Warning: This post contains spoilers forSpider-Man: Homecoming.
Superheroes in the movies now are all aristocrats and celebrities, far removed from recognizable average-human concerns.
Wolverine inLoganis King Lear, a ruined old warrior coping with the divergent strains of his legacy.
Credit: Columbia Pictures/Everett Collection; Chuck Zlotnick/Sony
In the Marvel Cinematic Universe, everyones a well-financed Avenger with official (or imitation) Stark gear.
(They built the pyramids and caused the Cuban Missile Crisis, like JAY-Z in real life.)
Every other superhero franchise is trending cosmic right now.
Columbia Pictures
(Thanos, Darkseid, the Shiar Empire.)
He runs through regular backyards.
He says hi to a couple kids playing ping-pong in their garage.
Columbia Pictures
The film benefits from the natural grade inflation of improved sequels.
AlthoughSpider-Man 3has a worse reputation, the recentAmazingfilms starring Andrew Garfield were actually more ruinous for the character.
Garfields Peter Parker lived in an overly art-designed apartment, an advertisers dream of how regular people live.
The first and especially secondSpider-Manfilms are a nostalgic vision of midcentury New York brought barely into the modern age.
They have less in common withHomecomingthan with live-action cartoons likeDick TracyandSpeed Racer, aesthetic experiments in retro-futurity.
But they were attempting to tell a universe-launching saga designed to sprawl across sequels and spinoffs.
(Parker and Osborn: Two households both alike in dignity.)
It was a mess of broken ambitions, and literally anything would be an improvement.
AndHomecomingis more than anything!
And his high school looks like America, dammit.
Tony Revolori plays Flash Thompson, a character classically conceived as a redheaded alpha bro.
Zendaya plays some variation of Mary Jane Watson, another classic ginger introduced during the LBJ presidency.
Truthfully, besides Revolori, its up for debate if theyre even precisely playing any of these comic characters.
Let me be clear: Any performer can play any character.
This is a basic truth that should be obvious to everyone.
Years ago, there was an internet movement to cast Donald Glover as Spider-Man.
Today, Glover mid-Atlantaseems powers-of-tencoolerthan Andrew Garfield.
And hes inHomecoming, too, for a couple scenes.
But people can be awful, turns out.
Just on a purely comparative level, Revolori is the best Flash Thompson in anySpider-Manmovie.
Zylkas Flash is a damp squib, like everything else inAmazing Spider-Man.
when he tells Kirsten Dunsts Mary Jane You know what?Whatever.
Revoloris Flash is a DJ, an academic decathlete, a rich kid with a vanity license plate.
These are character traits!
And he calls Peter Penis Parker, which isnt funny, but bullies are never funny.
Hes Iceman inTop Gun, negging our hero towards coolness.
This isnt a problem until it is.
So Revolori playing Spaulding fromCaddyshackmakes sense for the comedy but does nonsense for the drama.
So Flash is a bad secondary villain, and unfortunately, Michael Keatons Vulture is a bad primary villain.
This requires some investigation.
Three attempts to make the Green Goblin look cool failed.
Doctor Octopus turned evil because of tentacle rage.
Venom wasnt even a good villain in the comics, so good luck Tom Hardy!
Hes got green eyes, and a helmet, and a high-tech outfit that looks like Transformer spare parts.
I think part of the problem with Spider-Man villains is that theyresupposedto look unreal on the page.
The natural inclination is to give them a high-tech exoskeleton, but most high-tech exoskeletons look pretty dull onscreen.
Of course,Homecomingisnt just the latest entry in the Spider-Man franchise.
Its also the latest entry in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
And the weirdest thing about this universe-crossing corporate handshake is how explicitly the movie winks toward it.
But Stark is omnipresent.
Tony is a chief figure in the Department of Damage Control, a collaboration with the federal government.
This motivates Adrian, and the lamest thing aboutHomecomingis how it barely takes his motivation seriously.
He gets one big line The rich and powerful, they do whatever they want!
by which he means Tony Stark and the Avengers and the government, too.
In the movies own context, it’s possible for you to only really agree with him.
Creating a great movie villain requires a certain amount of empathy, from the filmmakers and from the audience.
You have to understand their motivation.
Homecomingroots itself in the post-Avengersrecovery of New York.
I guess continuity only counts when the movie is good.
In this world of perpetual super-destruction, superheroes are the lingua franca.
In class, Peter gets a lesson about the Sokovia Accords.
The kids learn physical fitness from instructional videos starring Captain America.
Everyone at school thinks Tony Stark is a cool guy.
The whole big plot idea of the movie is that Spider-Man wants more than anything to be an Avenger.
In this context, the Vulture has a weird point, though you have to make it for him.
ButHomecomingcan only be unequivocally on the side of anything Stark.
So theres an aggressive, mildly stunning resonance to that prologue, with Adrian Toomes begging for work.
Hes already invested in new technology for this job.
Imall in on this!
Maybe next time dont overextend yourself, says the faceless Damage Control co-executive vice president.
Hell, wouldntyoupunch him?
The big problem with Vulture, see, is that he wants to use Avengers technology.
He uses some gear leftover fromWinter Soldierhenchman Crossbones to turn two of his henchmen into the Shocker.
He keeps chasing after Chitauri technology, a desperate man seeking the purity of essence that poweredAvengers.
How shameful, this pretender, using the Avengers technology for the wrong reasons.
Someone else gets to use precious superhero technology, briefly: Peters friend Ned.
This was Peppers main plot role inIron Man, is the primary part of every S.H.I.E.L.D.
The guy in the chair!
is his rallying cry: He yearns to be Spider-Mans helper guy.
And hes agreatguy in a rallying chair, truthfully, he makes Maria Hill inAvengerslook like Darcy inThor 2.
But his whole role in the film can be defined as support staff.
By the midway point of the film, Spider-Man is a beloved local-boy hero.
Spider-Man Mania Is Sweeping The School!
declares school newscaster Betty Brant.
Whats not to love?
But I keep coming back to MJ.
Thats what Zendayas character Michelleprefersto be called, she explains in her final scene in the movie.
Like Allison, MJ is disappointingly less of a weirdo than she seems to be.
Shailene Woodley actually played MJ in a sequence cut from the movie.
Of course, every superherohassomeone to love.
(Even the stonefacedDark Knighttrilogy paraded brunettes for Bruce to fall for.)
But there are two pitfalls we have to avoid here.
We shouldnt praise Marvel for paying lip service to politics, and we shouldnt damn Marvel for being apolitical.
he declares, sneer implied.
What are they afterthistime?
They ask him to join, but Peter has zero inclination: Ive got nothing to protest about!
A few years later, inAmazing Spider-Man#68, Peter runs afoul of some other protestors.
This is a pretty fundamental paradox for superheroism: lone individuals empower themselves by working to help their community.
Have you rewatched the Raimi trilogy?
Its two greatSpider-Manmovies spread over three films.
Spider-Man 3has the worst reputation, though its actually more fun than Raimis first film.
The third films also a showcase for Kirsten Dunst.
Her Mary Jane was alwaysalmostas important to RaimisSpider-Manmovies as Spider-Man was.
She almost smiles, but doesnt, almost frowns, frankly looks more than a little bit troubled.
She has to live publicly, and rationalize that public life with her private life.
The most liberating moment of the film happens when she puts on a mask.
(She meets Jamie Dornan at a masquerade; disappointingly, she doesnt kiss him upside-down.)
Thats an idea picked up inSpider-Man 3, where everything about the Mary Jane-Peter dynamic gets turned upside-down.
Meanwhile, MJs career goes downhill.
Will any other superhero movie ever dramatize a turbulent relationship through the power of dance?
Dunst doesnt have an insanely awesome voice, but Im not sure Mary Jane issupposedto be a good singer.
I agree with the last point.
Half a century later, Peter Parker still has nothing to protest about.
