How does it feel to see Spider-Man need a mentor at each step to teach him the great responsibility that comes with Great Power? Not at all cool, I must say. After all, besides an arsenal of varied superpowers, the maturity, and independence to handle his new persona with a sense of responsibility to carry out the big duty of saving and protecting the world is the ultimate recipe for making a superhero.These were my final thoughts after watching the Thursday night preview of “Spider-Man: Homecoming,” which swung into theaters worldwide on Friday, July 7, 2017.
In that sense, producer Jon Watts' final product fell short of my expectations. Despite trumping Marc Webb's last two Spider-Man films combined it appeared somewhat lost, and "soulless," according to the Guardian The latest superhero adventure loses out to Sam Raimi's original homage to the web crawler, even though it has been appreciated both by the audience and film critics alike, with Rotten Tomatoes giving it 94 percent marks.
The movie is Sony Pictures’ third attempt at rebooting the Spider-Man franchise and bringing our beloved wall crawler’s histrionics to life on the big screen. It ensembles a mixed star cast of both veterans and amateur actors.
Newbie Tom Holland tries stepping into his predecessors, Andrew Garfield and Tobey Maguire’s shoes as Peter Parker/Spider-man.
He is accompanied by veteran actor Robert Downey Jr., who, besides running Stark Enterprises as Tony Stark and fighting crime as Iron Man also mentors Peter like a big brother.
Then there is former Batman star Michael Keaton, portraying the web slinger's arch-nemesis, Vulture/Adrian Toomes, and Marisa Tomei as Peter's Aunt May Parker, while a relatively unknown Jacob Batalon was chosen to give Tom company as his best buddy Ned.
Finally, Peter, this time around has a crush not on Mary Jane Watson, but instead, his high-school senior Liz, is played by another fresh face, Laura Harrier.
Earned power makes you more responsible than gifted power
Personally speaking, this is where the treatment of the story falters. Tom Holland has no struggles in real life and gets everything easily.
I have no issues with light doses of the humor element added in the script but, all this should not have taken place at the expense of the realism surrounding the adorable comic book character Stan Lee co-created in the 1960s.
Spider-Man as a comic book character is hugely popular owing to his tremendous mass appeal that stems from his strong connection with the common man both in and out of the red-blue costume. I've known Peter since childhood as a shy orphan guy who lives with his uncle and aunt in a lower-middle class family that wrestles financial hardships to make ends meet. Even at school, his shy personality goes against him in terms of not being assertive in communicating his thoughts to anyone, leave aside expressing his liking to the girl he adores.
However, Jon Watts introduces us to an altogether different Peter Parker, who takes life as it comes and is not at all stressed out due to the challenges life presents. It is acceptable to let your creative juices flow freely to bring freshness t the script by exploring the character and its life from a different dimension. However, doing so by losing touch with his comic book portrayal as a simpleton preoccupied with challenges and gloominess surrounding his circumstances and personality, which is the original source of inspiration for all the celluloid versions, including this one, I believe is unjust.
On the professional front, Tony gifts Peter an internship at Stark Enterprises and a brand new hi-tech costume in return for lending a hand in battling Captain America as Spider-Man by merely snatching 30 minutes of screen space last year, as reported by ComicBook.com.
How nice would it be if Apple were to grace my resume with a similar gesture for helping its developers unlock a critical code issue in their upcoming version of their operating system? Unfortunately, real life is not that easy.
Likewise, on the personal front also, everything for Tom appears much more joyous and normal, completely devoid of hardships that surrounded Tobey in 2002. It is not clear, how he and his fairly young Aunt May minus Uncle Ben earn their living, but neither of them appears to be combatting any economic challenges. Despite being a teenage student, Peter is never shown doing any job that denotes his genuine concern as a responsible growing adolescent toward his family.
Needless to mention, gifting such a carefree person with an assortment of special powers, which he prefers toying around with like a kid would only make him more complacent with no signs of maturity and responsibility.
This is because we value only what is earned by toiling and hard work and tend to take for granted whatever is gifted to us.
Time is the biggest mentor having no human replacement
There is no substitute for time when it comes to learning any life lesson. Hence, any human being no matter how much wisdom or knowledge he or she carries, cannot become as good a mentor as time.
The first Spider-Man movie understood this fact quite well and seamlessly wove it into the script. The result was a mature Peter Parker very much in-charge of everything. He was quick to reconcile with his new alter-ego, think on his feet and figure out the best permutation-combination of superpowers (based on experience) to be deployed in the next face-off with the enemy that led to his final victory.
However, here we have a teenage Spider-Man, who, while trying to grapple with his newfound persona, is constantly being spoon-fed by another senior superhero on treading the precarious path. So much so, that Peter even gets warned to refrain from doing anything Tony's wishes or risk losing the gadget-centric Spidey suit. The outcome - a superhero's insecurity comes to the fore in the lines, "I'm nothing without this suit".
Unfortunately, the current big-screen reincarnation of the web crawler despite having him does not really belong to him. As it stifles his movement throughout in the name of mentorship and guidance. Mentoring is good; interference is not.
Thus, after keeping my eyes glued to the screen for 133 minutes I felt watching a prelude to the next Avengers movie and a training ground for Spider-Man before he can have his own independent cinematic outing.
Hopefully! He grows up until then.
