"We join 15-year-old Peter Parker in his high school troubles, in the wake of his first-hand experience and battle with the Avengers."
(above image: httpwww.impawards.com)
Spiderman Homecoming, Directed by Jon Watts and starring Tom Holland as the wise cracking web-shooter (returning from his debut appearance as the neighbourhood Spidey in Captain America: Civil War) is the third reboot of the iconic Stan Lee character Peter Parker and his amazing spider abilities. Currently, the sixth film of the Spiderman franchise, Spiderman Homecoming attempts once again to successfully launch Spiderman into the movie market and deliver a quality Marvel product.
We join 15-year-old Peter Parker in his high school troubles, in the wake of his first-hand experience and battle with the Avengers. Now thrown back into a life of boredom and mundanity, Peter desperately tries to prove himself to Tony Stark that he has what it takes to become an Avenger. He battles not only his own immaturity and high school issues including crushes, homework, and bullies, but he has to take on his first real foe. This will show the world if Peter is ready to be Spiderman or if he has to stay in school.
Spiderman Homecoming tries it's absolute best to try and pull you in. Each scene including wise cracks, face plants and one-liners from not only Peter but his light relief best friend. (Who is, of course, a huge nerd and wants to be a spy too). Staying in true Marvel fashion, humour tries to dominate the feature with a joke being thrown out once a minute. Unfortunately for every joke that lands, at least four miss and quickly made me squirm in my seat of rub my eyebrows in slight embarrassment. After seeing Spiderman swing gracefully in the city and slam his face into the gravel for the fortieth time, the joke starts to get a little samey. He yells to the audience “I’m okay! I’m fine!” which eventually had the audience looking at their phones, checking their texts.
The plot is grounded and tries to show the origin of a very young Spidey and his high school problems as well as battling The Vulture played by Michael Keaton. Although Keaton does his best with the role and brings a quality performance, the villain is overall weak and uninspired. The issue arises that Spiderman is so young, the stakes are relatively low compared to our other favourite Avengers. This low stake and generally flat out boring feature had not one, not two, but three people sleeping in their chairs in my 9 pm showing.
Spiderman Homecoming is admittedly better than some of the previous iterations but is still painfully lack lustre. Poor villain, hit and miss humour, mediocre plotlines and characters plague the feature yet again. After 15 years I think I’ve had enough of Peter Parker and his origin story.
True Spiderman fans will most likely love this new look at the familiar character and enjoy the change of pace, however, casual fans of the Marvel series will be restless and looking at their watches for the real film to start. At a hefty 2 hours and 15 minutes, Spiderman Homecoming could really use a good harsh editor to reel in the needless repeats of gags and seemingly pointless encounters.
Verdict: Spiderman Homecoming is a good attempt at reviving the doomed franchise but falls short for the casual viewer. Fans of the series will enjoy this new iteration and will tell you it was amazing, but this film will be shelved and forgotten guaranteed once more interesting villains come into the mix. The film tries hard to be your friend and make you attached to the characters but they come across as incredibly cheesy, wooden stereo types and cringingly inside the uncanny valley. I wanted to enjoy this feature but it’s just too far gone.
2/5 Stars.
