Movie Review: "Spiderman Homecoming"

Take the Spider-Man suit out of the equation and the viewer is left with an amusing, well told story about the issues facing a young man as he grows into adulthood. Put this high school kid into the red Spider-Man suit and apprentice him to a futuristic products’ company and the story gets even better. Considering that most people have seen at least one of the many Spider-Man films, this quite an achievement

Peter Parker (Tom Holland) is the teenager making this transition. He is a high school student living in Queens, NY and is apprenticed to the Avengers, headed by his mentor Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.). Tony gives Peter an upgraded red suit and advanced technologies to play with as Peter moves towards becoming a full-fledged Avenger. Adrian Toomes (Michael Keaton) is the bad guy. He has managed to salvage some super-secret materials to use in creating weapons of terrifying capabilities.

Peter, with the help of his high school buddy Ned (Jacob Battalion), discovers the weapons and realizes the havoc they might raise – so naturally attempts to stop Adrian. It’s not an easy task and this failure and others, cause him to be removed from his apprenticeship program and returned to being merely a high school student.

The special effects are the usual overwhelming ones we expect from this type genre. They are exciting and effective in moving the story along. However, it is the story, itself, that is a departure from the somewhat mindless Spider-Man predecessors. There are lessons to be learned, the values of good versus evil and their consequences to be examined. Just because the film is a comic book shown in 3D on a huge theater screen and created by talented artists, doesn’t mean it can’t also have a meaningful message.

This is summer-thrill for the younger generation and, for others, a glance backwards to a well-loved comic book character from another time. One wonders what the next installment of this series will be. Will Peter Parker be in a retirement community, wearing a saggy red suit with white threads in it – turning his outfit pinkish? Will he be wearing bifocals in his head gear? Will his webs not be as plentiful or as strong as they were in his youth? I guess one will just have to wait and see. 

Let’s hope Jon Watts and his colleagues will have a hand in creating the next installment. If it’s as good as this one, it’ll be worth waiting for.

Directed by Jon Watts, this 134-minute film is a “should see.”

johan@beachcomber.news