‘Spider-Man: Homecoming’: Casts a web around you
Cast: Tom Holland, Michael Keaton, Jon Favreau, Zendaya, Donald Glover, Tyne Daly, Marisa Tomei, Robert Downey Jr.
Rated: 8/10
For now, he has refused the seat and the suit to be part of future Avenger missions and, in that sense, it is the true homecoming of this radioactive good boy who has been fighting his callowness and schoolchild impatience to be part of something big, like Iron Man and Captain America. Not that this makes the film bereft of action — there’s plenty of those dizzying shots of tall towers in New York by the night being surmounted by our beloved web swinging hero Spidey.
Yes, in this one, he is not Toby Maguire. Neither is he Andrew Garfiled. But, as Tom Holland, he is the same old Peter Parker with the same old becomingness, the same old aspirational youth quotient and the same old “I am there to clean up the world” mission.
Only, after being dropped home by Iron Man after the Civil War mission, with a promise that an Avengers call will come his way soon for the next mega project, he becomes much too impatient making his phone a treatise of reminders, requests and appeals — only to wait endlessly.
In that “endless” interregnum, he has his plate full and keeps the fans engaged nevertheless. From fighting off ATM robbers with demonic weapons and intentions, to hanging in there by the whisker of his web trying to join a vertically split ship with people on board, Spidey is busy saving people.
That’s when he is not in hot pursuit of Vulture, a mega dinosaur-ish black winged swooper who wants to rule the world of crime, selling alien weapons to high-crime desperadoes and also harbouring the ultimate intention to hijack the weaponry on-board the swishest Avenger bird you may have seen in flight.
The chase, the foils and the counterfoils are full of action that will engage you till the end, but the best thing about this sixth edition of Spiderman who has never really been part of the Avengers team is that director Jon Watts tells you beautifully and convincingly that Spidey is our solo hero for now who might return as an Avenger in near future.
His journey to get over that “I want to be an Avenger” obsession is what this film is all about. Along the way, it weaves in everything that makes for awesome cinema, what with emotions sparring with action in a harmonious blend of a heady cocktail.
Michael Keaton, who plays the Vulture with evil intentions, is no unidimensional. “I will kill you what may” kind of a villain. You hate him but not always with all your heart. He is someone you feel is ready for a reform but just doesn’t know it still. So there is a vestige of sympathy for him even as he literally tries to tear our Spidey apart.
As for Holland, whose face you see more often than you saw Maguire or Garfield’s, has the right mix of vulnerability and steel in him to be an adolescent super being. At school, he is a science genius muttering away equations at the drop of a mask even while being bullied as “Penis Parker” even though he is the sports teacher’s favourite and something of an endearing enigma for the tallest and the most beautiful girl in class.
Yes the laconic Robert Downey Jr comes in with his one-liners and raised eyebrow act, and Gweneth Paltrow makes a legend of a blink-and-go role, but the film has staying power despite the bigger legends. And that’s what the right spirit of any Spiderman show is — and should be.
Source: Sunday Pioneer, 9 July, 2017