REVIEW: Spider-Man: Homecoming (Road to Infinity War)
Alright, let us continue The Papi Chulo RADIO Road to Infinity War (RTIW for short) review event with the sixteenth movie in the lineup, Spider-Man: Homecoming.
[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8wNgphPi5VM[/embedyt]
Now, with Spider-Man officially in the MCU, he deserves his own solo movie. Although this Spider-Man is another reboot, this also isn’t an origin story as well. Think of it as a continuation of Civil War. With that being said, does Spider-Man: Homecoming do Spider-Man justice? Or should this movie be squashed like a bug?
[WPGP gif_id=”9194″ width=”600″]
Before we get into it, it should be said that there will be spoilers if you haven’t seen it yet (Although since it came out last year, you should have seen it already).
The story begins with a flashback to after The Avengers and we get to see something we haven’t seen in a superhero film, what happens after a battle and who cleans it up the mess? Well, the answer is Adrian Toomes (Michael Keaton), and his group of scavengers. During their cleanup, a group from the government called Damage Control comes in to take over the job. Before clearing out, Adrian’s team manage to steal some alien tech in order to make weapons and gadgets out of them. Fast forward 8 years to before the airport scene in Captain America: Civil War. We see Peter (Tom Holland), being driven around by Happy (Jon Favreau), and Peter is filming his adventure to Berlin, his hotel room, filming himself during the Airport fight and then filming his return home with Tony (Robert Downey JR.). Once Peter puts the camera down, he is dropped off back home with his new suit and Tony tells him to stand by for his next mission. 2 months later, Peter is still going about his daily life, going to high school and also going around Queens in his new suit. One night Spider-Man runs into a group of thugs with Avengers masks and they also have some of Toomes’s new alien tech. A fight occurs and it ends with one of the weapons malfunctions and destroying the bank and a shop nearby. Peter goes back home where he soon discovers his bestie Ned (Jacob Batalon) has his LEGO Death Star in hand and drops it when he sees Peter with his Spider-Man costume. Ned now knows Peter’s secret and they argue back and forth with Ned agreeing to keep a lid on it. Aunt May (Marisa Tomei) comes into Peter’s room and says they are going out for Thai food. May asks Peter what’s wrong because he is down and Peter says that it’s his internship with Tony. Aunt May responds to her saying she is starting to dislike Tony because he keeps overworking Peter.
The next day during gym class, Peter hears his crush Liz (Laura Harrier), talking about how she likes Spider-Man and Ned lets slip the fact that Peter knows Spider-Man. Liz then invites both Peter and Ned to her party later that evening and asking if Peter can bring Spider-Man along. Later on, Peter and Ned go to Liz’s party and Ned asks Peter to put on the Spider-Man costume and swing on by to the party. Peter puts the suit on but sees some explosions in the distance and get’s distracted by that and goes towards that point to investigate. This leads Peter to under a bridge where we see an alien weapons deal going down. Peter intervenes and this ends up in a chase were Peter is hanging on the side of the van when he is able to pull one of the weapons from the van and toss it on someone’s lawn. Before Peter could actually stop the van, we see Vulture come and pick him up and take him several feet into the air. Peter is able to escape and release his parachute but then lands into a lake where he almost drowns. Iron Man saves him at the last minute, brings him to shore and gives Peter a pep talk. During the pep talk, we find out that Tony isn’t in the suit because he is down in India. Peter later goes back to retrieve the weapon that was dropped so he can study it.
The next day in shop class, Peter and Ned take the weapon apart and manage to keep the core of it intact, before they could leave school, some of Toomes’s goons come to the shop to take back the core. Peter puts a tracker on one of the goons, Peter goes back home with Ned and they track Toomes’s movements. They both discover that Toomes’s is headed for Maryland. Peter then goes to school the next day wanting to join back in with the decathlon team because they are headed to Washington for the nationals. While at their hotel, Everyone else sneaks out to go to the pool during nighttime while Peter sneaks out to follow Toomes. He discovers that Toomes is going to steal from a Damage Control truck headed back to its HQ. Peter and Vulture fight on top of the truck when Peter gets knocked out and locked in the truck. When Peter wakes up, he discovers that he is in a lower vault of Damage Control and tries everything to get out. Peter finally manages to get out but he misses the nationals altogether but his team still wins. Before he could meet back up with his friends. The alien core that Ned put in his backpack explodes while they are in the elevator of the Washington Monument. Peter suits up and tries his best to save his friends. Peter manages to get inside the building and the elevator and save everyone before he swings away. Back in New York, Peter learns his suit records everything and is able to identify one of the guys that were under the bridge, Aaron Davis (Donald Glover). Peter tracks him down to a parking garage and learns that Davis was looking to get weapons so he could escape his neighbourhood while also telling Peter that Toomes and some buyers will be on a Ferry later that day.
While on the Ferry, Toomes and his squad show off his product to Mac Gargan (Michael Mando), when the deal is interrupted by Spider-Man and also the FBI. Toomes gets his Vulture suit on and he fights Spider-Man on the Ferry. One of the weapons Vulture was using explodes and cuts the Ferry in half. Spider-Man tries his best to save it but is saved at the last minute again by Iron Man. After Iron Man repairs the ship, Tony and Peter have it out on a rooftop where Tony is actually there this time and after his fight with Peter, he takes the Suit he gave Peter back. After this, Peter goes back to his normal life and tries to leave the Spider-Man andInternshipp days behind him while he focuses on school and also getting a date for the Homecoming Dance. Peter confesses his feeling to Liz and asks Liz to the dance and she says yes which makes Peter very happy.
When Peter goes to Liz’s house later that night, he finally meets her father, ADRIAN TOOMES. This puts Peter on edge while at her house and when Toomes offers to give them a ride to the dance, he starts to pick up on the fact that Peter is Spider-Man. Before Toomes lets Peter out of his car, Toomes gives Peter a speech about how he needs to stay away from his work of he will kill him. Peter goes to the dance and when he finds Liz, he apologizes to her and runs away because he wants to stop her father. We later find out that Toomes has one last job in mind, stealing from the moving day plane with all of Tony’s stuff on it. Vulture gets to the plane and everything seems to be going smoothly until he sees that Spider-Man tagged along with him and they both fight on the outside of the plane. While fighting on the outside, they both manage to destroy most of the plane and the plane crash lands on the beach. They continue their fight until Vultures wings explode when he is trying to steal some tech. Toomes survives this and Peter makes sure to gift wrap Toomes and all of the plane cargo for Happy and the police to find. Later on, we find out that Liz is moving away with her mom to Oregan because it will be safer there than New York. Happy finds Peter at school and tells him to that Tony wants to see him at the New Avengers Base. Tony scolds but congrats Peter on what he did to Toomes and Tony shows Peter a new suit while also giving him an invitation to join the Avengers. Tony also says that there are real reporters waiting outside so that Tony can make the announcement but, before that can happen Peter declines the invitation to join and leaves Tony dumbfounded. Peter later gets home to find a paper bag with the suit that Tony made for him and when he puts the suit on, Aunt May sees this and ends the movie by saying, “What the F***!”.
The acting in this movie is simply spectacular (Sorry, not sorry). Tom Holland does an amazing job and has really cemented himself as the new Spider-Man. Michael Keaton is excellent as a villain and really knows how to balance being charming but scary at the same time. Robert Downey JR isn’t in this for long but he still does a great job. I was afraid that since they got RDJ, he was going to be in it a lot. Good thing he is only there when he needs to be a mentor/father figure to Peter. Everyone else does an amazing job as well. The only bad thing I can say is that Liz just feels one-dimensional as a love interest and a character. They should have spent more time developing her character so that we can actually have a good reason why Peter likes her so much.
The CGI is spectacular as well (I can’t help it with the spider puns). Everything looks visually stunning and Vultures suit really looks amazing and it makes me want one because it’s so awesome. The Spider-Man suit (Even the homemade suit), looks awesome as well. I would have loved to see Peter put on the Iron-Spider suit in this movie but we are gonna have to wait till Avengers: Infinity War (Hint, hint).
The Verdict:
This is the best Spider-Man movie out of all them. Marvel finally was able to do justice to the character when they were able to share the rights between Sony. Spider-Man: Homecoming is an all around fun and entertaining movie that really get’s it right. The villain is scary but also charming, the story is easy to follow and the cast is amazing. If you have gotten sick of Spider-Man movies or you haven’t seen it yet, this is a breath of fresh air and I can’t recommend this movie enough.
9.5/10
Next up, it’s main event time! We are nearly done the RTIW event, and what better time to see how Thor is in his third and best adventure yet, Thor: Ragnarok.