REVIEW: Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)

"Tired of all these Spider-Man reboots..? Hope you're not. Marvel succeeds in salvaging the franchise by breathing a new life on it. And it works well." 

It's now a common formula for a big budgeted superhero movie to blur the lines between superhero movie genre, with technically any other genres. We got a heist superhero film, Ant-Man (2015); a western superhero flick / revisionist western films: Logan (2017) and Jonah Hex (2010); space opera superhero gig, Guardians of the Galaxy (2014), and so on. Among those, there's Spiderman: Homecoming, who tries to bring John Hughes' 1980s teen drama elements to a superhero flick. And weirdly enough, it works.

Either it's Jon Watt's brilliant idea to give a fresh take on the webhead or Kevin Fiege's strict "Ten Commandments", Homecoming surely breathes a new life to the-almost-dying-franchise. Besides all those superhero mumbo jumbo, the main premise of the movie is about responsibility. Heck yeah, you lot read it right. Responsibility.

It's a smart move from Marvel to not retelling the "Great Power, Great Responsibilities" scene over and over again, but it's implied throughout the film all along. The film opens with Tom Holland's Peter Parker, overactively wanted to do some other heroic actions after the event of Civil War while balancing his daily, ordinary teen life. Inspired by the off-screen Uncle Ben's death, and presumably his legendary speech about responsibility, Peter's trying to find a guidance, a mentor on how to channel his power for good.

That great mentor imagery comes in the form of equally irresponsible Tony Stark, who brings such chaos in his body of creations: Iron Monger, Whiplash, Ultron, even the Sokovia Act. Though seemingly doesn't care much about Peter (instead he's handling him to Happy Hogan), he's secretly paying attention to the boy's developed psychological maturity.

Tony, who perhaps looks like your typical drunk, pervy uncle, is, if I may borrow a line from the movie, "the only person who believes the words from a 14 years old". And surprisingly, that's the kind of guidance that Peter's indirectly looking for. All those reckless acts that Peter did on screen: falsely presuming the car owner as the car thief, several property damages inflicted, giving a bomb to his Asian-sidekick and to its climax of unintentionally wrecking a ferry, it's all about young Peter Parker's process to learn the burden about what a responsibility really is. Here we see a youngster's dilemma, where Peter wants to be respected, being recognized as one of the Avengers, but in the same time he needs a role model who can help him to get out from all of this.

After the ferry climax scene, Tony Stark's "mentoring" advice finally kicks in, and resonates within Peter till the end of the movie. He's becoming more mature; rejecting Tony's offer to step up on a bigger responsibility as the new Avengers member which he humbly says: "stays on the ground as the friendly neighborhood Spider-Man". That's what the goal really is. To transform a typical hot-headed, hot blooded youngster, to become a wise, mature, and aware of his responsibility as time goes by.

That's the brilliant side of this script is (which, ahem, written by SIX writers). Anyway, my praise also goes to director Jon Watts who surprisingly can make a great big budget superhero film, since the dude's filmography is all about indies and clowns. Great casts, great script, great track from MGMT.

4 out of 5. And if time allows, I will discuss more about Michael Keaton's great performance as one of the best MCU villain since Loki.