Spider-Man Home-Coming is Easily
Forgettable
By NABIL BAKRI
(all pictures belong to MARVEL Studios (Spider-Man (1-3) and The Amazing Spider-Man belong to SONY, Spider-Man Home Coming belongs to Disney)
I don’t really remember the day
Sam Raimi’s Spiderman was released
world-wide, I guess that’s because I was too young and too fascinated by
Disney, Kaiju, anime, and DC animated series and live-actions (Justice League, Super-Man, and Batman) that such (live-action Marvel
super hero) film was not in my top movie list. But I do remember vividly the
year of Spider-Man 2 and 3. My friend in elementary school had
this Spider-Man 2 DVD, we watched the
film together, but still, I was too fascinated by King Kong and then Ghost
Rider, The Golden Compass, Eragon, and so on (not necessarily good
movies, but those were popular movies at the time), thus I didn’t even care
that much when I read news about the-then ‘New Movie’ which was Spider-Man 3, in magazines (but I
decided to rent it on a video rental, but I was too young that I wasn’t allowed
to borrow any of their movies, another reason why I didn’t really care about
Raimi’s trilogy). It was the time before Netflix
(the streaming service, not the DVD by mail) and stuff, so predictably, I saw
the trilogy couples of times on TV, but still, I wasn’t really interested in
the trilogy. It wasn’t until I became a university student when I bought a
trilogy set of Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man
that I ended up loving the Marvel character. The first Spider-Man is great, filled with action scenes and romance, an
exaggerated nerd student life in school that works well with the story, the
cast, and the tone of the film. Plus, with all those great aspects, the movie
still has a sense of ‘comic book’, that I was reading pages from a Spider-Man comic book that comes to
life. The first movie was so great, it opened up the opportunity for the sequel
to happen.
Spider-Man 2 is somewhat better than the original, but in a way
that it’s a form of continuation that one exists to complete the other instead
of to compete, thus comparing the two film is rather pointless. It’s just like Toy Story 2, Terminator 2, and The Lord of
The Rings 3, these movies are so much better than the originals but the
originals are ‘that’ good to begin with (or ‘that’ good nonetheless). So, it’s
not like Aliens, Twilight, and Harry Potter
movies that each entry draws its own debate about whether the sequel ‘style’
betters the original or not (probably because of different directors), but just
see it as a package. The problem happens in Spider-Man
3, but looking back today, I think the problem with the last film is not
that critical and easily forgiven, just like The Dark Knight Rises that triggered mixed reviews and Star Wars VI with Ewoks that almost shifted the tone of the film.
In 2011, Sony once again
released its iconic super hero entitled The
Amazing Spider-Man, a brand new reboot to the previous trilogy. Although it
has its problems and critics mostly had mixed feelings about the movie, I found
it okay. And then its sequel which was also not so popular but still, it’s
okay. In the same decade, we had to see yet another Spider-Man movie which isn’t a reboot (well, technically it’s a
reboot, but not really, it’s not as ‘reboot’ as The Amazing Spider-Man) nor a continuation to the previous films,
but a completely new entry to the cinematic universe. At last, I can see
something new and different, a new entry that will fix the problems of its
predecessors and becomes a new classic. Or so I thought.
SOMETHING’S FISHY
First of all, I smell something
fishy about the new Spider-Man movie,
the Spider-Man Homecoming. It was
created too close to not just The Amazing
Spider-Man but also the original. It’s also created during the hype of
Marvel’s The Avengers (heck, all
super hero movies) and people would buy the tickets for anything the studio can
offer (The Amazing Spider-Man was
created in the very beginning of the hype, but it was before The Avengers (2012) and before such
super hero movies became overly popular and bankable thus it was not ‘playing
safe’). So, to make more money, the studio keep on expanding the cinematic
universe, combining as many superheroes as they could, while more deals between
studios were made so they can make even more movies and eventually, more money.
The intention beneath the release of Home
Coming makes the movie seem pointless, but we have to understand that in
entertainment business, there’s always business and studios have to make money.
You should not just think about a bunch of people sitting in Corinthian leather
chairs with suits made of gold, but also thousands of people working for the
studios and the money they make from movies has to go through different
departments to pay the bills including the employees’ salary. But as I said in
my article Disney Should STOP Making LiveAction Versions of their Animated Classics, the studio should make that
intention less obvious.
POINTLESS
The new Peter Parker portrayed
by Tom Holland appears in Captain
America: Civil War quite suddenly and frankly, there’s nothing wrong with
that. We don’t really need a stand-alone or a ‘different’ movie telling the
story of Peter Parker ‘exclusively’, because we know that the guy is Spider-Man, and Spider-Man is…well, Spider-Man.
I mean, it’s not like the character is a new guy in town that needs explaining,
we all know his super abilities, we all know what Spider-Man does and does not, who are his enemies, his uncle, his
aunt, his love interest, and so on. Is it difficult to understand the new Spider-Man’s role in The Avengers without an exclusive film
explaining more about his personality? We understand his role in the Civil War, it’s not like, “Uh, who’s that guy? I want to know his
daily activities to know more about this universe!” Dude, the super hero
movies are basically a bunch of good super-powered dudes and babes defending
the world from bad guys, destroying cities, there are cool cars and cool
technologies in these movies, and there are other places in the cinematic
universe where there are also good guys destroying bad guys.
There are two facts that make
the existence of Home-Coming even
more fishy and pointless: 1) Spider-Man appears in Captain America: Civil War for a very small portion, and 2) Spider-Man: Home-Coming was released
short after the release of Civil War.
These facts solidify the suspicion that Civil
War acts as an ADVERTISEMENT for Home-Coming,
and Spider-Man: Home-Coming is also
an ADVERTISEMENT for future Marvel movies. I hate to say that especially
because there’s nothing ‘really’ wrong with it, but it is just too freakin’
OBVIOUS! If you read academic books about films or arts, this medium called
moving pictures is highly debatable, whether it’s a form of art or not. By
doing such obviously not-art-related intention too obviously, the studios make
the answer to the debate even more obvious! It’s just so
^^%W%%$&GGBT#$#$#$#^&*@JBHYGYGYGSGGYGG#^#^#*EJH&(@(Y%#%@^&(NE#*
ONE MOMENT, PLEASE STAND BY…
Okay, back to the reason why it
is pointless. The studio claims that the film is not going to tell the same
stories as its predecessor, like the death of Uncle Ben, because it has been
told before. See, it’s pointless, then, and it contradicts the very existence
of this movie. Let me remind you that Spider-Man:
Home-Coming is not ‘really’ a
reboot (technically it's a reboot, but still) of previous Spider-Man, it is
something completely new and different, so the studio has to put a new scene of
Uncle Ben’s death because it’s not the same Peter Parker we’re familiar with.
If the character is so different from other Parkers, we need to know ‘his’
response to Uncle Ben’s death, how he deals with Aunt May when she’s grieving.
And Aunt May is also very different from the other two versions, she’s (a lot) younger,
so we need to know how she feels when his husband died, and Uncle Ben should be
younger, and we need to know how a young and strong man can easily defeated by
a thief, or why, if he’s not ‘that’ old, he becomes so wise that he tries to
stop the bad guy. Why? What? How? If the film is supposed to be different, the
film has to tell us everything. Every-single-thing! As I said before, it’s not
a continuation, it’s a new look of our beloved Super-Hero, so I cannot see Spider-Man: Home-Coming using my
established knowledge about the previous movies. The creator claims that we’ve
seen the same explanation about Parker’s sad life before, twice, so we don’t
need that anymore. But that is the most important part of the movie if your
initial intention is to introduce us to a NEW Spider-Man. You see, the terrible experiences of Parker shape his
views on life and give him a ‘reason’ to do what he is doing. And if you think
that such important narrative is pointless, then your movie is pointless to
begin with, we don’t need to see Spider-Man:
Homecoming, we can understand his involvement in The Avengers without an exclusive film explaining him. What? You
think we don’t understand the involvements of Hawk Eye, Maria Hill, Nick Fury,
Agent Coulson, Black Widow? You want to make exclusive movies of those heroes
too?
SPIDER-MAN IS
DIFFERENT
If you look back to previous Spider-Man movies, you’ll notice that
Peter Parker is a unique character, he is different from Tony Stark or Captain
America, or Thor. Spider-Man is
strong in his own way and he does not need anybody from The Avengers to help him. I mean, he might want to get some help,
but that doesn’t mean he can’t do anything without the nurture of Iron Man. And
why there’s Iron Man in Home-Coming? It’s
okay if his appearance is just to fill the gap, but not STEALING all the
attention. That’s what Iron Man does in this movie, stealing all the attention
(are you happy, Robert Downey? Counting your stacks of green papers?), even the
poster tells us everything. Since when a film that is not about Iron Man has a
poster with both Iron Man and Robert Downey in it? It seems like they made it
after they found a brilliant idea, “Ow,
Iron Man sells everything! Put Iron Man in it! Put Iron-Man in it! People will
think this movie is cool because we got Iron Man in it, he’s the only super
hero people want to see, yeah! Money, money, money, Sherriff Woody!”
People keep telling me to stop
comparing Home-Coming to previous Spider-Man because they are essentially
different. But of course it’s difficult not to compare it to Sam Raimi’s acclaimed trilogy especially when
the previous films are so much better than Home-Coming.
Once you’ve seen the trilogy, you cannot ‘un-seen’ it to enjoy Home-Coming, so comparing the two
different works is normal. I am completely okay if Home-Coming is really a new look of the beloved super hero or exists
to fix the problems of previous films thus make it better, to enhance the
narrative of the previous films, that will completely justify the existence of Home-Coming (just like Rise of the Planet of The Apes). But sadly,
no, it doesn’t add something to a character that’s already presented in a good
way. Peter Parker is this unique complicated character that has his own reason
in doing what he’s doing and although difficult, he manages to fix his own
problems, to finish what he started. I’d say that based on the previous movies,
Spider-Man is a super hero movie with
a heart. You may think that the death
of Uncle Ben is not necessarily important, but that’s what propels Parker for
doing what he’s doing. The quote “With great power comes great responsibility”
is a powerful one that exceeds the barrier of cinema screen to the audience,
make it relatable in a serious but subjective way, instead of comical way as
Parker in Home-Coming does to make
the character relatable.
I have no complain about casting
Tom Holland as Peter Parker, he portrays the spirited young teenager quite
perfectly, but what makes previous Spider-Man
so powerful and meaningful is how he’s not hiding his feeling especially when
he feels sad and yet he manages to undergo all of his grief and his thoughts
about what he does not have (or lacks) and still able to smile and acts as
cheerful as nothing happens once he reflects to his life and understand the
meaning of it and the purpose of it, it makes the character more dynamic and
real. That’s what we need to know in this new Spider-Man. Holland seems heartless and plain, the only thing that
we can relate to is his school life and how he carelessly acts as a teenager.
But what motivates him? Feeling important because he is now a member of the
Avengers? He’s a friendly neighbourhood, alright, but he does it without the
dignity every super hero should has. Is that because he’s too young? Well, if
he is, then the grieving process will be even more devastating and therefore
what he’s doing in the whole film is simply impossible, or if it is possible,
he won’t do it the same way.
I don’t mind a new Spider-Man appears in The Avengers, in the new Marvel’s
Cinematic Universe, but I do mind the fact that they made an exclusive film
focusing on Spider-Man that ended up
to be pointless (it’s just like an
introduction video of a product, explaining where it fits in the big Marvel
scheme). And I hate it when the existence of a movie seems to be forced or
there’s a 100% business intention without art that eventually shape the film to
be entertaining. Sure, Home-Coming is
entertaining, but it is ‘business’ entertaining, not the ‘art’ entertaining in
the term ‘entertainment business’, because the very foundation of business is demand, giving what we ask instead of
what we need. And a demand is very situational, which brings us to the next and
the last point of this article.
IT’S EASILY FORGETTABLE
You see, expanding a cinematic
universe is a lot of fun, and witnessing the process is also fun, but there’s a
downside. There are too many films connected one another that will be too
difficult for someone to keep up and watch the whole circus entirely. We
might think that the expansion is simply amazing, but that’s because we follow
the progress slowly and we watch new entries one at a time. Imagine how many
Marvel movies future generations should watch in order to grasp its immersive
cinematic universe. And people still excited to the idea of combining an
already bulky universe to another bulky universe, like discussing about how
great mashing up X-Men to The Avengers and who knows if Marvel will combine
their universe with DC because that’s the trend now, especially with Disney
buying everything.
Friday the 13th is an iconic series, but admit it, who
watch the entire series from one to last? A
Nightmare on Elm Street? Heck, even Fast
and Furious becomes too furious that newer movies are so different from the
first one, each created alongside the change of time, so each new entry is
bound to a certain moment that future generations may fail to relate to. It’s
difficult for me to watch all Fast and
Furious movies, and I’m sure that I’m not the only one. Why they have to
make everything related? Why can’t they make movies like (old) Disney, which,
we know those classics belong to ‘Disney Classics’, but of course each entry is
different from the previous entry, but we can still call them a ‘package’
sharing the brand of ‘Disney Classics’.
Apart from the fact that Home-Coming is ‘merely’ a part of an
expanded universe, its existence is not really necessary, it’s simply a
safe-played movie acting as a commercial for next Marvel movies and to make
money without risk and effort. I think the film is similar to Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. We don’t
need that film in order to understand all six Star Wars movies, it’s simply not necessary. We can still understand
the role of Spider-Man, just like the
role of Nick Fury, Hawk Eye, or even Agent Coulson, without an exclusive movie
explaining to us about who he is. We are not stupid, we are capable of making
inference, so I think we can keep up with the new Spider-Man, that he’s different from the previous Spider-Man.
Studios should stop making pointless movies and start making powerful and
timeless movies like they used to. Home-Coming
was released like almost a year before I wrote this article, and everybody
seems to forget about it already to make way for newer pointless movies because
today, the shift is incredibly fast because I think, once again, these movies
are soulless and too dependent to time so they’re easily forgettable. While the
talks of Home-Coming diminishes even
just nearly a year after its initial release, Titanic was in theatres for almost a year. Jurassic Park was released decades ago, but people still talk about
it and newer generations can easily keep up with the legend because, actually,
there’s only three of them. Star Wars
is a little bit hard work, but people still keep up with it because although
there are six films, they know that it’s ended in Episode VI, so with new Star
Wars coming in, I’m not sure about the future of this saga. Harry Potter is split up to eight
movies, but that is because it’s based on seven books and it’s not meant to be
an endless journey, it’s ended in the eight film. I’m afraid that today’s films
fail to understand that every story has to end. Every story has a beginning and
it needs an end, so when a great story finally comes to an end, studios should
stop prolonging it to make more money. If they want to do so, they should make
more soap operas or other TV programs to do so, because a film is not a TV
series, and it’s certainly not a commercial for future movies.
Will I re-watch Spider-Man Home-Coming? I don’t know, I
think I’ll take my Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man
Trilogy Box-Set from the shelf and re-watch them instead. And that’s okay
because the talks of this version of Spider-Man
remain strong today and Spider-Man 2
is claimed by many to be one of the best sequels ever made.
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