FILM OF THE WEEK
Spider-Man: Homecoming Cert: 12A; Now showing
Ushering Spider-Man into the modern cinematic age has been problematic to say the least.
In the late 1970s, a groovy, saxophone-themed take went straight to TV sets. Tobey Maguire donned the red spandex for three Sam Raimi films that suspended the web-slinger in a post-9/11 New York. Bizarrely, Sony did reboots just three years after Raimi’s third outing. Andrew Garfield starred in those two films, but the question remained: Why isn’t Spidey working on the big screen?
Swooping to the rescue was Disney, whose Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) now straddles the globe. Cameos alongside various Avengers led to this complete screen makeover of Marvel Comics’ biggest traditional cashcow, and it’s a case of fourth time lucky.
Not that luck was involved. Instead, director Jon Watts and a team of writers get the basics of the character right — the high school awkwardness, the coming-of-age heroism, the salt-of-the-earth New Yorker tonality. Young Tom Holland fills the suit perfectly as Peter Parker, going up against Michael Keaton’s winged weapons designer by night and negotiating much bigger stresses by day in the school corridor with classroom crush Liz (Laura Harrier).
To help suck the new-and-improved Spider-Man into the MCU, brand lynchpin Tony Stark/Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr) pops up to hold Peter’s hand.
It’s not perfect — Harrier’s love interest and Marisa Tomei’s guardian are paper-thin — but on the whole, Watts delivers fun, charm, danger and heart.
Equally, these characters are Marvel’s most tangibly human screen creations to date, which matters a lot.