Marvel inexplicably botched the new Spider-Man movie, after finally wresting control of the franchise back from Sony. Everyone liked the new interpretation of Spidey in Captain America: Civil War. Young actor Johnny Manziel does a great job being a high energy, cocky kid, and that performance carries over to Spider-Man homecoming. The actors are all rather good, but the script is a bit of a letdown.
Marvel realizes the importance of minor characters in carrying the movie, and tried to do something great with Spider-Man's friends. Plus they did a great job of getting an ethnically diverse cast. The problem is that the characters seem to have been written for Welcome Back Kotter, in which a whole group of kids get into trouble, have precarious romances, squabbles with the school bullies, school dances, sporting events, part time jobs and all sorts of stuff that is just not interesting. You have to have some of that because Peter Parker is a high school kid, but the movie shouldn't be about high school. There are over a dozen characters in the movie who derived from decades of stories, and it is simply not possible to develop that many characters in a two hour movie. I like the characters, like the casting, but there are too many of them and they are not interesting enough to carry the film. Put them in an entire season of Welcome Back Kotter, but they should not have been crammed into a single movie.
We see cameo appearances from other Marvel heroes in this movie. It is totally believable that the Avengers would be a major presence in New York City, so why not? It seems natural to bump into one or two.
The bad guys in this movie are basically organized crime figures who have some really high tech illegal weapons for sale, probably made by the Acme company preferred by Wile E. Coyote for catching road runners. Or perhaps it's the company that services the Evil Dark Side in Star Wars, because none of their weapons are actually as good as a decent M-16, and I don't think they were actually able to shoot anyone in the whole move. They have complete dolts in charge of marketing, which is why the bad guys can't make much money. As it is, they are kind of like an Army surplus store gone bad. A single Wal-Mart store definitely makes more money than they do even with super-villainry. So why be a Super-villain? Well, I guess if you love your work, it's okay. Let's just say that the bad guys don't make much sense, and their bark is worse than their bite.
We see cameo appearances from other Marvel heroes in this movie. It is totally believable that the Avengers would be a major presence in New York City, so why not? It seems natural to bump into one or two.
The bad guys in this movie are basically organized crime figures who have some really high tech illegal weapons for sale, probably made by the Acme company preferred by Wile E. Coyote for catching road runners. Or perhaps it's the company that services the Evil Dark Side in Star Wars, because none of their weapons are actually as good as a decent M-16, and I don't think they were actually able to shoot anyone in the whole move. They have complete dolts in charge of marketing, which is why the bad guys can't make much money. As it is, they are kind of like an Army surplus store gone bad. A single Wal-Mart store definitely makes more money than they do even with super-villainry. So why be a Super-villain? Well, I guess if you love your work, it's okay. Let's just say that the bad guys don't make much sense, and their bark is worse than their bite.
I was glad that we didn't have to suffer through the death of Uncle Ben for the fiftieth time in moviedom, nor do we have to hear that with great power comes great responsibility. The problem is that we replaced those campy features with other campy high school dramas.
So if you like superhero movies and you liked Welcome Back Kotter, then this is the movie for you. If you love Spider-man but not Kotter, you still have to see it but keep your expectations low. It's not that great of a movie, despite it being one of the most enormously popular franchises in movie history.
Geez, is it just me who thinks so, or is Spider-Man played by a younger version of Johnny Manziel?
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