Friend says that this film had few drawbacks, but it’s more interesting to dwell on the problems. One, he says, is its reuse of the Spider-Man: Homecoming plot (and also the Iron Man movies) of solving self-inflicted problems (something that I actually like a lot about the Iron Man movies). In that respect, the plot isn’t innovative. To respond, I think. Two, so many of his problems are, again, self-inflicted by way of Peter’s own painfully teenage naïveté that Friend didn’t feel catharsis when those problems were solved, because there’s no indication of growth if we’re starting are adventure at a deficit.
That having been said, we all agreed that MJ was a fabulous component of the film. She plays awkward teenager masterfully, all elbows and knees, stiff and slouched and guarded. Someone wrote to me that the usual drama for Spider-Man come from his split-identities being at odds, the trade-offs that Spider-Man makes for Peter Parker and vice versa. Peter must make personal sacrifices that come at the benefit for his super hero persona, and when he tries to make decisions that allow for growth in his personal relationships, they come at the cost of his effectiveness as a super hero. (This is, by the way, the most I have ever cared to think about Spider-Man, especially this iteration of Spider-Man, since he is essentially just a plucky kid with a lot of expensive gear, so thanks Marvel for making me think so much about how this shitty superhero works.)
The film does a wonderful job of accounting for the things that actually make Spider-Man unique, his “Peter-tingle,” his slapdash clothing line. He’s no longer just a weaker, less durable version of generic super heroes + webs. He’s someone who has some powerful sense of the peripheral world of threats in the vein of what they could have but didn’t quite do with Dr Strange and are trying to do but haven’t had enough time for yet with Captain Marvel.
Posting this a little too late to have any effect anymore, but it’s a worthy addition to the canon even if it borrows a little heavily from the past. The end-credit scene is actually a lot more disturbing and brain busting than anything else in the film.
