Spoiler: MASSIVE Spoiler Don't ruin Marvel's troll on everyone. I want everyone to sit there like I did.
I saw Spiderman today. I was disappointed in it. Probably because all the reviews were so glowing it got my expectations all revved up. Holland was good. The girlfriend wasn't. The whole Vulture storyline was poorly written. Of course, Keaton did a good job with what he was given. The Flash casting was the worst ever. I get the lure of leeching off RDJ's massive popularity, but the whole Iron Man mentoring thing just doesn't make any sense in the context of the real Spidey. And I still can't get over the Aunt May casting. I'd give it a 6 out of 10. Maybe 7 at most.
Oh man! That's brutal! Why didn't you like the Iron Man mentor role? I thought it worked. I thought the Vulture story was pretty well fleshed out actually. I thought he was a pretty nuanced guy and a solid villain. I agree the girls were pretty average though.
I'm an old school comics guy. Iron Man and Spidey existed in the same world but had no connection. Especially no connection in what they are treating as Spideys origin story minus the focus on the spider bite. To me it's just riding on RDJs coattails. The Vulture story was ridiculous to me. The guy is essentially a demolition contractor. He steals some alien tech and has his garage technician reverse engineer a suit and weapons that would put the armed forces of the USA to shame. It just strained credulity beyond my breaking point. In addition, this contractor somehow becomes a combination of a top gun level pilot & Mission Impossible level strategist & Navy Seal level operative. Plus they changed too many things unnecessarily. The fat friend, making MJ a creeper, changing MJs name to Michelle, no newspaper job for Peter, Flash as one of the smart kids, etc.
Yeah this story is based much more off of the recent "Ultimate Spider-Man" run, right down to the various low-level villains so I can see some frustration. However, in the very classic sense of the character they started Spider-Man at 15 which is where he was from the beginning. I found his struggle to cope and literally grow into his body endearing and very much in line with classic Spidey. The relationship he has with Tony is 100% more modern. It's basically taken from the Civil War comic arch which I guess is almost 10 years old already, but still fairly recent. I didn't think of it that way, but I guess that's true regarding Vulture's ability. I thought they did a great job giving him motivation, but they did conveniently skate over his skill level. I didn't think he was a mastermind though. I thought he was more opportunistic than necessarily a genius. If he was truly a genius, he would have been a threat to the Avengers. I thought they did a good job skating the line between "terrorist threat" and "goon-ish bad guy". I do agree a small clip or even some throw away lines talking about his years in the service would have been nice. They just let you assume he gets to that point over the years after the "incident" first happens. The real genius of that operation is the Tinkerer that's building weapons though, not Vulture. He's the one who is really the guy making suits and weapons and I don't think they delve deep enough into his character to prove or disprove his abilities as an engineer.
All I ever read were the original Spider-Man comics. Never read Ultimate or Civil War. So I'm no doubt biased toward the original story. I agree the growing into his abilities was done well. Not a big fan of the flying spider, drone, or 500 web options though. I do think this kid is the best of the three Spideys. I also loved the emphasis on the friendly neighborhood Spider-Man. Best scene for me was his queezyness on the Wash Monument.
I'm with you. I understand way more your position if you're not familiar with a few of the modern story lines. That makes a lot more sense. I do agree that the drone and the web options were a little over the top to me (especially the drone). I didn't love all the things that came with his suit. I'd be more interested in a dumbed down version of that suit if they had to go that direction. My favorite was probably the little montage with the bike and the old lady. Really gave the small-town vibe in what Spider-Man brings to this universe.
I enjoyed it. Agreed that it's the best one since Spider-Man 2. Love that we finally got an actual young Peter Parker in this and it was still somewhat of an origin story without the whole Uncle Ben thing. Keaton as Vulture was good, he made things work. Not sure how I feel about MJ yet but Liz was a bit disappointing. Could have used a little less Iron Man but he's not in it as much as I thought he was going to be. Would have liked a less gadgety SM, or at least his own created stuff. Wasn't a super amazing movie but it was fun. Consider it a stepping stone towards the next MCU movie. Black Panther right? That should be tons of fun.
Actually Thor is up next in November. Black Panther is early next year. After that I think is Infinity War. On the tv side they'll have Punisher and Defenders this year. They'll have Daredevil and Jessica Jones and Luke Cage next year.
^always forget about this Thor movie. Just a few additional things. Spoiler: Spoilers? Apparently that's not Mary Jane MJ, she's a new character that they've made, but ugh why can't she just be Michelle and not MJ. So Donald Glover isn't Miles Morales? Was that Scorpion talking to Vulture in the prison in the first post credit scene? Was not expecting Peter Parkers love intrest's dad to be the villain. For a split second there I thought Vulture found out that PP wasn't Spidey and was going after the people he cared about.
Spoiler: Answers Yeah I didn't like that. If you're going to go for it, go for it. She's either Mary Jane or the replacement for Mary Jane or she's a different character. I thought that was lame. No he's not, he's Miles's uncle The Prowler. Yes it was. I saw the twist coming a little bit, but it was a good one anyway and I loved the way they handled it as it went down.
The set photos are cool since they are what they are, but I have always HATED EW's cover shots/group poses. They seem so contrived. I actually cringe a bit with all of them. It's like in this one they said, "OK. Everyone stand there. You with the rings, could you hold them up awkwardly for us? And you in the back with the spear, hold it out from your body as far as possible. Oh and Michael, hold up your fist like you're ready to punch somebody." They're always so weird and unnatural.
