Peter Parker tries to keep up with his duties as Spider-Man even though he already has a busy schedule due to his high school life, where he is preparing at a chemistry contest in a decathlon. Things get out of hand when Adrian Toomes and his team steal the alien Chitauri technology, use it to manufacture weapons and sell them to criminals on the black market. Likewise, Peter’s friend Ned finds out about his secret identity. When Tony Stark gives him an advanced Spider-Man suit, Peter uses it to stop Adrian / Vulture, but thus misses his homecoming dance with Adrian’s daughter, Liz.
The first stand-alone film featuring Tom Holland as Spider-Man and his second appearance in Marvel's Cinematic Universe (he was introduced in "Captain America: Civil War") is one of the best contributions in Marvel's film franchize: refreshing, lively, funny, genuine, with a great sense for conjuring up the feeling of the chaotic high school life reminiscent of J. Hughes' style, thus making "Homecoming" the best Spider-Man film since Raimi's "Spider-Man 2". It already starts off charmingly creative: right after Marvel's logo, instead of opening credits, this text appears: "A Film by Peter Parker", as the film follows the hero's humorous mobile phone recording as he travels to Berlin with Happy. The movie isn't quite as creative afterwards, and its pace is at times too fast to truly let some moments "sink in", yet it compensates this with a lot of humor and fine performances. One of the best "throw away" bits revolve around the local Midterm High News hosted by teenagers Jason and Betty, who have ridiculous exchanges—in one, Jason looks at the camera and says: "Students, don't forget about your homecoming tickets. Do you have a date for homecoming?", but Betty then randomly turns her head towards him and unexpectedly replies: "Thanks, Jason, but I already have a date", as the camera zooms in on Jason's face, just awkwardly staring forward.
In another, after the decathlon team was saved from an elevator in the Washington Monument, the Midterm High News give this announcement: "Midtown's Academic Decathlon team defeated the country's best to win the national championship. Later that day, they also defeated death!" Michael Keaton has a field day as the villain Adrian / Vulture, as well as Jacob Batalon who is excellent as Peter's best nerdy friend Ned, and gives the most hilarious joke in the entire film: after communicating with Spider-Man online over a laptop in the library, a teacher shows up and asks what he is doing there so late, so Ned closes the laptop and tries to hide his secret by telling this: "I'm... looking... at porn". But the protagonist is also a highlight, since the story depicts Peter trying to balance his private life, where he is a loser, and his secret superhero life, where he is a popular hero, so when he starts experiencing failure as Spider-Man and becomes a loser even as a superhero, scolded by Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr. in a delicious guest appearance), he enters a crisis, which he has to resolve. The director Jon Watts isn't as inspired in his directing as much as the screenwriters are inspired in their writing, and the story lacks more emotions, yet "Homecoming" simply ties everything down to a T, demonstrating that popular entertainment can also be clever and satisfaying in its own way.
Grade:++
No comments:
Post a Comment