Spider-Man: Homecoming
12/07/17 Filed in: Cinema
We saw the latest instalment of Spider-Man today, although in putting that way it tends to suggest that this film is a continuation of those that have gone before: it isn't. This time we have, in effect, Spider-Boy. Tom Holland plays the role as naive 15 year-old high school student Peter Parker, with much of the plot dedicated to his friendship with his classmate, Ned, who early on in the scheme of things discovers his friend's superhero secret. This leads to some close calls as the over-enthusiastic Ned is just bursting to let everybody know what he knows. And then there's Liz, Peter's dream girl at school, who, as you might have guessed, has a thing for Spider-Man.
The scenario is that a group of salvage workers, led by Adrian Toombes (Michael Keaton), otherwise known as Vulture, some years earlier were effectively robbed of a contract to scrap and dispose of alien hardware left over from the scrap that took place in Captain America: Civil War, a film I didn't see. To rub it in, the lost contract went to Stark Enterprises, as in Tony Stark/Iron Man, who had been complicit in the mayhem that led to the need for the salvage operation. This enraged Toombes, who with his techie genius, The Tinkerer, set about using some retained alien power crystals to produce a range of super weapons for profit. Our youthful Spider-Man accidentally comes across a team of Toombes' men robbing cash machines and sets about stopping them, only to be confronted with more than he perhaps expected. From this point on our hero dedicates himself to tracking down the weapons and the people behind them, despite being told to leave it alone by Tony Stark.
Naivety and youthful exuberance know no bounds and we are treated to a succession of encounters that have a habit of not quite going to plan. This is where this film differs from the earlier offerings in the genre, in that we see our hero making a bit of a fool of himself in both his superhero capacity and his personal life. As you would expect, the computer graphics are seamless and the action almost continuous. The sequence with the Staten Island Ferry is particularly cleverly done, as is that where Peter, as Spider-Man, goes to the aid of his schoolmates who are about to descend from the Washington Memorial a lot faster than would be good for their health.
Peter starts the film with a very poor home-made spider suit, but this is upgraded by Tony Stark. The new suit is a hi-tech miracle although most of the features have been disabled for Peter's own good. But his friend Ned, who's a bit of an IT nerd, hacks the software and in so doing enables all the advanced features, the extent of which Peter only discovers when he attempts to take on a group of Toombes' men. This leads some amusing outcomes as Peter conducts an ongoing conversation with the suit's voice-control system, female of course, and named Karen for the sake of a good relationship.
Part of Toombes' arsenal is the Vulture suit, which gives him the power of flight and some impressive weaponry. It's inevitable that there will be a showdown between Spider-Man and Vulture so I'm not giving you too much of a spoiler here, but this showdown has a twist that brings together in an unexpected way Peter's struggle with Toombes and the coming of age angst of his personal life.
There will undoubtedly be a sequel, everything having been set up for the next part of the story. Hang around for the Easter Egg during the credits, and if you're really keen wait for another one at the end.
Reviews have been generally favourable and the film took $117m (£91m) in it's opening weekend, the second largest amount in the history of Sony Pictures.
Peter starts the film with a very poor home-made spider suit, but this is upgraded by Tony Stark. The new suit is a hi-tech miracle although most of the features have been disabled for Peter's own good. But his friend Ned, who's a bit of an IT nerd, hacks the software and in so doing enables all the advanced features, the extent of which Peter only discovers when he attempts to take on a group of Toombes' men. This leads some amusing outcomes as Peter conducts an ongoing conversation with the suit's voice-control system, female of course, and named Karen for the sake of a good relationship.
Part of Toombes' arsenal is the Vulture suit, which gives him the power of flight and some impressive weaponry. It's inevitable that there will be a showdown between Spider-Man and Vulture so I'm not giving you too much of a spoiler here, but this showdown has a twist that brings together in an unexpected way Peter's struggle with Toombes and the coming of age angst of his personal life.
There will undoubtedly be a sequel, everything having been set up for the next part of the story. Hang around for the Easter Egg during the credits, and if you're really keen wait for another one at the end.
Reviews have been generally favourable and the film took $117m (£91m) in it's opening weekend, the second largest amount in the history of Sony Pictures.