Marvel themed movies.

[Stryfe8]

good....vulture, and sense of fun.
bad, everything else...what a pile of crap. it goes to show that you can slap marvel on something and people will like it even if it isnt any good

comics:with great power comes great responsibility
movie:with great power comes the need to impress tony stark

[TheCape]

As a movie, is good, the pacing, the action, the acting and the concept is solid and i would lie if i said that i didn't enjoyed it. It still had some issues, the whole thing about Spider-Man proving that he is more than a suit fell flat because before meeting Tony he was a hero for at least a year and previous to the upgrade the Stark suit was just a better looking costume with nothing special on it. so that moment when he lift the debris lost a lot of punch to be honest. The final battle was also dissapointing because Peter doesn't beat Vulture as much as survive him, but whatever. this problems don't make the film bad (at least as a movie) and still the virtues outweight the flaws.

As an adaption, it got some serious issues, althought not everything is bad in that regard.

-Vulture: This is actually one of the changes that doesn't bother me at all. Toomes had some good stories in the comics, but this incarnation is probably the most compelling version of Vulture out there, the idea of making him a working class villain and a family man works perfectly for him and Michael Keaton does a terrific performance, he is probably the best actor of the movie, althought is dissapointing that nobody call him by his villain name in it.

-Ned/Ganke: Ok, to be perfectly clear, i'm not a fan of Miles Morales, conceptually the kid is fine and he have a place in the franchise. just i don't care that much about him. But i find kind of insulting for him that they made Ganke (because that's what Ned Leeds in this movie), Peter's pal and confident, because that's a pretty big part of Miles characther, handing that to Peter feels unfair. As a characther, he is fine, but i still think that he shouldn't be here.

-Liz:Liz Allan is such a minor character in the grand scheme of the Spider-Man mythology and the hearts of the fandom that she amounts to little more than Peter’s high school crush, the Veronica to Betty Brant’s Betty, Harry Osborn’s eventual wife and Normie Osborn’s eventual mother. That was kind of it. So it’s not exactly a sin to change her role, relationships and general character so that she’s now more academically inclined and the daughter of the Vulture; even if the latter was more to serve the plot than her character.

-Flash: In this movie is incredibly frustrating because half of his character is very much on point. He is the arrogant, bullying jerk rival to Peter with a certain amount of clout within the school. But the other half of his character is not because he isn’t a meathead jock which is very much vital to who he is and his overall character arc as someone who peaked in high school and matured away from athletics in later life. Frankly, if they wanted to give him something new that we haven't seen of the characther before in the movies, there was plenty of material that they could have use to make him feels less cliche, it just feel like novelty for the sake of it.

-Michelle, MJ or whatever is she: Michelle is a quiet, studious, cynical, politically minded character who’s mostly just in the background of events not drawing much attention to herself. In other words whether you are going Ultimate or 616 Michelle is unbelievably wrong as an adaptation of Mary Jane. And that is really not okay to do when you are handling one of Spider-Man’s equivalent of Lois Lane. Maybe she isn't really MJ, but it is playing a pretty similar role to it, or seemed to be building towards that, it all depends upon the sequels. If she isn’t then that’s fine. If she is then that’s a huge blight upon the MCU Spider-Man franchise.

That being said the biggest sin than this film comitted in my opinion was taking inspiration from Miles Morales and the Ultimate Spider-Man cartoon. Holland’s Peter Parker is this kind of blend of Ultimate cartoon Peter Parker with Miles’ desire to live up to the older established heroes. But mostly it’s more like he has elements surrounding him that belong to Miles. Ganke is the biggest of course and there his attendance of a STEM school that is not dissimilar to Miles’ Brooklyn Visions Academy. Although the latter does have the unfortunate and unnecessary effect of making Peter seem far less intelligent than he is as he is now a smart kid amidst a whole school of smart kids, including Flash whose whole point is supposed to be that he is a jock ( I find it weird that Feige would claim Peter Parker is just a kid from Queens in criticism of ASM 2 but allow him to be granted a super gadget laden tech suit in this movie, wtf Kevin).

These elements from Miles are discourteous to both characters as Peter is swiping Miles’ stuff thus undermining future film projects starring him and all unnecessarily. After all Peter has had 55 years of continuous publication as the greatest Marvel character of all time. He really doesn’t need to borrow stuff from a spin-off Spider-Man.

But honestly beyond that I cannot myself honestly call this a Miles Morales movie that substitutes in Peter Parker. It would be far more accurate to say this is the best movie adaptation of the Ultimate Spider-Man cartoon anyone could ever asked for, regardless of how nobody was. Don’t get me wrong this was an enjoyable and likable movie whilst the cartoon is painfully insufferable, but that has problems that make me a bit dissapointng to this version of Spiderman.

A Spider-Man that is young, inexperienced and eager to join the big leagues, is basically the sum up of his charachter in the already mentioned cartoon. Holland’s Spider-Man is a toned down rendition of this albeit he has no teammates and is trying to specifically impress one particular hero Iron Man who lectures him, saves him when he is in over his head and reprimands him as a parental/teacher figure would, teaching him a lesson about himself when he removes his gadget laden suit.

All this is very much a massive betrayal of Spider-Man’s character. And not even a betrayal of what he was specifically like in the comics, but of the guiding philosophies Ditko and Lee had when creating him.An enormously important aspect of Spider-Man’s early creation was that he was the anti-Robin. He was the teen hero who was nobody’s sidekick, junior team mate or had an adult overseer of his superheroic activites. Though a student and under Aunt May’s care as a superhero Peter Parker was self made, self taught and truly independent. He made his own costume, he learned how to fight on his own, he learned from his mistakes on his own and he did things his own way. Oh and he was also cash strapped to the point where his equipment was typically homespun.

Whilst Iron Man’s involvement in Peter’s life, Peter’s fancy gadget suit and his desire to become an Avenger and impress Stark makes sense in the context of the MCU it wasn’t strictly demanded by the ongoing narrative of the MCU. It was not unavoidable that the film series take Spider-Man down this particular direction. Nor was it justified by virtue of needing to do something novel with the film or showcase what can be done with Spider-Man now as a part of the MCU. Adaption should take into account adapting the spirit of the characther first,the reason for that is after all because whilst it might be fresh and original to go in such a drastically different direction the price for the novelty is the selling out of the very thing you are adapting (undermining the point of adapting the thing in the first place).

So yeah…Peter Parker’s characterization and depiction in this movie suck hard. if you want to try and defend it on the grounds that in the context of the MCU Spider-Man’s admiration of the Avengers would make sense, good for you, but that doesn't work in my opinion, because in 616 he sure as hell wasn’t gushing over Cap or the Fantastic Four despite them also being big names that preceded him in the universe.

However it may well be the case that actually the characterization they went with resulted more from the mere fact that they opted to begin Spider-Man as a kid to provide something fresh for him and the MCU at large and that going forward they will write him as something more similar to his comic counterpart, he will not necessarily be like this in future instalments and will develop into a more appropriate interpretation of Spider-Man. Heck most things in this movie could transition into a more traditional interpretation of Spider-Man or else (like Michelle) be ignored in favour of going with tradition. But then again…they did give him back his stupid gadget laden suit at the end of the film.

[Scott Taylor]

Speaking of Tony-designed Spidey suits, how much does anyone wanna bet that the outfit that's revealed at the end actually gets some play in Infinity War? I sure hope it does because it looks freaking awesome.

To me, that suit screamed "Iron Spider" and I fully expect it to sprout legs when he gets around to using it.

Good:
-It was a great movie in and of itself. Even though it was part of the MU, and Peter is an Avenger now, the movie was self-contained and felt smaller than most MCU movies.
-Keaton was great from bottom to top, I thought he would be good but he exceeded my expectations.
-The high school cast and setting was very well done, as were almost all of the characters.
-I also liked the little things like the New Yorkers and the Queens environment.
-There were also tons of easter eggs, like Bagley seen in graffiti at one point. I laughed at alot of points during the movie.
-We got to see the famous, iconic ASM #33 scene on screen.
-We got to see Peter do his best work in his non-tech, homemade suit.
-Peter decided to not become an active Avenger.
-The Lee cameo.
-The Captain America educational videos

Bad:
-I'm not down with Stark recruiting a 15-year old without facing some kind of real consequence for that. And he puts in a "use lethal force" auto-option for a kid, really? Yes, he had regrets, but the guy should honestly be in jail for doing that. Its a more serious thing than anything having to do with Segovia. This is what Cap should have been mad at him about - exploiting an underaged, fellow New Yorker from Queens.
-The film was too jokey at times, kind of mocked itself. For instance, the Ferris Bueller scene. Even though I laughed alot, I also felt sometimes like I was watching a standup routine. Sometimes the jokes hit, other times not. Too jokey.

Mixed:
-Ganke as Ned. I liked the character but didn't understand why he was called Ned. Maybe they are setting up Ned and Betty to be a couple to play out a note from the original comics? Anyway it bugged me.
-The suit. It was really, really cool. But also pointless except for the cool factor. As proven by how well he did without it. And with "Karen" in the suit, he's now Iron Man lite. This is going to be offputting over the long term.

[Bukdiah]

Are we giving stuff we liked and didn't about the movie or are we exploring themes and symbolism and such? I'm getting flash backs to my film appreciation class back in the day lol.

[StuffKnower]

Overall, I enjoyed the movie, but there were things that could have been done better:
Peter could have won a fight on his own. Not let the bad guys get away, not get help from Iron Man, Ned or just do better in a plane crash, but have a single clean victory.
Relied somewhat less heavily on the webs. I would have like to see him throw a punch at some point, although this was his established approach in Civil War as well.
Actually have the reflexes he is supposed to, or something close to them. I can live without the spider sense, as it is hard to explain how such a power would work without it being precognition, which is a strange power to throw into the mix, so I am okay with the number of times he is surprised/blindsided. But once he knows that someone like the Shocker is there, he should be able to easily evade their attacks.

Other than that, I thought it was well-acted (with a great performance by Keaton, and solid performances all around), and liked the more local feel of the movie compared to the "save the world" that has become so common. The high school stuff was well handled for the most part. One thing I didn't like was how everyone was obsessed with Peter. Even Flash - the idea of him leading a "Penis Parker" chant when Peter wasn't even at the party seemed so... creepy. Not bully-ish, but just creepy. I mean, if he had filmed it and sent it to Peter or something, maybe, but as it was, it just felt wrong.

And the action scenes were pretty fun to watch.

Overall, recommend, but didn't love it as much as some people did.

[Mister Mets]

Homecoming made New York magazine's ranking of the top superhero movies.

http://www.vulture.com/2014/12/25-be...nce-blade.html

It could be professional courtesy because New York calls its pop culture section Vulture.

[UnknownEntity]

Homecoming made New York magazine's ranking of the top superhero movies.

http://www.vulture.com/2014/12/25-be...nce-blade.html

It could be professional courtesy because New York calls its pop culture section Vulture.

Well... that's different. I certainly don't agree with the majority of it by a long shot but its refreshing to see new viewpoints.

[Scott Taylor]

Wow, Unbreakable as the No. 2 superhero movie. And no Guardians of the Galaxy on there anywhere. Thats one odd perspective being presented there.

[Mister Mets]

Wow, Unbreakable as the No. 2 superhero movie. And no Guardians of the Galaxy on there anywhere. Thats one odd perspective being presented there.

Their rule was that it has to be set on Earth, which excludes the likes of Star Wars and Guardians of the Galaxy.

[Immortal Weapon]

I don't think of Guardians as a superhero movie. They are a bunch of misfits doing mercenary work.

[Noronha]

As a movie, is good, the pacing, the action, the acting and the concept is solid and i would lie if i said that i didn't enjoyed it. It still had some issues, the whole thing about Spider-Man proving that he is more than a suit fell flat because before meeting Tony he was a hero for at least a year and previous to the upgrade the Stark suit was just a better looking costume with nothing special on it. so that moment when he lift the debris lost a lot of punch to be honest. The final battle was also dissapointing because Peter doesn't beat Vulture as much as survive him, but whatever. this problems don't make the film bad (at least as a movie) and still the virtues outweight the flaws.

As an adaption, it got some serious issues, althought not everything is bad in that regard.

-Vulture: This is actually one of the changes that doesn't bother me at all. Toomes had some good stories in the comics, but this incarnation is probably the most compelling version of Vulture out there, the idea of making him a working class villain and a family man works perfectly for him and Michael Keaton does a terrific performance, he is probably the best actor of the movie, althought is dissapointing that nobody call him by his villain name in it.

-Ned/Ganke: Ok, to be perfectly clear, i'm not a fan of Miles Morales, conceptually the kid is fine and he have a place in the franchise. just i don't care that much about him. But i find kind of insulting for him that they made Ganke (because that's what Ned Leeds in this movie), Peter's pal and confident, because that's a pretty big part of Miles characther, handing that to Peter feels unfair. As a characther, he is fine, but i still think that he shouldn't be here.

-Liz:Liz Allan is such a minor character in the grand scheme of the Spider-Man mythology and the hearts of the fandom that she amounts to little more than Peter’s high school crush, the Veronica to Betty Brant’s Betty, Harry Osborn’s eventual wife and Normie Osborn’s eventual mother. That was kind of it. So it’s not exactly a sin to change her role, relationships and general character so that she’s now more academically inclined and the daughter of the Vulture; even if the latter was more to serve the plot than her character.

-Flash: In this movie is incredibly frustrating because half of his character is very much on point. He is the arrogant, bullying jerk rival to Peter with a certain amount of clout within the school. But the other half of his character is not because he isn’t a meathead jock which is very much vital to who he is and his overall character arc as someone who peaked in high school and matured away from athletics in later life. Frankly, if they wanted to give him something new that we haven't seen of the characther before in the movies, there was plenty of material that they could have use to make him feels less cliche, it just feel like novelty for the sake of it.

-Michelle, MJ or whatever is she: Michelle is a quiet, studious, cynical, politically minded character who’s mostly just in the background of events not drawing much attention to herself. In other words whether you are going Ultimate or 616 Michelle is unbelievably wrong as an adaptation of Mary Jane. And that is really not okay to do when you are handling one of Spider-Man’s equivalent of Lois Lane. Maybe she isn't really MJ, but it is playing a pretty similar role to it, or seemed to be building towards that, it all depends upon the sequels. If she isn’t then that’s fine. If she is then that’s a huge blight upon the MCU Spider-Man franchise.

That being said the biggest sin than this film comitted in my opinion was taking inspiration from Miles Morales and the Ultimate Spider-Man cartoon. Holland’s Peter Parker is this kind of blend of Ultimate cartoon Peter Parker with Miles’ desire to live up to the older established heroes. But mostly it’s more like he has elements surrounding him that belong to Miles. Ganke is the biggest of course and there his attendance of a STEM school that is not dissimilar to Miles’ Brooklyn Visions Academy. Although the latter does have the unfortunate and unnecessary effect of making Peter seem far less intelligent than he is as he is now a smart kid amidst a whole school of smart kids, including Flash whose whole point is supposed to be that he is a jock ( I find it weird that Feige would claim Peter Parker is just a kid from Queens in criticism of ASM 2 but allow him to be granted a super gadget laden tech suit in this movie, wtf Kevin).

These elements from Miles are discourteous to both characters as Peter is swiping Miles’ stuff thus undermining future film projects starring him and all unnecessarily. After all Peter has had 55 years of continuous publication as the greatest Marvel character of all time. He really doesn’t need to borrow stuff from a spin-off Spider-Man.

But honestly beyond that I cannot myself honestly call this a Miles Morales movie that substitutes in Peter Parker. It would be far more accurate to say this is the best movie adaptation of the Ultimate Spider-Man cartoon anyone could ever asked for, regardless of how nobody was. Don’t get me wrong this was an enjoyable and likable movie whilst the cartoon is painfully insufferable, but that has problems that make me a bit dissapointng to this version of Spiderman.

A Spider-Man that is young, inexperienced and eager to join the big leagues, is basically the sum up of his charachter in the already mentioned cartoon. Holland’s Spider-Man is a toned down rendition of this albeit he has no teammates and is trying to specifically impress one particular hero Iron Man who lectures him, saves him when he is in over his head and reprimands him as a parental/teacher figure would, teaching him a lesson about himself when he removes his gadget laden suit.

All this is very much a massive betrayal of Spider-Man’s character. And not even a betrayal of what he was specifically like in the comics, but of the guiding philosophies Ditko and Lee had when creating him.An enormously important aspect of Spider-Man’s early creation was that he was the anti-Robin. He was the teen hero who was nobody’s sidekick, junior team mate or had an adult overseer of his superheroic activites. Though a student and under Aunt May’s care as a superhero Peter Parker was self made, self taught and truly independent. He made his own costume, he learned how to fight on his own, he learned from his mistakes on his own and he did things his own way. Oh and he was also cash strapped to the point where his equipment was typically homespun.

Whilst Iron Man’s involvement in Peter’s life, Peter’s fancy gadget suit and his desire to become an Avenger and impress Stark makes sense in the context of the MCU it wasn’t strictly demanded by the ongoing narrative of the MCU. It was not unavoidable that the film series take Spider-Man down this particular direction. Nor was it justified by virtue of needing to do something novel with the film or showcase what can be done with Spider-Man now as a part of the MCU. Adaption should take into account adapting the spirit of the characther first,the reason for that is after all because whilst it might be fresh and original to go in such a drastically different direction the price for the novelty is the selling out of the very thing you are adapting (undermining the point of adapting the thing in the first place).

So yeah…Peter Parker’s characterization and depiction in this movie suck hard. if you want to try and defend it on the grounds that in the context of the MCU Spider-Man’s admiration of the Avengers would make sense, good for you, but that doesn't work in my opinion, because in 616 he sure as hell wasn’t gushing over Cap or the Fantastic Four despite them also being big names that preceded him in the universe.

However it may well be the case that actually the characterization they went with resulted more from the mere fact that they opted to begin Spider-Man as a kid to provide something fresh for him and the MCU at large and that going forward they will write him as something more similar to his comic counterpart, he will not necessarily be like this in future instalments and will develop into a more appropriate interpretation of Spider-Man. Heck most things in this movie could transition into a more traditional interpretation of Spider-Man or else (like Michelle) be ignored in favour of going with tradition. But then again…they did give him back his stupid gadget laden suit at the end of the film.

Perfect!
Could not have said it better.

Especially the parts regarding PP´s characterization.

I have never seen USM cartoon or read a single issue of Miles Morales (except the one in which UPP returns from the dead), so i just felt completely disconnected to my favorite fictional character of all time...nothing, I mean I haven´t read a single comic from Batman and almost cried at the end of DKRises...here I just felt nothing.

I honestly think that could´ve made the movie with any other teenage superhero.

USM up until his death is one of the best written SM stories of all time with a beginning, middle and tragically-beautiful end, it lasted what, 10 years?
Might as well go for that if you want to make a movie with a teenage PP.

Hell, remove Tony and put Sam Jackson´s Fury, their relationship in USM was 100 times better and tense, not this gush over how perfect tony stark is.
It was painful to se "PP" reduced to this annoying star struck kid.
Well at least now i think I actually felt something.

I like to think I can be opened minded regarding certain freedoms and risks people are willing to take, but at least leave something for me to be connected with...here there was nothing!

Except the Vulture, I actually found myself rooting for him at the end.

[Minerboh]

Homecoming was the Spider-Man movie we deserved for years. It had the best May Parker i saw since JMS's run and Tom Holland was the perfect choice. Karen was the perfect substitute for the missing Spider Sense.
However i did had some extremely minor complains.
Almost every cast member from Spidey's world was missing. I would like to see Marvel's version for Jameson, Osborn family, MJ and Gwen.
No Uncle Ben? All right, i do see why they didn't made an origin story but not even mentioning him in the entire movie is disappointing. Ben was the very reason for Spider-Man's existence for God's sake.
9.9 out of 10 from me.

[Cville]

Only part I didnt like was Ned. I found him annoying at the beginning, but as he appeared in fewer scenes and was shown to be a good techie he got better.
Liked everything else.

Did anyone else want to go out and immediately buy that Vulture jacket? lol

[Vixx]

Are we giving stuff we liked and didn't about the movie or are we exploring themes and symbolism and such? I'm getting flash backs to my film appreciation class back in the day lol.

That's awesome lol

What did the flash back to the crying mine, holding a red balloon, wearing a diving bell suit symbolize for you as he was crushed to death under debris from the battle of New York?

Four pages, single spaced, due Friday