Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to the next post in my series covering the Marvel Cinematic Universe. This time, we are looking at the first MCU Spider-Man movie, which is subtitled “Homecoming”. Directed by Jon Watts, this movie stars Tom Holland as Peter Parker/Spider-Man, Marisa Tomei as Aunt May, Robert Downey Jr as Tony Stark/Iron Man, and Michael Keaton as Adrian Toomes/Vulture. It also has Jon Favreau returning as Happy Hogan for the first time since “Iron Man 3” back in 2013. This movie covers Peter Parker dealing with some high school stuff while doing his best to be Spider-Man after school is done. He also has to deal with the Vulture in this movie. Before I go any farther, let’s start at the beginning.
After the Sony and Columbia Pictures logos pop up, we get a flashback to the aftermath of the attack in New York back in 2012. We see Adrian Toomes and a group of other guys deal with the damage before damage control (overseen by Tony Stark) stops them and asks them to leave. Adrian and his guys do keep some of the stuff that they got from the rubble. We cut to present day, where we see Adrian and his guys are making some good money. We also see Adrian test out the flight equipment that will be used by him as the Vulture before we cut to the Marvel Studios logo. Instead of the usual Marvel Studios theme song, we hear a rendition of the old 1960s Spider-Man theme song as the logo occurs. After the logo is done, we see phone footage of Peter Parker making his way to Germany to help with the airport fight scene in “Captain America: Civil War”. This whole montage of scenes is shot from Peter’s perspective. After the fight is over, he gets back home and goes back to being a normal high school student with Spider-Man abilities. Tony tells him before he leaves that he is not quite ready to be part of the Avengers. He also tells him to not do anything stupid. We then cut to Peter on the train before he heads for school 2 months after the Berlin airport scene. The TV plays a school newscast about the Homecoming dance coming up. As he puts some stuff in his locker, he talks with Ned (Jacob Batalon) down the hallway. During his classes, we see him experimenting with his Spiderweb stuff. He later quits the academic decathlon team because of his involvement with Stark. After he leaves school, he gets some food from a convenience store. He then goes to an alley to change to his Spider-Man suit. After that, he helps several people (including an old lady) while “Blitzkrieg Bop” by The Ramones plays during the montage. He accidentally messes up when he mistook someone for stealing a car, which causes the alarm to go off. Some people berate him, including Stan Lee from an upper window. After the montage is over, he calls Happy via voicemail about his day. He then sees a potential bank robbery by some people who are using special weapons. He is able to stop the guys from robbing the bank, but a big explosion happens at the convenience store. He rescues the clerk and his cat before leaving and calling Happy about it. Happy is busy planning the move from the Avengers tower to the new headquarters in upstate New York. Peter’s backpack is gone, but he heads back home anyway. Ned sees him as Spider-Man, which makes him drop the Death Star Lego set. Aunt May and Peter have dinner together before they see the news footage of the bank robbery that was stopped by Spider-Man. The next day, Ned and Peter see the aftermath of the previous night. At school, he asks Peter everything about Spider-Man and the Avengers. At the gym class, the students watch a video with Chris Evans as Captain America doing some school PSAs. Ned and Peter overhear some girls talking about Spider-Man. Ned then yells that Peter knows Spider-Man, causing everyone to stop at their tracks. Spider-Man is then invited to a party hosted by a girl named Liz (Laura Harrier). Aunt May takes Peter and Ned to the party, but Peter is nervous about it. As he changes outside, he sees something bad in the distance and goes to find out what it is. He runs out of webbing, causing him to find it on foot. He makes it to find two of Adrian’s henchmen sell some special Chitauri weaponry to a guy named Aaron Davis, Miles Morales’ uncle in the comics (played by Donald Glover). The guys know of Spider-Man’s presence via a ringtone and one of them hits him with a shock punching glove. Spider-Man chases them for a bit with some mess ups along the way, including scaring some girls. He almost makes it to the truck when, all of a sudden, Vulture grabs him and flies him up. Spider-Man escapes and falls into the water. Iron Man (via Tony Stark piloting it remotely) saves him from drowning. Stark tells Peter that the crime is way above his level and to stay away from big threats. On his way back, he discovers a piece that could be a bomb later. Later, we see Adrian accidentally kill one of his henchmen (Brice) before giving another one of his guys the shocking punch thing.
At school, Peter tries to remove the power core from the weapon that he got the previous night. After that, they see two guys involved with Toomes’ operation looking for the weapon at the school. Peter shoots a spider that can detect their whereabouts. As they study this throughout the day, they then see that the guys stopped in Maryland, which is near the National Academic Decathlon. Peter is welcomed back to the team and studies with the team as the bus makes their way to DC. The team makes it to the hotel. Peter removes a tracking device from his suit to keep Stark and Happy from knowing what he is doing. Ned is told by Peter to remove a Training Wheels protocol from his suit, allowing Peter to use the suit to its full potential. Peter then tells Ned to keep the power core safe. He is tempted to go to the pool by Liz, but he heads off doing his hero duties anyway. As Peter puts the mask on, he is greeted by an AI in his suit that is renamed Karen by Peter (the AI is voiced by Jennifer Connelly). Karen helps Peter hear the conversation by the bad guys. He then tests the different web styles and sees Vulture land on a truck to steal more Chitauri weapons. Spider-Man then fights with Vulture for a bit before trapping himself in the truck. He gets out of the truck and into a warehouse that belongs to Damage Control. Trapped inside, he tests out a lot of stuff that he is capable of doing with his webbing. He then goes into the bag and finds out that the energy core can explode. Peter is unsuccessful in calling him, but the doors open and he gets out of the facility. Meanwhile, Peter’s team wins the Academic Decathlon and celebrates by visiting the Washington Monument. Peter calls Ned and warns him, and later Liz, that the core could be dangerous. The core explodes, which causes the elevator to malfunction. Spider-Man gets up there as fast as he can and saves everyone from the falling elevator. Later, we see Toomes and his guys seeing the footage of the scene in DC. Back at school, Peter is sentenced to detention for missing the Academic Decathlon. He then leaves detention and heads back home to figure out where to go. He sees past footage of the sale and finds out where to find Aaron. Spider-Man interrogates him about where Toomes and his guys are. Aaron tells him that he has a nephew (Miles) and he wants to keep him safe. He also tells him that they’ll be at the Staten Island Ferry before being left alone webbed by Spider-Man. Spider-Man gets on the ferry and makes his way to where the weapons are. Stark calls him to say that he did a good job in DC and then hears the horn from the ferry. Spider-Man then confronts the bad guys and stops most of them. He then sees the Vulture, who flies away while setting fire to the ferry in the process. He gets the weapon from Vulture, but it sets fire to the ferry even more and splits it in half. Spider-Man then shoots a lot of webbing to keep it together. Karen says 98 percent, which is not enough for the ferry to be fixed. Spider-Man then pulls his webbing as best as he can before Iron Man saves the ferry with his stuff. After the ferry is fixed, Tony Stark tells Peter that he wants the Spider-Man suit back because of Peter not sticking with small crimes. Peter tells Stark that he is nothing without the suit. Stark responds with this: “If you’re nothing without the suit, then you shouldn’t have it”.
Peter then heads back home, where Aunt May is irritated with him. Peter tells her that he lost the Stark Internship. At school, he serves his detention and gets back to being a normal student. He also helps Ned build the Death Star. Later, Peter apologizes to Liz for what happened in DC and asks her to go to Homecoming (she says yes). We see a montage of Aunt May helping Peter prepare for the dance before she takes her to Liz’s house. As the door opens, it turns out that Liz’s father is Adrian Toomes, which makes Peter nervous. Peter sees Liz and gives her a flower. After some pictures taken by Liz’s mother, Peter, Liz, and her father drive to the dance. During the drive there, Toomes figures out that Peter is Spider-Man (with some traffic lights being used for tension). After they arrive, Liz gets out of the car while Toomes talks with Peter for a bit. Toomes warns him that he’ll kill him and everybody he loves if he interferes with his business again. Peter gets out of the car and gets into the room before he tells Liz that he is leaving the dance. Without his updated suit, Peter turns on his homemade suit and struggles with the Shocker. He is saved by Ned, who gives him the webbing. Peter tells Ned that Toomes is planning to steal some stuff that is being moved to the Avengers facility in upstate New York. Peter steals a car and a phone from Flash and drives to where Toomes is, with the help of Ned. Peter crashes the car and makes it to Toomes’ hideout. He webs down and sees the plan to steal the stuff from a plane. He then walks to Toomes, who surprises him by destroying the support columns with the Vulture suit. Peter is trapped in the rubble and is struggling to get out of it before he gets the courage and the strength to get out of it. We then see the Vulture fly to the plane carrying the stuff while Peter is catching up to him via his webbing. Vulture uses a couple of special things to get in the plane. He gets into the room and sees a whole bunch of stuff before he notices that Peter is with him. The plane gets severely damaged and crashes on the beach next to Coney Island with the help of Spider-Man. Spider-Man struggles with Vulture for a bit until Vulture focuses on the cargo. Spider-Man saves Vulture from dying in a fire. Peter then goes on the Cyclone to reflect after webbing Toomes. The next day at school, Peter sees Liz and her family move to elsewhere. With Liz’s departure, Michelle Jones (played by Zendaya), who has been a reoccurring character in the movie, gets named new president of the Academic Decathlon team. Peter leaves the meeting and talks with Happy Hogan in the bathroom. Hogan tells Peter that Tony wants to see him at the Avengers facility. Tony offers him an Iron Spider suit and a spot in the Avengers, but Peter denies it, saying that he wants to be a “Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man”. As an alternate solution, Tony proposes to Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow) at the press conference. After Peter gets home, he finds out that Tony gave him back the suit. He puts it on before Aunt May says “WTF”. The movie cuts before she completes the saying and we see the name montage. After the montage, we see Toomes with one of his guys (named Gargan). Gargan asks Toomes if he knew anything about Spider-Man, but Toomes denies any of it. After the credits, we see a funny PSA from Captain America about patience. The scene is a bit of an inside joke because of the many post-credits scenes in the MCU. The movie ends with the teaser that “Spider-Man will return.”
This movie was another great one by Marvel Studios. Besides “Civil War”, this was a fantastic introduction to Peter Parker in the MCU. Sony was able to make a deal with Marvel Studios that allowed them to bring Spider-Man to their universe. Thankfully, Tom Holland was a brilliant choice to play Peter Parker. I liked the scenes with him dealing with some stuff in high school. Most of the characters at the school are great, including Ned, MJ, and Mr. Harrington (played by Martin Starr). MJ was a funny character in some moments, and Zendaya was a good choice to play her. I didn’t like the portrayal of Flash Thompson at all. In the comics, Flash Thompson is a jock who has plenty of muscle to him. In the MCU trilogy, Flash is portrayed as just a troll bully. No fault to the guy who played him (Tony Revolori), but I’m just not a fan. I liked the portrayal of Aunt May by Marisa Tomei in this movie. Michael Keaton was a great choice to play Adrian Toomes/The Vulture. My favorite scene with Toomes was the scene in the car where he figures out that Peter is Spider-Man. The scene before that where Peter found out that Toomes was Liz’s dad was surprising. I enjoyed the scenes when Robert Downey Jr was in the movie. He is kind of like a father figure to Peter in this movie. Peter is taught a valuable lesson when he messed up with the Staten Island Ferry and Tony takes the suit away. It was tough to see Peter struggling with the rubble, but it was satisfying to see him get out of it and eventually stopping Vulture from stealing the Avengers’ stuff. As a bonus, it was hilarious to see Chris Evans as Captain America give PSAs to the students at the school. I laughed so hard when I saw the post-credit scene with him. Jennifer Connelly as the voice of Karen was hilarious at some moments, including when she told him to potentially kiss Liz while upside down after saving her and the others from the elevator. Another funny moment in this movie was when Spider-Man was using a Darth Vader-like voice at first to interrogate Aaron (played by Donald Glover, also known as Childish Gambino). The score by Michael Giacchino was great in this movie from start to finish, including the hero theme and the villain theme. I also liked the nice touch of using the old 1960s Spider-Man theme song at the Marvel Studios logo.
Overall, “Spider-Man: Homecoming” was a great movie to watch. There were some great action sequences, plenty of funny scenes, and some tense moments. There was definitely a great vibe all throughout the movie. It makes me look forward to Spider-Man’s next appearance in the MCU, which will be in “Avengers: Infinity War”. For now, the next movie in my series is the third and final movie of 2017: “Thor: Ragnarok”. I’ll get that post up soon. Have a great weekend, everyone.
(Here are a couple of videos about this movie. The first is from How It Should Have Ended, and the second is a LEGO recap by Edbound. Credit for both videos goes to them and them alone.)
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