Skip to footer

Strengths of 'Spider-Man: Homecoming' are its jaunty high school scenes

( PG-13 ) ( Monitor Movie Guide )

At times, “Homecoming,” which stars Tom Holland as the web-slinger, resembles a very good after-school special embedded in a cacophonous franchise flick.

|
Chuck Zlotnick/Columbia Pictures-Sony/AP
'Spider-Man: Homecoming' stars Tom Holland.
  • By Peter Rainer Film critic

“Spider-Man: Homecoming” is the first Spider-Man movie to entirely overlap the Marvel Comics universe. The reasons for this are corporate, not aesthetic (Columbia Pictures controlled previous “Spider-Man” movies), and I suppose this means that instead of having, say, 47 intersecting Marvel spinoffs, now we’ll have 326 stretching into the next millennium.

Tom Holland, reprising his appearance from “Captain America: Civil War,” plays Spider-Man, as, well, Spider-Boy. His engaging bumptiousness is a kicky change from Andrew Garfield’s more brooding incarnation. Peter Parker is very much the 15-year-old high school semi-nerd here, except for those after-class moments when he’s fighting crime. He has a crush on senior Liz (Laura Harrier) and ends up revealing his Spideyness to best friend Ned (Jacob Batalon), who is a sort of geek Sancho Panza to Peter’s high-flying Don Quixote.

The Avengers are represented mostly by Robert Downey Jr.’s Tony Stark, in a cameo, who isn’t quite ready to give Peter his full Avengers seal of approval. Chief baddie is Michael Keaton’s Adrian Toomes, a salvage contractor-turned-superpowered arms dealer. His character is able to morph into the Vulture, outfitted with big metal wings that, inevitably, draw comparison to Keaton’s Birdman (but not his Batman).

Director Jon Watts and his five other screenwriters are better at the small stuff – the jaunty high school scenes – than the kapowie CGI battle sequences. At times, “Homecoming” resembles a very good after-school special embedded in a cacophonous franchise flick. That’s probably not the demographic the filmmakers were most hoping to please. Grade: B- (Rated PG-13 for sci-fi action violence, some language, and brief suggestive comments.) 

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to Strengths of 'Spider-Man: Homecoming' are its jaunty high school scenes
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/The-Culture/Movies/2017/0706/Strengths-of-Spider-Man-Homecoming-are-its-jaunty-high-school-scenes
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe