Spider-Man: Homecoming (a movie review post)

 

MCU #16

Should I mention again that Spider-Man is my favorite super hero of all time? Yeah, I probably should. I say that for this reason: My standards for any kind of Spider-Man adaptation are really high. I mean, I may think pretty much all of the Batman movies to date are pretty dumb, but I am also not invested in Batman so, you know, who cares? Don't get me wrong, Batman is... Well, he used to be fine as character: I don't know anymore. I have the feeling that Batman is no longer also "the detective," he's certainly not in the movies, which takes away a lot from the character. Look, what I'm saying is that they can screw Batman up as much as they want to (which they seem intent on doing), and it's no big deal. Spider-Man is a different story.

That said, so far, Spider-Man has been handled wonderfully.  Across the board, not just in the MCU.

But let's talk about Homecoming...

I think Marvel did a brilliant job with Homecoming. Spider-Man presented some problems considering that there had already been five Spider-Man movies, two of which were origin stories. Of course, none of those versions were MCU, so... what? Do you do another origin story, one specifically for the MCU?

Obviously, they chose not to. As I noted in my last review of Homecoming, summing it up with "I got bit by a radioactive spider" was a great way of bypassing the whole thing.

And so as not to rehash my previous review, the cast were all great. Holland is perfect, completely relatable as a nervous teenager. Which is the origin of Spidey's patter, by the way, nervous chatter.

I think the thing I would most say about Homecoming is that it is actually a different take on Spider-Man, not just from the previous movies but from the comics as well. It's a different take while actually remaining true to the character and to the personality of the character. Spider-Man as Iron Man's protégé is, actually, an interesting way to approach the story and fits well into the MCU. And it allows for it to be believable that Peter is still in high school. And high school Spider-Man is a very interesting Spider-Man and not one that has ever had much focus. Even in the comics, Peter moves on to college pretty quickly.

Plus there are all the ramifications of Tony Stark taking a high school student out of the country to help capture Captain America, putting him in incredible danger, that I have never bothered to talk about before.

And which I am going to continue to not talk about other than to say that this is part of what causes the tension in this movie. Tony dragged Peter off to... wherever... and Peter got hurt and it freaked Tony out, as it should have. So Tony clamps down on Peter, giving him "training wheels," and Peter bristles under what he feels like is being treated like a child. Which is valid. And it takes Ned to point out to Peter that he is, actually, just a kid. Not that either of them pay any attention to that in the end.

I suppose all I can really say is that I love this movie. It's not even mostly the Spider-Man bias. They really handled all of this so well. Giving Peter a father figure in Tony Stark was amazing (yeah, I did it), and it works. It works because Peter becomes the son Tony never had. There is a lot of emotion wrapped up in the relationship, and the scene at the ferry when Peter yells something like, "Well, if you were really here...!" at the Iron Man armor and, then, Tony steps out of it, are the kinds of things that make this movie not just work but rise to the top.
And now I want to watch it again! And I just watched it!

I just have one question... When is Donald Glover going to finally become The Prowler?!?!

Okay, let's get this stuff ranked:

1. Captain America: Civil War

2. The Avengers
3. Captain America: The First Avenger

3. Spider-Man: Homecoming
5. Captain America: The Winter Soldier
6. Iron Man

7. Doctor Strange

8. Ant-Man
9. Thor: The Dark World
10. Thor

11. Guardians of the Galaxy

12. Avengers: Age of Ultron

13. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2
14. Iron Man 3
15. Iron Man 2
16. Incredible Hulk (Spider-Man once knocked out the Hulk but not even Hulk could knock out Norton's ego)

Note: I'm listing this as a tie with Cap, but I may change my mind later. I'm stuck between which one I think is the better movie and which one I just like more. Because, you know, Spider-Man.

Captain America: Civil War (a movie review post)

 

MCU #13

Civil War may be the best of the MCU movies. Philosophically, it certainly deals with the toughest questions. What do you do when personal freedom clashes with societal security? How important is loyalty in relation to your ideals? What is the cost of friendship?
It's a tough movie.

The one drawback to Civil War is that you can't really come into this one as your first MCU movie. They do a decent job of filling in enough gaps for the audience to understand what's going on but, minimally, you need to have seen Winter Soldier and Age of Ultron to really understand the context of what's happening. Of course, if you have seen the earlier material, it makes this movie all the richer, but I can see it being a barrier for someone coming in.

There's so much in this movie, in fact, that it can't be covered in a simple review. So much so that in my original review (which I am not going to link for this very reason), I glossed over the plot and focused on the acting introductions in the film. I'm not going to apologize. The acting in this one is stellar, and the newcomers deserved some notice. This time, I'm going to focus only on the central question: Should we abandon personal freedom in favor of safety and security?

Tony Stark says yes. He says keeping people safe is the highest good, and giving up your autonomy is a worthy sacrifice for that goal. It makes sense that he would say that. He suffered a severe trauma in the first MCU movie when he had his own personal safety violated. Everything he has done since then has been in the service of keeping people safe. Including the creation of Ultron.

And the creation of Ultron and the disaster which followed is one of the motivators for what happens in Civil War. Tony realizes he needs some oversight, while putting it in the context of the team having oversight. As if that would have prevented Ultron. Because we all know that, oversight or not, Ultron would have happened anyway, because Tony is going to do what Tony is going to do no matter what kind of oversight is in place. To say that it's ironic is an understatement.

Steve Rogers says personal liberty is more important. Which also makes sense considering he fought in a world war against fascism. He has also served under other people's agendas and knows what that's like and that, frequently, those agendas don't uphold the common good and/or are more concerned with the exploitation of others. Most importantly, having to wait for other people to debate a situation can take so long as to make the situation something which cannot be responded to. And, this, I found more than a little amusing because Stark uses this same basic argument with Banner as to why they should not consult the team before pursuing Ultron.

Here's the thing: They are both right. To some extent, at any rate. People should be allowed to make their own decisions and live their own lives but, yes, we also need laws and rules to act as safeguards. But where do you draw that line?

I don't have that answer for you.

And neither does the movie.

Steve, because he is inherently a good guy, always looking out for the well-being of others, willing to sacrifice himself for his fellow man, doesn't need the Accords and, so, he is against being tied up by them. He's going to do the right thing, even if the whole world says he's wrong. I get that. I've been that person standing up against hundreds of people saying "what you're doing is wrong" while the people in charge tell you that you just don't understand the whole situation. Basically, Steve doesn't need the Accords because he's already doing his best to live up to the spirit of them.

And he believes that people should be allowed the freedom to make the same choice that he has, not have it enforced on them. Will people actually make that choice? Probably not, but they should be given the chance.

In many respects, it's a movie without a bad guy. Unless you want to count General Ross, who is definitely not a good guy, and Zemo, who is a bad guy but an understandable bad guy and not actually the cause of the central conflict. Throw in Black Panther and Spider-Man and you have one helluva movie. I'm tempted to leave Avengers at #1 because of all the backstory that Civil War requires, but... if I were going to sit down and watch any MCU movie right now, it would be Civil War, even though I just watched it.

So, then, the new rankings:

1. Captain America: Civil War

2. The Avengers
3. Captain America: The First Avenger
4. Captain America: The Winter Soldier
5. Iron Man

6. Ant-Man
7. Thor: The Dark World
8. Thor

9. Guardians of the Galaxy

10. Avengers: Age of Ultron
11. Iron Man 3
12. Iron Man 2
13. Incredible Hulk (Thanks, Norton, because of you, they kicked Hulk off the whole planet.)

Iron Man (a movie review post)

Marvel is on the verge of being the largest movie franchise ever. James Bond is still one movie ahead but, by the end of the year, they will be tied. Of course, it's taken James Bond 60-ish years to get there and Marvel only 13. Still, after watching the latest release, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, my family decided it was time that we should re-visit the movies and refresh our memories as we go into this next phase of the MCU. Ironically, this decision had nothing to do with the connection between Iron Man and the Ten Rings but, rather, to do with what appears to be Marvel's foray into mysticism in this next phase. Doctor Strange seems as if he is going to be the next character to make the rounds of the Marvel movies as Iron Man did in the last phase.

Having said that, it was good timing to go back and watch Iron Man again after seeing Shang-Chi.

Iron Man is what I would call an excellent adaptation. It takes all of the basic origin of Iron Man and brings into the 21st century. It's current while also feeling like it's the same story from Tales of Suspense. Robert Downey, Jr. captures the character of Tony Stark perfectly. If you had to choose just one thing that Marvel has done really well (there are quite a few more than one, but this is one of the most important (and a thing that DC has, frankly, sucked at)), it's their casting. Not that they haven't made a few mistakes, one of them in this movie, but their casting has been nearly perfect. And Downey is perfect in this role. As he says at the end of the movie, "I am Iron Man." And he is.

Oh, yeah, spoilers. But the movie is 13 years old and, if you haven't seen it, that's on you.

I'm going to jump movies for a moment:
Shang-Chi, as the title says, is all about the legend of the Ten Rings. The movie sets out to differentiate these rings from the Ten Rings of the Mandarin in the comics. These are those rings, and they are not those rings. As I have mentioned here and there in these various reviews, Mandarin and the rings are a big deal in the Iron Man comic books.

But we had completely forgotten that the terrorist organization that kidnaps Tony at the beginning of the movie is the Ten Rings! So we're watching and they have Tony strapped to a chair to make this "ransom" video and, back behind Tony, there is a flag with the emblem of the Ten Rings! My son went nuts. We had to rewind and watch it again. There it was, right from the beginning, the Ten Rings. I had totally forgotten about that and, probably, didn't pay much attention to it to begin with anyway. But it's pretty amazing to be this far into the MCU and find that there are still connections going all the way back to the beginning. Because this is Marvel, and Marvel knows how to tell stories and how to build a universe.

I'm not much of a fan of Gwyneth Paltrow, but she's good as Pepper. She and Downey have good chemistry together, and it works.

Terrence Howard is... well, I don't know what to say about Howard. He was, really, the big-name star of this movie, in the same way that Alec Guinness and Peter Cushing were the big-name stars of Star Wars: A New Hope, which is strange to think of now but, at the time, no one knew who Harrison Ford was. Howard's pay for Iron Man was seven times more than Downey's. You have to remember that Downey was considered a washed up has-been. This was his comeback, and he was a risky move for Marvel. I'm not going to try to deconstruct what happened between Howard and Marvel after the success of the movie. Let's just say that Howard was no longer happy with the deal that he'd made, and he tried to force Marvel to change it... by threatening to walk. And Marvel let him walk, and, in my opinion, he was replaced by a better actor for the role of James Rhodes. But Howard was fine enough in this movie.

I had actually completely forgotten about Jeff Bridges being in this, so that was a surprise. Less of a surprise that he's in than that I had forgotten that he's in it. I love Jeff Bridges. Despite having some big successes, I feel like he mostly flies under the radar, especially for an actor of his talent. There aren't a lot of actors who can convincingly play both heroes and villains, but Bridges seem to fill the skin of whatever character he's in without bringing any of himself into the role. It was fun to be reminded of him and see him in this again.

And! And! This movie introduces Coulson.

So, yeah, the movie holds up. Completely. It may be better, now, even with the release of Shang-Chi. It gives the movie a bit more depth or reach or something. It was definitely worth revisiting.