Spider-Man: Homecoming...
So this is reboot #3, this time partnered with the bloated Avengers storyline of the MCU, though Spidey actually benefits from existing in that world.
The film opens right after the big battle in the first Avengers and Michael Keaton's working class hero/villain is a contractor who just landed a sweet gig doing salvage of the big alien battle. However, he's quickly waylaid by Damage Control, Tony Stark's big corporate company responsible for superhero clean-up. (If these films are so obsessed with all the urban destruction they wreak, maybe they'd, I don't know, blow up less fucking buildings?)
Pissed of, Keaton drives off with a truckload of alien tech, which he and his team reverse engineer into weapons they sell to criminals. (The film makes a point of saying the Keaton is basically a street-level Tony Stark, who also made his fortune selling weapons.) Keaton engineers himself some scary metal wings and claws and becomes the Vulture, pulling of heists of Damage Control's trucks to get more alien tech to sell to hoods.
Flash forward to after the events of Civil War and Peter Parker/Spider-Man is dying for a next mission as part of his "Stark Internship." Stark has given him a high tech Spdiey suit, but only lets him access part of it's capabilities. Stark has also made Jon Favreau's Happy Hogan Peter's direct contact, but he ignores him in favor of organizing the Avengers big move from Avengers tower in NYC to a militarized compound upstate. Peter is stuck navigating high school while trying to find a crime spree big enough to get back on Tony Stark's radar. A bank heist using the Vulture's weapons kicks off an investigative caper he thinks will get him back into the big leagues.
Boring comic book shit, right? But what the film does is plant all this squarely in the world of a high school comedy in the mold of Sixteen Candles, Can't Buy Me Love, and Ferris Bueller's Day Off, which the film references a wee bit heavy-handily. Sophomore Peter just wants to fight crime, but he's also trying to hide his secret form his academic decathlon team while trying to impress hot senior Liz. His goofy best friend Ned finds out he's Spider-Man and uses Peter's crush on Liz to convince him Peter should use his Spider-Man alter ego to make them popular. In Peter's quest to be a future superhero, he's fucking up the here and now in high school. The more successes he gets, the cockier he gets. He hacks into the suit to release it's full potential (and it's hilarious "mother" style AI) and starts biting off bigger chunks of superhero mayhem, getting on the Vulture's radar in a bad way. After a disastrous fuck-up, Stark takes the suit from him and Peter has to decide what's important in his life.
I'm gonna stop here plot wise, because the third act of this thing is a lot of fun. There are some nice twists that I didn't see coming and it all unfolds in a way that makes you understand what a John Hughes superhero movie would probably look like.
I liked it. This reboot has benefitted from getting away from the stupid Uncle Ben origin and Harry Osborn shit, and just letting Spider-Man be a kid in love with the idea of being something bigger than he is. The performances are really what make it. The kids are great. The kid playing Peter Parker nails it. Marisa Tomei as Aunt May doesn't have much to do, but is memorable in every scene she's in. (There's a running joke through the movie about how hot she is.) Keaton is really, really good. It's one of the best takes on a Superhero villain we've seen in a long time because his motivations makes sense and even the way he and Spider-Man become intertwined feels based in reality that has narrative logic. You feel real stakes of the third act. (Which thankfully has nothing to do with the world ending.)
RC says check it out.
