Director: Jon Watts
Writers: Jonathan Goldstein (screenplay by), John Francis Daley (screenplay by)
Stars: Tom Holland, Michael Keaton, Robert Downey Jr.
Plot: Peter Parker balances his life as an ordinary high school student in Queens with his superhero alter-ego Spider-Man, and finds himself on the trail of a new menace prowling the skies of New York City.
Running Time: 2 hours 13 Minutes
Rotten Tomatoes Score: Critics 92% Audience 88%
Why I Watched it: It’s a Marvel movie and so far I’ve only missed two, and I love Spider-Man as a character and hope to all that is holy that this is the last reboot and we get to move forward with this character.
Random Thoughts: So Marvel gets Spider-Man back and they make him younger but now they get to have Spider-Man grow inside the Marvel Universe. At first I wasn’t happy that in a stand alone Spider-Man film, well as stand alone as you can have with Marvel that they put Tony Stark in this, I was a little nervous that Marvel felt they had to hedge their bets.
What I liked: It’s hard to not like a Marvel movie, they put the money on the screen and they know how to tell a story and with the last few films they’re getting better at telling a story with three acts but also tie that story into a larger arc, they’ve come to understand that you have to deliver on the film people are paying to see now and not be so worried about the ten films coming out in Phase Three. They’ve nailed the Peter Parker character and with this film that’s what they seemed to want to do, I would think the next film we’ll deal with Spider-Man more. Tom Holland is very good here and I like that he’s young enough that he can grow with the character. He’s funny but he’s also a solid actor, they can go with whatever direction they want cause he has the chops. I’m very happy that we didn’t do the whole original thing, I like the set up with this film tying in with Civil War and the beginning is very well done.
Another thing Marvel is beginning to do well is have fleshed out villains, if Marvel has had a problem is that their villains are bland and boring and we end up with CGI battles to finish every film, here we get Michael Keaton as a real character, and he’s not only a good bad guy but he’s likable, he’s freaking Michael Keaton, there’s a couple of scenes where he’s just great, the cab ride scene with him and Holland is very good. They also make him a person and not a cartoon character. Also there’s a twist that is handled very well. I was very happy to see that Iron Man Tony Stark isn’t in it that much, he’s good without him taking over the movie. The tech stuff here is of course great, the film is bright and vibrant, the sound is great, the CGI is pretty good, Marvel does this stuff very well. They also nailed the High School pretty well and I like how they’ve planted seeds so certain characters are introduced but not used yet, I’ll call them teases.
What I didn’t like: It’s long, yup my old whipping horse, at 2 hours and 13 minutes it’s a tad too long and yes it does drag, the film could have been tighter. Also the arc with Spider-Man and Iron Man is very ham-fisted and cliched, it’s the only part of the film where I felt they just cut and pasted scenes from other comic book movies, we get it Tony Stark is a father-figure and Peter Parker needs guidance and he needs to grow up. My only other grips are nit picks, they didn’t use his Spidey sense which is a big thing with his abilities and they wasted Shocker.
Final Thoughts: The film is very good, very entertaining, the other thing I have to give credit to Marvel is they cast their films so well, even secondary and smaller characters have good actors and even name actors, very deep roster. It’s a good starting point for this Spider-Man.
Rating: 8/10
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