By Emilio Frenk.
Director: Jon Watts
Cast: Tom Holland, Robert Downey Jr., Michael Keaton, Marisa Tomei, Jon Favreau, Zendaya, Donald Glover, Jacob Batalon, Tony Revolori, Bokeem Woodbine, Tyne Daly, Martin Starr, Kenneth Choi, Jennifer Connelly and Gwyneth Paltrow.
Rating: Good.
Jon Watts, director of “Cop Car” brings “Spider-Man: Homecoming”. This is so far the most ambitious movie of his career and the results could have been much better but still I think the movie does deliver.
The movie takes place after the events of “Captain America: Civil War” and focuses in a young Peter Parker (Tom Holland) who is being mentored by Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr) in how to balance his life as an ordinary high school kid.
An anxious Peter is aware of his super powers and every day after school he is dressed as Spider-Man. With the outfit, Peter begins to fight crime and trying to keep the streets safe. At the same time Peter has the dream to become a member of The Avengers.
Eventually Spider-Man will face a major threat in the figure of The Vulture (Michael Keaton) a villain who uses all the advance technology to create weapons and sell them.
Now Spider-Man will be in a race against time to stop The Vulture before he takes total control of arms and used them for massive destruction.
“Spider-Man: Homecoming” like I mentioned is a movie that is entertaining but one of the major problems of the film was the screenplay itself.
Jonathan Goldstein, John Francis Daley, Jon Watts, Christopher Ford, Chris McKenna and Erik Sommers wrote a movie that it was totally focused on teenagers and they didn´t pay attention to the part of adults.
I felt the movie was too long and also there weren´t any action sequences except a few that happened during the second act of the film.
One of the things that the Sam Raimi films had was tons of actions sequences and they were really well made and for a movie like this you need those elements.
Some of the dialogue of the film was too on the nose and I felt the movie could have had a shorter length.
I did like Tom Holland as Spider-Man. He really delivered an this approach was very interesting. Although I felt that it could have been much better if the characters were written better.
Michael Keaton´s characters as The Vulture was an interesting one and this is the third time that he portrays a character with wings. He did it with “Batman”, “Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance” and now with “Spider-Man: Homecoming”. I did like the fact that he was not the typical villain that wants world domination. In fact in most of the film you feel for him and you understand why he is who he is.
I feel that Jon Watt´s directing was too focused on the visuals and how to make the movie look good. I understand this point since it´s a superhero movie but I felt that Watt´s should have been focused on the screenplay as well.
I think who really made the movie good was Robert Downey Jr. His addition to this film was too important and he portrays Tony Stark with so much wit and charisma that I think that is one great character.
I do believe that if Tony Stark would have not been in this movie, I don´t think it would have been this successful. I do see this relationship similar to the one Daniel Larusso and Mr. Miyagi in “The Karate Kid”.
The chemistry between Holland and Downey Jr works but I do think that it could have been much story if more time in story would have been invested.
I was not a big fan of the ending and I feel that the best scene of the film happened during the third act during the final confrontation of Spider-Man and The Vulture.
I give “Spider-Man: Homecoming” a marginal recommendation due to the fails that it had in story and the length of the film. Again if this things would have been fixed, we would be talking about a much better film.