directed by Jon Watts
written by Jonathan Goldstein, John Francis Daley, Watts, Christopher Ford, Chris McKenna and Erik Sommers
For the third time in fifteen years, Sony Pictures unleashes a new big screen iteration of Marvel Comics' single most beloved superhero, the amazing Spider-Man. This time, however, they've got the might of Marvel in their creative (and marketing) corner, and the results are exactly what millions of fans the world over have been hoping for since it was announced that Sony was finally allowing Spidey into the Marvel Cinematic Universe, including this longtime fanboy.
Peter Parker (Tom Holland) is a fifteen-year-old high school sophomore with typical high school problems; he has a hard time talking to girls, particularly his dream girl Liz (Laura Harrier). He has to deal with school bully Flash (Tony Revolori), and apart from his best bud Ned (Jacob Batalon), he doesn't really have that many friends. He also has the proportionate strength, speed and agility of a spider, and a super-hero secret identity, that of Spider-Man. As the film begins he has just taken part in an attempt to capture Captain America. Having quietly flown him to Germany for the aforementioned mission, Peter's mentor Tony Stark (Robert Downey, Jr.), quietly drops Peter off at home back in Queens where he lives with his Aunt May (Marisa Tomei) and leaves his driver/bodyguard Happy (Jon Favreau) in charge of making sure he stays out of trouble.
Unbeknownst to Stark, however, since one of his companies, Damage Control, booted out contractor Adrian Toomes (Michael Keaton) from a clean-up job he and his crew had gotten from the City Government of New York to clean up after the Avengers' battle with the Chitauri many years ago, Toomes and his cohorts have been stealing technology left over from the Avengers' battles to build extremely dangerous weapons and sell them to criminals. One such gang of criminals tries to use the tech to rob several ATMs...right in Peter's neighborhood. Spider-Man stops the robbery, but when he tries to track down the people selling the weapons, he finds that his desire to play superhero comes into direct conflict with his life as a high school student, the latter of which, to a kid who is both as smart and as marginalized as Peter, is not particularly fulfilling. To get off the very short leash on which Stark keeps him, Peter has Ned, who accidentally discovers his identity, hack into the Stark-built Spider-man costume and he sets off on his self-appointed mission to unlock its many high-tech goodies, which he feels he will need to stop Toomes. Peter will soon discover, however, that it's not the suit and powers that matter but the hero that wields them.
Much has been written about how Peter Parker's youth is the single biggest asset of the film, and I definitely agree with that assessment. None of the previous films focused much on Peter's life as a high school student. The first film had him graduating halfway through the film, and the first reboot, while it featured a Peter who was still in high school, noticeably treated it more like an incidental fact of his life rather than a defining aspect of it. Previous filmmakers seemed eager to get it out of the way, but in conceiving this movie, director Jon Watts and his army of writers, no doubt under the watchful eye of Kevin Feige, wisely used the high school setting to establish the key lesson that defines Peter Parker's journey as Spider-Man: with great power comes great responsibility. Peter's got both brain and, thanks to his spider bite, the brawn to do all of the super stuff, but he learns the hard way that there's quite a bit more to being a hero than just having super powers and knowing how to use them. He's the avatar for every kid who's ever felt trapped by the constraints of school, especially the gifted kids, and it's gratifying to see the filmmakers reaching out to what is undoubtedly this film's core audience with something heartfelt to say about being young and all of the awkwardness and frustration that entails. It's funny, exciting and compassionate, and a film that's easily one of the best that Marvel Studios has ever produced.
I'd go as far as to say it stands on par with Spider-Man 2, still regarded by many as one of the very best films the superhero genre has to offer, and in many ways it even exceeds it. After all, this is a movie that features a wisecracking Spider-Man, a genius who can make his own web fluid, and a kid who is every bit as shy out of the costume as he is cocky in it. It also helps that this film, unlike any that came before it, pays homage to one of the most iconic moments in the character's published history, one which dyed-in-the-wool comic book Spidey fans will recognize instantly.
The visual pyrotechnics are all topnotch, of course, with Sony Pictures Imageworks and Digital Domain churning out state-of-the-art effects, but that's to be expected from this kind of movie. I was personally glad that the film didn't degenerate into a generic CGI orgy in the last act. While there are clearly visual effects involved; it plays out a lot better than, say, the ultra-generic battle at the end of Wonder Woman. Still, whatever artistry the VFX wizards would have brought to the table would have been all for naught had the writers left their brains at home. Just ask the guys who worked on the Transformers movies.
The good news is that, despite having six writers, often a recipe for creative disaster, the film's script feels solid and mostly coherent. Watts, who was apparently chosen to direct this film because of a little independent film called Cop Car which featured pre-teen boys as protagonists, coaxes exemplary performances from his cast. Carrying the movie on his slight shoulders, however, is white-hot British actor Tom Holland, who snagged this role two years ago in what was apparently a very competitive auditioning process, and who turns in a note-perfect performance as one of the most beloved superhero characters of all time. Holland's youthfulness helps him portray Peter as eager and callow, but it's Holland's earnestness and commitment to his portrayal that really enables him to nail a rather tricky performance. Tobey Maguire, in the first iteration of the character, went a bit too broad, and Andrew Garfield, while his love for the character was fairly clear, just couldn't quite nail the awkwardness of Peter. Holland gets the balance just right, and helping him along are a talented, if sometimes low-key supporting cast in Batalon, Zendaya and Laura Harrier. Batalon is a real scene-stealer here, and I'm not just saying that because he's of Filipino descent.
Also, it's worth noting that for once, the hero faces off against a villain who is not only formidable but very well-developed, courtesy of a smashing performance by Michael Keaton. In breaking away from recent tradition, Keaton's Vulture is the very best MCU since Tom Hiddleston charmed moviegoers' pants off as Loki, the god of mischief five years ago. Keaton brings his considerable acting chops (and comic book street cred) to bear as he renders a performance that is all at once terrifying and surprisingly sympathetic, even right up to the end. Keaton's is actually the first face the audience sees as the film opens, and he leaves a heck of an impression. I'm not actually shocked; I've been a fan of this guy since 1988's Beetlejuice, and I know that, even without Batman on his resume, he's got some serious acting mojo, but I was pleasantly surprised that he turned in a wonderfully nuanced performance rather than just sail on through for an easy paycheck. People like Paul Giamatti and Jamie Foxx may have gone all Jim Carrey on their Spidey villains but Keaton not only dials the menace up to 11 with his character, but manages to keep him human at the same time, which makes him even scarier.
There's not much to say about Robert Downey, Jr. and Jon Favreau as Tony Stark and Happy Hogan, respectively, other than that they were the necessary glue between this iteration of Spidey and the bigger Marvel Cinematic Universe, but unlike the awkwardly shoehorned Falcon scene in Ant-Man, Stark and Happy are reasonably well-integrated into the narrative, with Stark standing as a welcome substitute for Peter's late Uncle Ben, whose death, I am glad to report, is no longer depicted and who, in fact, is only mentioned very obliquely. In case I missed that point, I'm happy to point out this isn't an origin story, and the film is all the better for it.
It's got its flaws; Spider-Man's "spider sense" or the preternatural ability to sense danger is conspicuously absent from this film, though to be fair it also winked out at somewhat inconvenient moments in past films as well. My son pointed out his weak chemistry with his romantic lead, Liz, which was a little disappointing after Wonder Woman got the superhero love story down pat. A direct reference to Ferris Bueller's Day Off was a little on the nose, considering the film does an effective homage all on its own, with Peter spending most of it playing hooky. These, are however, but minor quibbles; I really enjoyed this film. Also, while he doesn't quite match his wonderfully quirky work on Doctor Strange, composer Michael Giacchino comes up with a pretty strong theme for Spidey, even though I'm sure this film will be better-remembered for the orchestral version of the old 1960s TV show that ushers in the "Marvel Studios" logo in the beginning.
And so, Sony has restored some luster to the crown jewel of Marvel's cinematic characters, and I take great encouragement from Kevin Feige's pronouncement that this version of Spidey will soon usher in a new era for the Marvel Cinematic Universe, following the cataclysmic events of the upcoming Avengers: Infinity War. The MCU could not ask for a better standard-bearer.
8.5/10
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