Spider-Man: Homecoming

I am slightly shocked. A director, who has so far shot only a couple of B-rated horror movies, suddenly elevated his movie career with a film that is probably the most entertaining Spider-Man story ever. It is true that they played around a bit with the character of Spider-Man so it would be best if you immediately forgot about Sam Raimi’s original trilogy. They turned him into this poor superhero who can’t do anything, who sucks, and is literally a pain in the butt of the famous Stark Industries. Michael Keaton is also no two-dimensional villain but surprisingly a rather real person who really surprised me with his role. A precisely targeted humor that makes out Spider-Man to be a poor thing is surprisingly very nice and the high-school setting is very beneficial. Surprisingly, a very well-done Marvel movie. (13/03/2018)

Quite a surprise. Before the screening, I would have said that the thematic chest around the spider hero had been emptied by the completion of the Raimi trilogy, but Kevin Feige at Marvel proves time and time again that he knows exactly what he wants to do and how to do it. Homecoming's weaknesses, though, are precisely that it doesn't bring anything too original to the general Spidey themes around the dream girl or his loserism, and that it is a bit skeletal in its attempts to connect the overarching Avenger level to its own story, but it remains a highly entertaining and light-hearted piece that Marvel has been missing from its mosaic – that of the boy within the superhero, a boy who, in addition to the bad guys, has to deal primarily with himself and his teenage problems. One of those comics films that is not so visually imaginative, but definitely the most thoughtful, which benefits a lot from the characterful and unconventionally human villain performed by Michael Keaton. Nowhere near as rushed and forced towards the impending massive team-up as I feared. (02/01/2018)

It took fifteen years and required six attempts, but in the end they managed to turn Spider-Man into a successful movie. It's not Spider-man. It´s more like Iron Man Junior, but even this is enough. Sometimes Parker's high school fateful melodramatic adventures were more successful, other times Spidey's acrobatic moments. However, Waits manages both approaches by acting as two communicating vessels, which goes hand in hand with the fact that, for the first time ever, the Parker / Spidey duality does not act as two unrelated characters, but only as a Parker teenager without / with a ski hood over a face that he has much greater ambitions and ideals than he currently has the skills to do. Yet Spidey's best incarnation is still that by the Insomniacs. The only drawback is, sadly, the lengthy confusing final night action with zero room for Aunt May, the ignored spider's sense and the need to adjust it to "Avengers MCU". It's way too much highlighted and it's not needed (however Captain America's educational videos are worth some patience). Otherwise, Waits plays with the topic, it´s packed with imaginative details (à la difficulties outside the urban area), sidekick is not annoying, humor works, the villain does the job, his motivation is clear, Padawan (not) origin is well conceived and a there´s a nice relaxed approach like "we don't save the world and skyscrapers do not fall, but we can create a tense atmosphere of Mann's scope even from a meeting with a father before the prom". (07/07/2017)

From the sympathetic protagonist to one of Marvel's finest protagonists to Giacchino's music, almost ubiquitous but unobtrusive humor and one very mildly unexpected twist... Everything is done right here. I'm not gonna blame Spider-Man for targeting a younger audience when Peter Parker is a teen this time. On the contrary, it is an advantage, because from his age stems the great desire of a boy to be big, to belong somewhere and to be useful, which drives it all forward. The latest addition to this comic book family is, in short, a lively spectacle that does not hold things back with things we've already seen (Spider-Man's origin and so on), but tells something new nicely, clearly and with ease. (07/07/2017)

The main goal that the creators set for themselves came out only halfway. The anticipated connection of superhero grandeur with ordinary high school adventure ultimately endures moments when they don't fit well together and often clash loudly. The teenage storyline, in fact, is sewn with an unnecessarily hot needle compared to the purely Marvel-esque (events from The Avengers and Captain America: Civil War are mined almost to the core) and thus the resulting impressions surprisingly have to be pulled up by Tony Stark himself in an unsurprisingly awesome performance by Robert Downey, Jr. Tom Holland enjoys the costume to the last line and tries to be that modern version of Spidey, but even though I was optimistic after he was introduced, he has been slow to win me over. Even though he is as close to Spider-Man as Tobey Maguire once was, the memories of Andrew Garfield and the whole Amazing Spider-Man are too intense and positive for me to accept this new reboot so quickly. 70% and the hope that when entering the same river for the third time, they will not cowardly retreat this time. (26/10/2017)