*Spoilers for every Spider-Man film ahead*
I’ve been thinking quite a bit about why Spider-Man:
Homecoming didn’t quite gel with me, after all, it was a good Spider-Man movie. Tom Holland is certainly strong in the
role, Michael Keaton as Adrian Toomes was one of Marvel’s better villains.
Hell, I didn’t even go into the film with very high expectations (Mostly due to
an absolute garbage marketing campaign Sony did), I went in expecting it to be
just okay…and it was just okay, so why did I leave the film only thinking about
the bad stuff over everything else? I think it can be broken down to one simple
thing: Fear. This movie is afraid of trying. I don’t know on who’s end but this
movie is afraid to be anything other than safe, simple, disposable entertainment.
Now don’t get me wrong, sometimes we need disposable entertainment,
something to keep us occupied for 2 hours and then move on with our lives, but
this is Spider-Man, one of the
greatest fictional characters of all time, he deserves more. So how does this
movie play it safe? Simply put, nothing changes. Let me ask you, what was Peter
Parker’s character arc in this film? He starts off thinking he’s hot stuff,
just fought with/against The Avengers, assumes he’s gonna be asked to join the
team any day now, then throughout the film he realises he’s not as great as he
thought he was, gets his ass handed to him…only to in the end beat the bad guy,
get offered a spot on The Avengers and suffers no loss whatsoever. That’s the
problem, Peter starts off and ends up in the exact same spot in the film. If
anything he’s in a better spot than he was before because he’s gained so much
and lost nothing. Take a look at where every other Spider-Man film goes? Sam
Raimi’s first film ends with Peter’s best friend hating Spider-Man, he has to
break MJ’s heart even though he loves her, and-oh yeah-Uncle Ben is dead (I’ll
get back to that in a minute). Second film, he does get the happy ending, but
that’s only after the rest of the film kept shitting on him for the other 2
hours. Third film, he’s finally with MJ but it’s only after his best friend
died. Amazing Spider-Man? Uncle Ben dies (Again) and so does Captain Stacey.
Second ASM? Gwen Stacey dies. You know what those films have? Sacrifices,
consequences, things going wrong for Peter.
Peter does make sacrifices in the film, but to no
consequence. He has to ditch his friends in order to go save the day, but no
one’s ever mad at him and he never misses much. Think about if they saved Ned finding
out about Peter’s identity until after
he has to ditch the party. His best friend mad at him for keeping secrets and betraying
his trust. Or the decathlon team pissed at him for skipping out on the
tournament? Every time it looks like they’re on the right track they back out
and go “Well, we don’t want Peter’s life to be hard! People should wanna be
Spider-Man and not feel bad for it!” Even though that’s the groundwork of the
character. Because this film doesn’t want to acknowledge that Peter Parker
became Spider-Man out of guilt. He
sees himself as responsible for Uncle Ben’s death because he misused his
powers. And this film just wants to forget Uncle Ben existed. Remember in this
universe Peter’s been Spidey for roughly 10 months, less than a year since
Uncle Ben’s death, yet there’s no mention of him, neither Peter nor Aunt May
seems affected by this in anyway. Yeah, we’ve seen Uncle Ben’s death before,
you don’t wanna show it again, but you can still acknowledge that he existed!
That he left some kind of an impact! How much more impactful would it have been
if when the sandwich deli that Peter goes too blew up and the owner died? Someone
in Peter’s life is dead because he got cocky, because he wanted to show off
while beating up the bank robbers instead of taking them out as quick as
possible? Actual consequence for his actions that he can’t take back. Oh, you
think Tony taking the suit back counts as consequences? Yeah not so much when
he gets it back at the end of the movie because-pfft! Who wants to see change
in our characters!?
This isn’t to suggest the film did a terrible job of
portraying the character, because they didn’t. His look, his language, his
movements, his dialogue, all felt very much in character. But this all feels
very much like a hollow version of him. It’s like Ben Affleck in Batman V
Superman, he looks the part, he sounds the part, he acts the part, but he doesn’t
become the part because the people
involved missed one of the essential aspects of the character. I want Spider-Man to feel guilty, I want
to see him make sacrifices, I want to see him screw-up, I want him to feel
human, and then I want to see him overcome those issues, come out the other side
victorious, but changed. Spider-Man’s life should never be easy, but that’s why
he’s a great hero, because he’s one of the few who will take life constantly
crapping on him, yet still fight for what is right.
-Danny
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