Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
321 Plays2 years ago
In this episode, we close out the MCU's first Spider-Man trilogy with the film that started it all. Alex Marcus of The Pop Break joins me to discuss Spider-Man: Homecoming!
Listen to Alex's podcasts: Bill vs. The MCU, Batman By The Numbers, and TV Break Podcast. And follow him on Twitter and Letterboxd.
Want to tell us what you think? Have any questions or comments for Perry about superheroes in media or comics? Leave a voice message to play on the show. You can also apply to be a guest on the show.
Patrons get to listen to episodes before everyone else and they also get access to my exclusive companion podcast, the Superhero Cinephiles Book Club. If you want to join in, please consider supporting us through Patreon!
Facebook
Twitter
Instagram
Contact
Recommended
Transcript
Gumdrop's Farewell and Warning
00:00:13
Speaker
Here we are. End of the line. Thanks, Dad. You hid in there, Gumdrop. I'm gonna give Peter the, uh, the dad talk. Don't let him intimidate you. Love you. Love you, Gumdrop. Have a safe flight. Hi! You guys look so pretty! Does she know? Know what?
00:00:43
Speaker
So she does it. Good. Close to the vest. I admire that. I've got a few secrets of my own. All the reasons I didn't want my daughter to date. Peter, nothing is more important than family. You saved my daughter's life. And I could never forget something like that. So I'm going to give you one chance. Are you ready?
00:01:09
Speaker
You walk through those doors, you forget any of this happened. And don't you ever, ever interfere with my business again. Because if you do, I'll kill you. And everybody you love, I'll kill you dead. That's what I'll do to protect my
Superhero Cinephiles Podcast Introduction
00:01:29
Speaker
family, people. You understand? Hey. You just saved your life. Nobody to say.
00:01:41
Speaker
Thank you. You're welcome. Now, you're going in there. You've shown my daughter a good time, okay? Just not too good. Welcome to the Superhero Cinephiles podcast. I'm your host, Perry Constantine, and today I'm welcoming a new guest and a fellow podcaster, and that is Alex Marcus. Alex, how are you doing today? I'm good. How are you?
00:02:06
Speaker
I'm doing pretty good. I got my son here riding shotgun with me today because he's getting a little bit fussy right before we set down to record. But other than that, I'm good and he seems to be content right now. So before we get started talking about the movie, why don't you tell the audience a little bit about yourself?
00:02:24
Speaker
Yeah, so my name is Alex Marcus. I live in the United States. I have been podcasting for the last six years, first through my film podcast, Cinemadros, where we have reviewed many a comic book movie over the years. And then about three years ago, I started working for the potbreak.com. I'm their podcast editor and I kind of supervise their entire podcast network. And in
MCU and Defenders Saga Discussion
00:02:47
Speaker
that capacity, about a year ago,
00:02:48
Speaker
started hosting a podcast with the editor in chief of that website, Bill Bodkin, called Bill versus the MCU, where we rewatch the first four phases of the MCU. We did all of that in 11 months, and on the 12th month in December, we did a big Feige's Award special for all the highlights and lowlights of the MCU.
00:03:09
Speaker
And now we're just kicking off our second season where we're diving into the Defenders saga on Netflix. So we're reviewing select seasons of those shows, Daredevil, Jessica Jones, all that stuff. So you can find that podcast on Pot Break today, the podcast feed. Okay, awesome. What got you started in podcasting?
00:03:32
Speaker
Well, I've been a listener of podcasts since early 2009. I'm not exactly the earliest of early adopters, but I definitely got into them sooner than most people I know for a number of years. I was like, you guys have to check these podcasts out. They're really fun.
00:03:49
Speaker
People will be like, yeah, yeah, yeah, whatever. And then all of a sudden they took over the world. But so I've just had a passion for the format for a really long time. And it was always exciting to try to get a chance to do it myself. And when Opportunity came with a couple of friends to start a monthly film podcast, I took it. And from there, it kind of opened up a lot of doors.
00:04:08
Speaker
Very cool. And so the podcast you're on now, Bill versus the MCU, what brought up that idea to do that podcast? Because it sounds just on paper, just the name of it, sounds like you're dealing with someone who maybe wasn't really into the MCU at first or had some comments about the MCU or something like that. So tell me what the story is with that.
00:04:30
Speaker
So the title is sort of a play off of that kind of like classic like Daredevil versus the Marvel Universe comic book series, where he kind of like goes through and kills everybody. And Marvel has recycled that title for a couple of other characters in the last couple of years. But it basically came from the fact that Bill Botkin, our editor in chief of the potpick.com,
00:04:49
Speaker
He hosts a weekly just general culture podcast for the site called Socially Distanced. And whenever there's a Marvel Disney Plus show in session, he will review weekly the episodes that come out.
Future Podcast Plans and Origins
00:05:01
Speaker
But he was way behind on the films. And for a long time, it was like, you got to catch up on the films. And he kind of got burnt out on the Marvel movies around 2016 and was like, this is just
00:05:11
Speaker
too much to keep track of. I can't deal with it anymore. And he just kind of gave up. But then he was reviewing all of the TV shows without a lot of the context. So finally one day I was like, look, you put me in charge of the podcasting network. And so I'm commissioning a podcast where once a month I make you watch all of the Marvel movies in chronological order until you're caught up. And so that's what we did.
00:05:32
Speaker
And he thanks me for it all the time because over the span of the year that we just completed, he kind of fell in love with them again. And now some of his favorite Marvel movies of all time are ones that we covered specifically for the site that he had not watched previously.
00:05:47
Speaker
That was kind of the idea. And now we're going into the Defender saga, which is a series of TV shows that he has never watched. And we have definitely gotten a lot of feedback over the last year. Oh, you had to do Daredevil. You had to do Jessica Jones. So that's what we're doing. So how are you doing the Defender stuff? Are you doing it one episode of the show per episode of your podcast? Are you doing a handful of episodes?
00:06:11
Speaker
Yeah, so we decided to devote the first six months of the year to the Defenders. What that means is we're
Alex's Superhero Introduction and Recommendations
00:06:18
Speaker
doing six episodes, six monthly, one a month, and we're covering one season each episode for us. Our first episode was Daredevil season one, then we're doing Jessica Jones season one. We're not covering all of the seasons because
00:06:35
Speaker
you know, quality is a bit up and down on those shows. And the idea was we wanted to kind of prepare our audience and prepare Bill for these characters' possible introductions into the MCU over the next few years, because we know some of them might be popping up on Echo. We got the Daredevil Born Again show coming on that is going to feature a number of these characters.
00:06:57
Speaker
We wanted to hit at least the character introductions for all of the main Defenders people. So that means Daredevil season one, Daredevil season two, where we meet the Punisher. Daredevil season three, we're also going to be covering just because that's the most recent Daredevil season, and we're going to be getting a new Daredevil season, kind of. But then we're also only doing the first season of Jessica Jones. We're only doing the first season of Luke Cage. We're doing the Defenders miniseries. We're not doing any Iron Fist, because I promised Bill I wouldn't make him watch it.
00:07:25
Speaker
Even though I will say the second season Iron Fist is better than people say or at least expect. I think it's much better. I'd also put a vote in for at least the Iron Fist episode of season two of Luke Cage, because when he appeared on Luke Cage, I thought it was like the best that Finn Jones had done in the role. Yeah, we're probably not going to do that, but we will definitely talk about it, what we've been able to do, which has been kind of fun.
00:07:51
Speaker
is get guests to come on and talk about their favorite characters along the way. And so we definitely had, we're planning on bringing on people who love these characters and can kind of help our audience know what they're missing if they don't follow along with the whole schedule and decide to branch out.
00:08:11
Speaker
Um, so hopefully we'll get to cover it at least in those conversations, but we'll get, we'll definitely get to see Iron Fist and The Defenders at the very least. Um, which, you know, he's like the fifth lead of that show. So I think that's probably for the best. Yeah. Uh, what about The Punisher? Are you going to cover any of those shows, even though it's, it's tangentially connected The Defenders, but he wasn't part of, of that grouping.
00:08:32
Speaker
Yeah, so we decided that we're going to be meeting the Punisher pretty prominently in Season 2 of Daredevil, and we felt like that was probably enough for our audience, given the fact that those two seasons of the Punisher have a pretty mixed
Spider-Man Movies and Character Analysis
00:08:46
Speaker
reputation, and it's not clear how much of them would actually factor into anything in the future.
00:08:51
Speaker
And we really, the plan was we wanted to get to our in July, we're going to do a MCU check in episode where we're going to talk about the most recent MCU installments that we've missed over the last few months, like Ant-Man and Secret Invasion. And the hope was we'd be able to review Echo. So we were trying to finish up the mini series by the time Echo came out.
00:09:10
Speaker
Now it seems like Echo might not come out until the end of the year so that kind of like blew up the schedule a little bit but we're just kind of sticking with the schedule we'd already decided because I'm a little bit inward retentive and I've already created a podcast schedule for the next three years for this podcast so I definitely I want to stick with it with the plan because after we finish the Defender Saga we're gonna be diving into some Agents of Shield which I'm very excited about because I'm a huge Agents of Shield fan and Bill is again I'll watch any of it so
00:09:38
Speaker
I can't wait. We're going to be curating that. We're going to be spending about eight months on Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Select arcs across several seasons. I'm guessing you're going to skip Inhumans entirely.
00:09:51
Speaker
Yeah, that's exactly right. We were skipping all of the Inhumans. Yeah. We're going to be finding a way to do some of the Agent Carter seasons along with our Agents of Shield coverage, which I'm excited about because some of those characters from that show factor in unexpectedly significantly towards the end of Agents of Shield. So we're going to cover that stuff. But yeah, Inhumans, the TV show, not getting covered in our rundown. And honestly, a lot of the Inhumans stuff that happens on Agents of Shield is getting just skipped over.
00:10:21
Speaker
You're probably a good bet, I'd say. That was really when I started, you know, I was really excited about Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. at first. Then when they got into the Inhuman series, that's when I just sort of was just kind of watching out of habit more than anything else.
00:10:37
Speaker
Yeah, I did go and see the Inhumans premiere in IMAX in movie theaters. That was a mistake. And you know, that's what life is about. It's about learning from our mistakes. So I'm not going to do it again. So what kind of was your introduction to superheroes and that kind of stuff? Were you a comics guy from way back or was it the movies and TV shows?
00:11:04
Speaker
Yeah, it was not a comics guy. I never have been a comics guy. I think I've only read one comic book in my whole life and it was like a free Iron Man comic that I got on my iPad for some reason at one point. So not a comics book person. I think like a lot of your guests, you know, I was born in the 90s and for me it was Batman the Animated Series, Spider-Man the Animated Series, X-Men the Animated Series, like that Fox lineup just totally hooked me as a kid and those were the stories that I fell in love with.
00:11:33
Speaker
It took a long time to even realize that they had anything to do with comic books because that was my entry point into that. It was like watching those cartoons and then watching the movies once the movies came out a little bit later. And then in college, just when I was supposed to be writing papers, just spending hours on Wikipedia being like, wait, what was up with that thing that happened in that one X-Men cartoon? Oh, there's a whole comic book arc that I could read about on Wikipedia explaining what the deal was with that.
00:11:56
Speaker
So that kind of amplified my comics knowledge. And then, you know, I love the Geek History Lesson podcast, which is great about kind of covering comic book content in a very thorough way. And yeah, and then, you know, the modern movies as well. But yeah, so that's really the entry point for me. It was Batman first and then it was X-Men and Spider-Man shortly thereafter that kind of hooked me into the whole superhero genre, along with the Power Rangers. I got it. I got it. Respect Power Rangers. That was that was the coolest show on TV when I was seven. And, you know,
00:12:26
Speaker
Absolutely. In fact, I gotta plug my buddy's show, Anthony Desiato hosts Summoning the Zords, Power Rangers fan podcast. I contributed to the artwork, the cover artwork for that. So anyone's interested in Power Rangers stuff. Yeah, I think it's coming out every two weeks. So that show is, it's a fairly new show. It just came up, it's only got a few episodes so far, but it's really good. He's been on the show a few times. So definitely check that out as well for anyone who's interested in it.
00:12:52
Speaker
It's definitely cooler to say that I got started on X-Men and Spider-Man, but I would be lying if I didn't give some credit to Power Rangers, because that was definitely my favorite of all of those shows back when I was a kid. I was at that age when Power Rangers came out where it was not cool to like Power Rangers in my age group, so I had to keep it secret from all my friends basically back then.
00:13:18
Speaker
But yeah, I definitely went through the Power Rangers phase. I definitely had all the toys and stuff. And I live in Japan, so here it's Super Sentai. And whenever I'm in any of these recycle shops, they have the Super Sentai toys and stuff. So I always take a peek and see if they have any of the stuff that made it over to Power Rangers and check the prices on them, just out of curiosity.
00:13:41
Speaker
Yeah. Well, that Super Sentai stuff is crazy because I remember learning about in high school, like way after I should have, that Power Rangers was just a composite of a Japanese show and American super low budget show. That just blew my mind in the moment. Then when you go back and watch, you're like, oh, that's why there's so many industrial parks in Southern California. Now it all makes sense.
00:14:06
Speaker
And why the Yellow Rangers costume didn't have a skirt while the Pink Rangers did because the Pink Ranger and the Super Sentai was the only female in the team. Yes, yeah. In my head at the time, I was just like, well, she's just a sporty girl. And that's the girl that dresses and the sporty girl makes sense.
00:14:25
Speaker
Um, anyway, uh, another thing I do with, uh, with guests lately is I asked them, what are they kind of interested in? What's kind of grabbing their attention now? Not necessarily for your podcast or anything like that. Cause I know obviously you're, you're into rewatching the MCU stuff for Bill versus the MCU, but just in general, what kind of stuff are kind of grabbing, is grabbing your interest now can be TV, movies, books, video games, comic. I know you're not a comic guy, but, but anything like that. Yeah. Well, I mean.
00:14:53
Speaker
Best movie of last year is Everything Everywhere All At Once and that's definitely on the top of my list of favorite things that I've seen in the last year. I love that film. It just is getting re-released in theaters because of all the awards hype and I'm excited to go back and watch it for a second time. Really wild to me that it's
00:15:13
Speaker
gotten so much Oscar attention just because I remember sitting in the theater in April being like, wow, that was an incredible movie. That movie feels like it was designed explicitly for me and
Vulture's Character Depth and Motivations
00:15:22
Speaker
me alone. And I can't imagine anyone else liking it as much as I do. But I'm so glad that I like it. And then like to see it go on where so many other people had such a deeply personal
00:15:31
Speaker
experience with the film and feeling similarly was very cool. And, you know, I love Michelle Yao. I've loved her in a lot of stuff. I'm a Star Trek Discovery fan, and she is a iconic character on that show. And of course, you know, it's silly to name that as the first among them.
00:15:48
Speaker
on her credits because she's so accomplished. I mean, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, of course, is incredible. But yeah, so I'm very excited that that film continues to endure. And yeah, it's definitely the best. It's definitely the best film that I've seen. In terms of TV, Fleishman is in Trouble is a Hulu show that debuted in December with Jesse Eisenberg and Lizzie Kaplan and Claire Danes and Adam Brody.
00:16:10
Speaker
that I just absolutely loved. It's a great kind of story about, you know, being in your 40s and kind of realizing that the life that you thought that you had isn't quite what you expected it to be. That's how it starts out. But it progresses to some interesting places where it really plays with perspective. And you realize that maybe Jesse Geisenberg, who plays a protagonist, isn't quite as honest of a protagonist as you might think. And he's
Supporting Cast and Diversity in Spider-Man Homecoming
00:16:35
Speaker
maybe, due to his own narcissism, kind of missing some
00:16:40
Speaker
the key facts in his own life and you need to see it from other people's perspective to get a full understanding of what's going on there and I just love stories that play with perspective like that and so that was a really exciting show that aired right at the end of last year that I think kind of went a little bit undersung so I keep trying to tell people to check it out. Everyone who I've recommended it to and actually watched are very happy that I did so so I definitely recommend people checking that out.
00:17:04
Speaker
very cool um i i i'm so jealous that i have not yet to see everything everywhere everywhere all at once because it has not come to japan yet it it hasn't come out i think it's scheduled to come out on dvd here in the spring but i gotta double check that um so yeah it's been annoying because everybody's been talking about it for the better part of a year now i'm just like god damn i can't see it yet
00:17:29
Speaker
Yeah. Oh man. So you have to wait like literally a year to see it. That is, that's unfortunate because it's such an incredible film. It's really, it's just, it's so moving and emotional and relatable and silly and ridiculous and creative. And I was a big, the Daniels or the directing team that directed that.
00:17:47
Speaker
And I was a big fan of their prior film, Swiss Army Man, which is a movie that most people know as the one where Harry Potter played a farting corpse. And that is certainly a big part of the movie. And it's ridiculous, but it also is like this very kind of touching story about kind of like toxic masculinity and depression. And just like the fact, like the genius of these guys is that they're able to take the silly and absurd
00:18:13
Speaker
and ground it in a deeply emotional and relatable place that ends up telling these incredible stories that I think really resonate with a modern audience in a way that you just don't see. No one else makes movies like they do. So I'm really excited by their success and I can't wait to see what they do next. Yeah, I'm so excited to see it. I hope it comes out here soon. For my part, what I've been watching, what I just started, I just watched the first episode of, and I'm not sure
00:18:40
Speaker
where this is in the U.S. Here in Japan, it's on Disney Plus as part of their star package. So in the U.S., I think it might be on Hulu, but it's a Japanese TV show called, it's kind of like a horror mystery show called Gannibal. And I just started watching that. So if anyone watched Tokyo Vice, show Kasamatsu, who plays the Yakuza in Tokyo Vice, he's in that. He plays like this really creepy role in that. And then it's also got main actor is
00:19:09
Speaker
Yuya Yagira, who was in The Japanese Unforgiven, which is one of my favorite Japanese movies ever. He plays the main character. He plays this cop who's from a metropolitan area, who had some stuff happen in his past. And then he gets sent to this small town, where he's the only cop in the small town.
00:19:27
Speaker
And there's some weird stuff going on with the town. The last cop in that town, the show opens with him accusing people of being cannibals. And then he just kind of disappears. And so then we pick up a few months later with this new guy coming in. So I checked out the first episode because my wife is hooked on it. And I just really started getting interested based on that first episode. And I'm looking forward to watching
00:19:52
Speaker
more of it. So that's my thing. I'm not sure if anyone's heard of that yet. I don't even know
MCU Integration in Spider-Man Homecoming
00:19:56
Speaker
if, again, I don't know if it's available anywhere in the US, but if it's on, check Hulu first, and it's called Gannibal, just like Hannibal with a G instead. Okay, that sounds really cool. Yeah, I haven't heard of that. I'll have to check it out.
00:20:08
Speaker
But now let's go ahead and move into the discussion of the movie so you're coming on and Really kind of completing the this is the last of the spider-man movies that have been released so far outside of the venom stuff That we have not covered and that is well and aside, you know the the 1970s stuff with Nick Hammond as well, but But as for the more recent stuff
00:20:33
Speaker
At the time we're recording this, we are doing the first Spider-Man movie with Tobey Maguire. That episode is in the queue to come out soon. Okay. And now we've got you coming on to round us out with Spider-Man Homecoming. Well, I'm very happy to be here to talk about Spider-Man Homecoming because I think it... I go back and forth, but if it's not my favorite of all the Spider-Man movies, it's really neck and neck with what ends up being the favorite.
00:21:00
Speaker
I'm really excited that I get to be the one to close out this journey for you. Yeah. My wife was asking me about this last night after you finished watching it. She's like, which Spider-Man movie is your favorite? And I was thinking about it. I'm like, you know what? I think it actually is homecoming. I think this one definitely is my favorite of them. It's tough competition with Spider-Man 2, but I think the way Holland plays both Peter Parker and Spider-Man plus just
00:21:29
Speaker
the Liz and MJ are just a lot more likable in this movie than MJ was in Spider-Man 2. So I think those things just kind of elevate it just a little bit more. And that's why I think I would put this one at the top. Yeah. And for me, it's kind of like, I loved the Toby McGuire movies when they came out. They were so game changing for me. And you know what I mean? The first one came out, I was 12 years old. And that was just like, wow, like a movie could be like, and I just, I remember like,
00:21:58
Speaker
being at my cousin's house and everybody being like, wow, the Spider-Man movie, have you heard about it? Like people who didn't care about like the cartoon or anything, superheroes. And realizing like, oh wow, this is like a big deal. And seeing that take off was so cool.
00:22:10
Speaker
And watching the development of Spider-Man 2 in real time, I remember like looking up like Entertainment Weekly, like getting those magazines and like reading the kind of like, oh, this is what to expect from the new movie and like how, what they were thinking about. And that was like one of the first times that I even had that experience as a young person. And so those movies are really close to me, but when I rewatch them, man,
00:22:30
Speaker
There's just a lot of stuff about them that just don't work for me. Like Toby McGuire is Peter Parker. I know people like to say like, Oh, he's the best Peter Parker. Um, but I think he's such a creep in these, in those movies in a lot of ways. Like he has this weird entitlement thing with MJ that just really doesn't age well. I don't think like there's like this sort of like toxic nerd thing that is in there that I don't know if they realize how poorly that is age, given like, you know, the cultural climate that we live in now, unfortunately. So.
00:22:59
Speaker
That really holds me back from loving those movies as much. And the Andrew Garfield movies, you spent many hours talking about both of those. And God bless you for that. There are things to admire about them. The Andrew Garfield, Emma Stone connection is undeniable and incredible. And I just wish that they had made a sort of
00:23:17
Speaker
musical rom-com instead of the Spider-Man movie because I think we could all appreciate that more. For me, it's like the Tom Holland movies are just far and away the best of the set of Spider-Man movies that we've gotten.
00:23:35
Speaker
And yeah, it's kind of a neck and neck thing for me between Homecoming and No Way Home. For a long time, I was like, Homecoming is it. And then the more that I rewatch No Way Home and I listened to your episode about it, I know you have kind of mixed feelings on it, but it's just such an emotional wallop for me every time that I watch it. And I think ultimately it has higher highs, but I really love this movie as well. And I think it's such a quintessential Spider-Man movie in a way that so few of the Spider-Man things we've gotten over the years actually is, which is part of why it's so great.
00:24:05
Speaker
I think with No Way Home, when I focus on the story, that's really when my mixed opinions start to come into it. But when I just sit down to watch it, if we're talking about just as an experience, then I think No Way Home might be more entertaining. But when it comes to when I'm thinking about the story and all that, then Homecoming becomes better. But you made a good point. And I realized this last night when I was watching Homecoming. And every time I watch these movies, I end up comparing them
00:24:34
Speaker
in my head to all the other Spider-Man movies and all the other Spider-Man performances, because that's just so hard not to. It's so hard not to, yeah. And you made a good point about the Tobey Maguire is Peter Parker thing, because I'm one of those people who does stand, and I stand by this, that I think Tobey Maguire was a great Peter Parker, not so great as Spider-Man. Andrew Garfield was the opposite. He was a great Spider-Man, not so great as Peter Parker. Although you made a good point in this kind of, I realized this when I was thinking about comparing these movies in my head last night.
00:25:05
Speaker
Even though Tobey Maguire is a better Peter Parker, and even though Andrew Garfield is a better Spider-Man, for some reason, those movies, the Maguire movies, the Spider-Man stuff was actually a stronger part of those movies, whereas in the Garfield movies, the Peter Parker stuff was the stronger part. But you had the actors who were weaker at both those parts playing those characters.
00:25:28
Speaker
And it was this weird kind of dichotomy, because yeah, the the the rainy movies, you know, God love them for everything they did. I remember, too, when I was when that first one came out, it was my senior year in high school. And, you know, my friends and I, we'd always get together on weekends to walk, go to the movies or something like that. And this is before like the internet really kind of blew up and made it easier to buy tickets online. So back then,
00:25:52
Speaker
you know, if we wanted to get tickets in advance, we have to go to the theater to buy them. And I remember just having to be the one in my friends group who was trying to organize like so many people wanted to see this movie. And it was it was insane. We had like a group of like 20 people going to see Spider-Man like in my I never would have imagined that would have happened before that movie came out. Which, like you said, just goes to show how big this movie that movie was at the time.
00:26:18
Speaker
And yeah, when I rewatch them now, you're right. There is that scene when he's, it's so, cause he's like gaslighting MJ the entire time of that movie when he says, I can't be with you, but let me read you poetry and talk about that. I'm like, what are you doing? And it's like, yeah. They're trying to do the thing that like the comic books I understand do and other medium has done where it's like, I love you, but I can't be with you because it's not, I'll be putting you in danger.
00:26:47
Speaker
In reality, when you apply that to an actual human being in human relationships, it's incredibly toxic to be like, I love you, but I can't be with you, but I don't want you to be with anybody else, but you can't be with me. That's just not good in terms of... And it works, I think, on the page. It works within the conceit of the superhero thing because of our established things. But when you actually think about them as real people, you're just like, no, girl, get away from him. He's a nightmare.
00:27:13
Speaker
Marry married Jade Jonah Jameson son. He seems like a very nice man That annoys me about that movie is like John Jameson is the nicest guy on the planet and he ends up getting even he even he's even says why don't you invite your friend Peter Parker to the wedding I'm like Jesus Christ. This guy is way too nice and then she ditches him at the altar. I'm like That ending always irritates me every time I watch that movie and
00:27:41
Speaker
And to your point, yeah, I thought the Garfield things, I thought they did a better job of handling that whole, I love you, but I can't be with you thing because it came from her father. So he's conflicted about, I want to respect your father's last wishes, but I still care about you. And I thought there's still criticisms to be had about the way they did that, but I still think they handled it in a much better way, which again, it's weird. Not to interrupt you, but in that one, it's also
00:28:08
Speaker
There's such palpable chemistry between those two actors that you can believe a lot more that like they know that it's wrong intellectually, but they feel so drawn to each other that they can't help it, which I think the movie is smart to then try to build that into the central conceit of their of their relationship. But it's like that works because those people when they're on screen together, you're just like there's like a magnet between the two of them that you can't pull them away. Right.
00:28:33
Speaker
That is not the vibe between Toby and Kirsten in those other movies. Oh, completely well said. Yeah, 100% cosign on that. And again, that's why it's so weird that you've got the best Spider-Man stuff taking place in the movie with the actor who is not as good at the Spider-Man things, while the best Peter Parker stuff happens in the movie with the guy who's not as good at the Peter Parker stuff.
00:28:56
Speaker
I really do wonder what would have happened if they had switched the actors for those different franchises. But the Tom Holland movie, Homecoming, well, before we jump too much into it, what were your opinions about it when you first saw this movie? And then what were kind of your opinions when you watched again this time? Well, when I first saw this movie, I loved it. For one thing, when he appeared in Civil War, I was like, perfect.
00:29:26
Speaker
perfect Peter Parker, perfect Spider-Man. They nailed it. We have been really at that point. And I know when you're far from home episode, you kind of talked about all the machinations behind the scenes of how that happened and why. So I don't think we need to get into that again. But I think the fan base at least was really enthusiastic about getting control of Spider-Man away from Sony at all costs and bringing them into the MCU, which at that point had like a flawless track record.
00:29:50
Speaker
And so when he appears and he steals Cap's shield and he has that scene in his apartment with Iron Man, it just like it all feels so, so exactly what you, what you hoped, like surpassed your well to her expectation. So the hype of then the very next year, getting a Spider-Man movie with Tom Holland in a lead was really exciting. And I, and I really liked him as an actor, even outside of Spider-Man, like he's really good in the Lost City of Zed, which is a kind of small James Gray movie from just before.
00:30:15
Speaker
He got cast in Spider-Man, where he plays Charlie Hunnam's son. He's really good in that. He's really good in The Impossible. So he was a young actor that was already on my radar as a person to watch out for. And getting him to see him in this role and to see him just completely nail it in Civil War made me so excited to see it.
00:30:33
Speaker
And I ended up watching it two and a half times opening weekend, which is not something that I typically do. Um, the half time was because I had to wake up early the next day. So I went and I stayed until the, until the ferry, uh, set piece. And then I left cause I was like, I have to go to bed. Um, but yeah, so I loved this movie when it came out. I've watched it six times, uh, in over the years and, uh, I like it every single time. And I just think that it has this.
00:30:58
Speaker
excellent balance, which I'm sure we'll get into, the kind of low stakes, like neighborhood stuff, the relatable teen stuff, and then the kind of superhero stuff. And that's like, you want all three of those things to hit when you're talking about a teen superhero like Peter Parker. And I feel like we've never really gotten that before in a way that works outside of some of the cartoons and stuff. So it's just,
00:31:21
Speaker
I think it's just so well balanced and it has the room to breathe, to let scenes kind of linger, to really establish the worlds of the MCU from the ground, which I think is a really cool opportunity that they get to do here after spending a decade building it out from the top.
00:31:38
Speaker
And yeah, there's just so many things I love. You know, Michael Keaton is one of the best villains of all time in this movie. And of course, you know, he was Batman, so that's an extra level of fun. But yeah, I mean, I could talk about this movie forever. What did you think about this movie when you first saw it? I loved it. Like just like you, I was I was so impressed with Tom Holland in Civil War. And I'm just like, oh, my God, he gets it. He gets both those aspects of the character.
00:32:04
Speaker
Because like we'd said before Toby I thought he had gotten the Peter Parker stuff, but he wasn't so good at spider-man and Andrew Garfield God love him. The guy is he's too charming to be Peter Parker, right? He's just and that was the biggest thing I'm just like it, you know, you'd mentioned the episodes we did with With Kellen Conley and and Kelly even pointed out he's like, yeah, it's like yeah, you're looking at Peter Parker Just like man. I wish Peter was my friend
00:32:27
Speaker
And I'm like, yeah, that's exactly how you feel when you watch them in those movies. Because you can't help but love Andrew Garfield in those movies. He just seems like such a great guy. And so it's hard to buy him as like the put-a-pound outcast, the loner.
00:32:45
Speaker
um unless he's doing it by choice and whereas Tom Holland he's got this whole you know he's got that whole nerdy youthful exuberance thing but he's also got the humor and all that which he does a very good job of making the humor seem nervous like Andrew Garfield he always seems super confident as as Spider-Man and whereas Tom Holland it feels like he's being humorous because he's covering up how terrified he is which is one of the reasons why
00:33:12
Speaker
Spider-Man's always making jokes in the comics. So I love that he got that aspect of the character. And when I actually saw Homecoming and you got to see him, I have some quibbles with some of the choices they made in regards to the supporting cast. But overall, I thought it was this great blending of those two aspects of it, because you can't do Spider-Man without also focusing on the Peter Parker aspect of it.
00:33:41
Speaker
It's really hard in movies to do that because you've got this limited run times. And I've always maintained that, honestly, I think the best way to handle Spider-Man would be in a TV series because then you could actually let the relationship drama and the character interactions play out and breathe a little bit more. Because it's always been about that balancing act between the superhero stuff and the personal life.
00:34:06
Speaker
you can't really do that in, it's very difficult to do that in the movies. So, and I think that was the weakness of the Raimi films and also the Mark Webb films, which is like I was saying, you had some great Spider-Man stuff in the Raimi films, you had some great Peter Parker stuff in the Webb films, but they kind of dropped the ball in the other stuff. Whereas this one, it found that sweet spot. It was able to bring those two sides of his life together in a way that actually worked very well and didn't feel contrived, surprisingly.
00:34:35
Speaker
Yeah. And I think it's a credit to the, I mean, this is a movie that has like six credited screenwriters, which is usually a disaster when it comes to studio movies. That means that, you know, they're running through a bunch of different drafts of the script and people are pulling things out and taking things and putting things in. And usually it just becomes kind of like a zombie movie where you're just like, what is even happening? Like they definitely lost the thread. And in this movie, like it all works. Like they kept all the best pieces, I guess, because it all feels like a one coherent vision of who this character is. And I mean, I'm sure that's a credit to,
00:35:04
Speaker
to Feige most of all as the producer on this. But I just think like when we talk about the balance of the two Peters and Peter and Spider-Man and how it works so well here, something that jumps out to me is there's a scene when he is kind of investigating the criminal element in the suburbs for the first time. And he's observing and then his phone goes off, which is like classic kind of like teen comedy sort of situation like, oh no, he has a silly ringtone and whatever.
00:35:34
Speaker
And then, and then they like pull a gun on, on Donald Glover, thinking that he's behind the kind of, that he's double crossed them in some way. And Peter just jumps down and says like, Hey, if you're going to pull a gun, pull it, put it on me. Like, if you're going to shoot somebody, shoot me, like without even thinking just like that instinct of like, I'm a hero, I need to deescalate the situation and I'm going to take the bullet if I need to. Perfect. Fast forward to like the, the third act of the movie.
00:35:58
Speaker
He's standing next to Liz, his love interest, and he wants to tell her that he likes her. And he is so terrified of doing that, that he can't even look her in the face. He has to kind of like look forward as he's standing next to her. And then, and it just like that's what Spider-Man is, right? Like he can jump in front of a bullet without thinking, but he can't tell a girl that he likes her by looking at her in the eyes because he's too nervous, because he's still just a kid. And it's like, it's so hard to make that feel real and grounded and not feel contrived or silly.
00:36:28
Speaker
And I think it helps that Tom Holland is like 21, when he's 22, when he's making these movies and he feels like a teenager in a way that the other Spider-Men haven't. They're like, you know, they get cast when they're 25, they're 28 by the time they make the first movie, they feel like they're 35, you know? So I think that it really helps, but it also just, he manages to
00:36:47
Speaker
put all of that together and make it feel like one coherent person in a way that shouldn't work. And it does, and it does excellently. Well, yeah, I mean, the high school stuff, they use it because the high school stuff, it was, you know, almost a footnote in the first movie, right? You have him
00:37:02
Speaker
he's he's he's in high school just basically in that opening sequence it's like you know what fifteen twenty minutes long and then after that he's in college and the amazing spider-man we do the first one he was in high school the whole time and then he graduate to the beginning of the second movie but they don't really use the high school stuff to that great effect whereas this one
00:37:23
Speaker
I've always described this movie as like if John Hughes directed a superhero movie because that's what it feels like. They really use that high school aspect of it to a lot of great effect in this.
00:37:36
Speaker
And yeah, like you said, like that scene when he's, well also, what I love about his interactions with Donald Glover, who for anyone who doesn't recognize the character's name, his name's Aaron Davis, and he mentions he's got a nephew. He's Miles Morales' uncle. And if you've watched Into the Spider-Verse, that character is the one who becomes the prowler in that movie. And actually, not to interrupt, but they even have like an Easter egg when Peter is looking at him through his heads up display.
00:38:06
Speaker
where it literally, it says on the screen that his codename, his alias is the Prowler. Oh, okay. I missed that. Yeah. So it's like a little bit of an Easter egg that like that is like he's already established as that in this world. You know, we don't really ever get to see him again. So it doesn't really add up to much, but who knows in the future, he might pop back up. So, but it's a fun, it's a funny strike.
00:38:25
Speaker
Well, also, as a note, as another Easter egg, the whole reason Miles Morales was created was actually because of Donald Glover, because back when they were planning The Amazing Spider-Man, Mark Bernardin, who co-hosts Fat Man Beyond with Kevin Smith and is a screenwriter in his own right,
00:38:43
Speaker
He had wrote this article saying that there's no reason why Spider-Man can't be black, right? He comes from, he's being raised by his aunt and his uncle. His parents are out of the picture. He grew up in Queens. He's from a lower socioeconomic background. His story could easily be the story of a black kid from Queens. And Donald Glover,
00:39:01
Speaker
was a huge Spider-Man fan. And he had actually, you know, there's a big internet campaign to cast him as Spider-Man, even so much so that in community, there's an episode where he's wearing like Spider-Man pajamas or something. It's kind of a nod to that. And then Brian Michael Bendis, who was writing Ultimate Spider-Man at the time in the comics, he took a cue from that. And then he decided, well, we've got Peter Parker in the main universe.
00:39:23
Speaker
This is the ultimate universe. So let's kill Peter Parker and let's bring in a new Spider-Man and we'll make him black. And that ended up being Miles Morales. So it's really cool that all of this stuff comes full circle. And, you know, we get to have Donald Glover playing some role in connection to Miles Morales in the in the movies as well. Yeah, I mean, in the moment, that was so exciting. And it's it's funny because like this movie comes out in 2017.
00:39:48
Speaker
And I feel like by 2018, Donald Glover had reached like a whole nother threshold of kind of superstardom with like, you know, Atlanta becoming one of the most celebrated television series of the decade and, you know, his Childish Gambino music career really taking off in a serious way, whereas before it was kind of like a little bit of a joke.
00:40:08
Speaker
during his community days and like that he just you know and then he was in a Star Wars movie and he just kind of became king of the world for a couple years there and so it was like this was probably the last time he could have shown up in a spider-man movie as a cameo without it you know without it feeling very different so it's it's funny to look back at it now and be like oh yeah they did this because they wanted to like there was a fan campaign to make him spider-man like it's hard to even remember that that because he's his public persona has changed so much since then
00:40:36
Speaker
It's funny you mentioned the Childish Gambino thing is funny because every time when we were watching this movie, my wife was like, she's like, oh, Childish Gambino. I'm like, who? I'm like, oh, we're right, Donald Glover, because I don't know him at all from his music. I know him as an actor. I know him from community and all that. So whenever we see him in something, she's like, oh, that's Childish Gambino. And me, I'm like, that's Donald Glover.
00:40:57
Speaker
That's Troy from Community. Yeah, yeah. He's always going to be Troy from Community for me. That's who I always associate him with. But one of the things I love about that scene when Peter goes to interrogate him with the enhanced interrogation mode is what he's just so obviously not intimidating at all.
00:41:18
Speaker
and Davis is not having any of it. Like he slams the trunk door and then, and Peter flinches and he's like, he's like, this is your first time doing this, right? And he's like, he's like, you've got to get better at this part of the job. And that's another thing I love is that, you know, it shows that, you know, Peter, Peter's still a kid. He does, he's just making this up as he goes along. He doesn't really know what he's doing. And I thought that scene really kind of captured that idea.
00:41:45
Speaker
Yeah, and it's and I feel like it's it's such a smartly written movie in that respect where you start out like Peter has been part of this like massive superhero melee fight in Civil War, right? And he's like, I'm one of the Avengers now. I just need to wait for Tony Stark to call I'm ready for this. I'm so
00:42:02
Speaker
At one point, he literally says, I'm so beyond high school right now. And then, of course, that line is received with a smash cut to him being sent to detention for skipping out on class. So it's like, he's not. And that's the whole tension of this movie. And it's so relatable, I think, if you remember being a teenager and if you have teenagers in your life, you will know this.
00:42:24
Speaker
that there is just this thing where like they feel like they are adults and they should be treated like adults. And yet they aren't adults in a very real way, right? They just don't, they have a lot of the things that adults have, but they don't have a handle on their impulse control, right? They don't have a handle on, they just don't have the experience that you need to be put in adult situations yet. And like the only way you can really gain that experience is by
00:42:47
Speaker
failing. And in this movie, we get to see Spider-Man fail a lot. And I think that's really brave of them because in a superhero movie, you know, the superhero is supposed to win. He's supposed to be cool and he's supposed to be tough and he's supposed to win all of the fights. And maybe one thing goes wrong at the end of the second act to kind of raise the stakes for the for the act three. But otherwise, like that's what a superhero movie supposed to be. And in this movie, he's failing constantly. He's making mistakes constantly. His heart is in the right place. He's constantly doing the wrong thing.
00:43:17
Speaker
But every time that he does the wrong thing, he's learning from those experiences to the point where when he's in the climax, he is becoming the person that he needs to finally beat the vulture and save the day. And I think that that's just so smart. It's so well-written. And that narrative progression is exactly what you want from a teen superhero. And I just think it's really impressive because it's absolutely not the sort of thing that we got in previous Spider-Man movies. Absolutely, yeah.
00:43:48
Speaker
And I think this movie also it does a great job of utilizing the different aspects and what's been established of the MCU to be up until this point because in the comics when when Spider-Man came out right you had the Fantastic Four were already established and so
00:44:06
Speaker
And I was getting flashbacks to some of those old early Lee Ditko issues when he's fantasizing about joining the Fantastic Four. And he's going and auditioning to them in a very dickish kind of way. And one of the things that drives me nuts about this movie is a lot of the discourse around it.
00:44:24
Speaker
Spidey Twitter is infuriating because it's just like they seem to hate everything involving Spider-Man, which is just ridiculous. And a lot of the complaints about this movie in particular, I think are kind of misplaced. Like the, you know, one of the things they say is like, oh, well, you know, Peter cares more about being an Avenger than about responsibility. I'm like, well, one of the through lines about every single, pretty much every single Spider-Man story is
00:44:50
Speaker
He's constantly relearning that lesson about power and responsibility. It's never been like he's always responsible all the time. Peter's always screwing up. He's always making the wrong choice and then having to fix it later. And I thought this movie completely played into that. He's a kid. He thinks he's being responsible when he goes to the Staten Island ferry and tries to break up that arms deal and like ignores his his aunt and ignores Tony.
00:45:18
Speaker
He thinks he's being responsible. He thinks this is the most responsible choice that I could make in this situation. Anything else would be irresponsible. How could I not try to save the day? And the problem is not that he's being irresponsible. The problem is that he's not thinking through his actions because he's 15 years old. Of course, he's not thinking through his actions, right? He's just so over eager. He's constantly like over his skis on stuff. And that is just so exactly what a teenage superhero who really cares about responsibility would act like because he's overestimating his own
00:45:48
Speaker
ability to handle the situation. He's not trying to be reckless. He doesn't leave the room for him to be reckless in the situation because he's like, no, I'll handle this. I'm the best person for this situation. I'm going to solve the problem. And it's like, oh, no, you just made the problem so much worse.
00:46:07
Speaker
And I think that they just a lot of that also is it's in the writing, but it's also in Tom Holland's performance. You never feel like his heart is not in the right place. Right. He always feels like he's trying to do the right thing. And like when it comes to the Avengers thing, it's like that's him not necessarily not caring about his community or anything else. That's him being like, I'm ready to be a real superhero so that I could really make a difference because he feels that sense of responsibility. There's an urgency.
00:46:36
Speaker
to wanting to be on that stage because he feels like that's what he needs to do in order to help the most people. It's not the vanity of it, but there is a little bit of vanity because he's also a teenager. And so it's all gets kind of like mixed in. And I think that that is exactly right. I think that's the perfect way to use this character.
00:46:52
Speaker
I agree. I agree 100%. In fact, that scene when he leaves the room, I didn't realize it before, but that is such a great quintessential Spider-Man moment. Even me is like, I'm almost 40 and I watched this movie and it reminds me of what it was like to be in high school. I remember those signs when you were out on a school trip and you were sneaking out of the room to go to the pool and all that with
00:47:17
Speaker
with the other with the other classmates and all that and i remember those things i remember those you know and you know watching him sneak out and then look in and see them all in the pool and just kind of like being wistful and it's that right there it's like spider-man while he's dressed in the costume like that is perfect spider-man right there exactly yeah like and i don't know how you're a lifelong spider-man fan and you don't recognize that that is perfect spider-man you know that is the tension of the character if
00:47:44
Speaker
He has a line later where he just says, there's a typical homecoming on the outside of an invisible jet fighting my girlfriend's dad. That's what the character is. And this movie captures that perfectly. That's a good transition because I did want to talk about Michael Keaton's Vulture next. I was also thinking, comparing in my head, different Spider-Man villains we've seen so far.
00:48:11
Speaker
With the exception of probably Dr. Octopus, I think the MCU movies have
00:48:17
Speaker
not given us the best interpretation of these villains and like what they did with Vulture in this movie or Mysterio in the next one like and Vulture especially I thought it was it was brilliant to use something that actually connects the character's name right he's scavenging for all these these parts and stuff like that um make him a literal scavenger and having Michael Keaton play that part it's just
00:48:43
Speaker
It's perfect. And Vulture in the comics never had a whole lot of depth, but they bring so much depth to that character in this movie and connecting it way back to the first movie and the first Avengers movie and the Chitauri invasion and all this stuff with damage control and the whole class struggle-ish thing. All of that was done. Oh my God, it's so well done in this movie.
00:49:06
Speaker
Yeah, and I think Michael Keaton as an actor is just obviously extremely talented and he's able to bring a lot of gravity to the role, a lot of relatability to the role. He feels like a very accessible character. You really want to root for him even when he's making the wrong choice, right? You understand where he's coming from.
00:49:22
Speaker
And he also feels believable as like Peter's girlfriend's dad too. And just like the normal menace of that experience, just going to your girlfriend's house and having to deal with their dad being kind of like, I'm joking, but I'm not, you know, that kind of vibe. Like he plays that perfectly too. And then of course, like as that scene escalates, it becomes this like incredibly heightened comic bookie version of what that would be. But yeah, the choice to do that with the Vulture, which
00:49:46
Speaker
is really, you know, I mean, again, I didn't read the comic books. Maybe he has some incredible arcs in the comics that I'm not familiar with. But I remember him from the 90s cartoon. And I remember like in the 90s cartoon, he was positioned as Felicia Hardy's dad, which I don't think is true in the comic books. I think that was an adaptation choice.
00:50:03
Speaker
But I remember he mostly was just around in this big, epic, multi-part story where he was trying to use science and an ancient relic to make him be young again. And that's all he cared about. That is not interesting from a storytelling perspective. And I remember he was going to be the villain in Spider-Man 4, and he was going to be John Malkovich. And it was all set and ready to go. And then that movie fell apart after it got greenlit because Spider-Man 3 was such a huge success.
00:50:32
Speaker
fell apart quickly thereafter when everyone realized like, oh no, actually people hate this movie, even though it made a bunch of money. Um, but that was always like, I don't really want to see the vulture. And so then for when they said, okay, well, it's going to be the vulture, but it's going to be Michael Keaton. I was like, okay, well, I'm going to see Michael Keaton in this. I'll see what he does with this character, but it doesn't seem like it's going to be a very interesting role. And what they do with him is just, it's just great. It works so well as sort of like working class version of shadow self to Tony Stark and the impact that that has on, on Peter and.
00:51:01
Speaker
and the twist is excellent. What was your experience with the twist when you first saw it? Oh, and I'm talking about the first time I saw this movie. Man, that twist.
00:51:11
Speaker
had me jumping out of my seat. I'm like, Oh, please, like I was not expecting that. What? Not at all. And, and it's just such a there's this old joke about about the Spider Man comic books. Like if you want to be the best way to be a Spider Man villain is to be is to know Peter Parker, because every single one of his village comes from his personal life in some way. And
00:51:35
Speaker
And, you know, it's a contrived thing about about Spider-Man comic books and stuff, but I thought it works so well. And they do that here, like, but it works so well in this movie. And just that that twist of like, that it's a perfect way to illustrate that, you know, using superhero, being a superhero and tying it into into high school.
00:51:55
Speaker
I've talked about this before, but one of the things I loved about Buffy was those early seasons where they really leaned into that metaphor of high school as a horror movie and they did different aspects of it, trying to find horror movie twists on these typical high school tropes. And I thought doing that with the superhero movie and what they do here where that idea of like, oh my God, the greatest villain you're ever going to face is your girlfriend's dad.
00:52:17
Speaker
And then having that being where he is actually the supervillain of the story too. I mean, that is my favorite sequence in this movie bar none because and that is the creepiest sequence in probably any MCU movie is is that scene where you know, he's he's there in the house and he's talking to Michael Keaton and he's and Michael Keaton is waving the knife around and stuff and just
00:52:40
Speaker
And Michael Keaton is just the look on his face in general. He looks like a creepy guy in general. Like if I was going to, you know, when I was if I was a teenager and I was going to pick up my girlfriend and that guy answered the door, I'd be creeped out, too, even if he if I didn't know he was a supervillain. No, absolutely. But what I like about it is that it's just on the right side of believability for like a kind of a dad who's trying to kind of like scare his girlfriend, his
00:53:04
Speaker
his daughter's boyfriend a little bit, right? Like it doesn't tip over the line too much. Like there's a way to play it where it's like, you know, where like it's Willem Dafoe as Norman Osborn, for instance. Like that man is like a lunatic from beginning to end. Like you're never surprised when it turns out he's the guy on the glider running around throwing bombs at people. But with Michael Keaton, it's like this feels like a dad who's trying to intimidate his daughter's boyfriend and doing a good job. And then it turns in the car.
00:53:31
Speaker
to when he starts to put the pieces together. And then he feels like not just a dad, but a supervillain. And it's like, and that transition is just perfect. And when I was watching it this time around, I noticed that there's like, they do this thing where like, you know, he's asking questions, they're in the car and every little bit of information is like, Hmm, that's, that's interesting. Oh, you know, Spider-Man. Oh,
00:53:53
Speaker
You weren't in the in the elevator with everybody in DC like and they're like, Hmm, okay. And you see it kind of putting together putting together. And then when he finally realizes it, which is a great touch that I never noticed before. He's sitting at the light and the light turns green. It's it's red while he's figuring things out. And then it turns green, which is not only like, oh, it's a go. I realized it. But also like green is his like superhero supervillain color. Right. So the green flashes across his face and he like looks like the vulture now in a way. And it's just like,
00:54:23
Speaker
It's just that attention to detail is so fun. And this film is just so full of things that you really appreciate more and more the more times you watch it. It's that real rewatchability value.
00:54:35
Speaker
I love how, yeah, he does so much with this performance. I love that scene in the house. Like you said, it's just the typical dad is trying to needle his girlfriend's, his daughter's boyfriend. And just the little setups he gives him, he's like, you look a little bit pale, Pete. You want a drink? You want a scotch or a bourbon or something? He's like, no, I'm not always like, that's the right answer. Yeah. He's like, look at her. Doesn't she look beautiful? It's like, yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:55:02
Speaker
also the right answer. Good job. He's like, I'm gonna be your show. Like, it's just like, he's, he's playing it perfectly. Because he is just, you know, you can tell that he's just doing this to, to mess with Peter, he's just having fun with them a little bit. And then when when it drove, yeah, calling him Pedro and all that. And then when it turns when he's in the car, and
00:55:23
Speaker
Michael Keaton actually, he brings a real sincerity to the way he deals with Peter. He says to him after they drop her off and he turns him with the gun and he's like, I admire what you're doing. I admire that you're playing a close to the vest. You saved my daughter's life. I'm not gonna forget that. So I'm gonna give you a way out. All of that makes, it makes perfect sense why he would decide to let Peter go in that moment. He's like, look, you're a kid, you don't really understand what's going on here. So I'm giving you one chance
00:55:52
Speaker
to leave this alone. And you get the feeling even when you know, Pete comes to him in the lair, and you know, he's just kind of talking to very casually, you get the feeling that you know, Adrian actually does have some admiration and respect for Peter, I thought they did a good job of playing that. Yeah, I fully agree. And like, they get away with this sort of like, we're not so different, you and I villain monologue, which is like,
00:56:18
Speaker
maybe the most cliche thing you could do in a comic book movie or action movie of all time at this point. And yet it just, you know, when you have two good actors who get to deliver those lines, like they make it feel real and to make it feel vibrant and they make it feel like it's part of what the movie is.
00:56:32
Speaker
actually trying to communicate, not just a really hacky cliche. So it's impressive. And I will say another thing about the development of this movie in relation to its villains. This movie, obviously, it was primarily produced by Marvel, right? Marvel Studios.
00:56:49
Speaker
But it had some Sony input. I feel like the Sony input kind of gets a little bit underplayed now, but it was definitely a collaborative experience. And one of the things that Sony apparently was really pushing Marvel to do is to include more villains, right? We can't just have one villain. And I remember when we were getting news about this movie before it came out of like, oh,
00:57:06
Speaker
It's not just going to be the vulture. It's going to have the shocker. No, it's going to have two shockers and it's going to have the tinkerer. It's going to have the scorpion. And remember thinking like, oh, no, they're doing it again. They're overloading this movie with villains and plots and things that it's going to be a disaster. And then when you watch the movie, it just works perfectly because it's like they never lose track of the story that they're telling, which is so key when you're talking about populating your world. And so it never feels like, oh, here's every villain has their own story and their own arc and their own
00:57:35
Speaker
thing and they have to come together and you're constantly dividing your attention, no. Instead, all of these comic book characters that audiences have more or less familiarity with, depending on where they're coming in with the property. They are able to just use these characters to populate the world and flesh out the world to make it feel real and to make it feel like it's full of different interesting types of people who are just on the edges and working on the corners of the screen.
00:58:04
Speaker
being an enriching experience. You know, we have that with the teen characters too. There's lots of teen characters who are like comic book fans know their names, but here they're just there to support Peter and support his story. Like everything is working towards one goal, which is to tell this specific story about Peter learning how to become a superhero on his own right and respect his limits and make friends and, and, you know, tackle the bad guy without losing who he is. Right. That's the point of the story.
00:58:32
Speaker
and every single piece of it works towards that. And it's really impressive that they pulled it off. I'm glad you mentioned the other villains. I did want to talk about that. And I think Marvel did something smart when they approached those other villains because
00:58:45
Speaker
not every Spider-Man villain is on the level of like a Dr. Octopus or a Green Goblin. So like you combine Green Goblin or, I mean, why don't I say he, yeah, yeah, the exact, Ryan was exactly what I'm thinking of. Because, you know, I thought, I remember people were complaining about, um, uh, Rhino and Amazing Spider-Man 2 because they're, oh, they're throwing too many villains in there.
00:59:07
Speaker
I actually thought he worked fine in that small role he had in that because he's just this, you know, this small side villain that so it kind of gives you this feeling of this is the kind of stuff Peter deals with every day as opposed to every two years a new villain pops up. So I really think it helps out that way to show that it shows you that, you know, he's dealing with these different threats all the time. It's not just every two years one big villain pops up and that's who he has to deal with.
00:59:34
Speaker
So I think that's a I thought that's that they did that pretty well in that movie And this one too, you know
00:59:42
Speaker
you're not gonna have a movie where the shocker is the headlining villain, or where the scorpion is the headlining villain, or the tinkerer, right? So working them into these smaller roles in this movie, I thought was a really smart choice. And it gives the fans, the comic books to me like, oh, that's the shocker. Oh, that's the tinkerer. All that made a lot of, I thought that was all really well done. Yeah, I agree. And I also think like,
01:00:09
Speaker
They actually made the vulture look intimidating and scary, which is incredible because I mean, again, I don't see the comic book. I don't know. Maybe there's other iterations of his costuming in the comic books that looks scarier. But I know from the cartoon that I watched that he is just this old man in a green kind of like jets, like mechanized jet suit with like actual feather wings attached. And he looks completely ridiculous. And here they give him like this bomber jacket look that he's kind of like in a in a flight suit, but kind of not. And
01:00:39
Speaker
He does literally have, like he gets the kind of like wing kind of breastplate still, but like within the context of the bomber jacket. And he gets this like mask that is, he genuinely looks imposing and intimidating. And it's like, how did you make the vulture scary? That's insane. They really, it's, it's really impressive. The kind of, uh, production design that they went into in costume design that went into making that guy actually work as a cinematic villain.
01:01:02
Speaker
Oh, yeah, I thought the working in the fur collar and when he has it zipped up because, you know, the vultures classic comic costume in the comics, it does have like this fur collar around it just like a volt. So I thought that was a nice little touch. Like, oh, we're writing just that little thing to connect it to the comic books. And it works very well, like you said, in the context of that bomber jacket.
01:01:22
Speaker
The shocker to write same idea with him with like the yellow sleeves and all that that's a nod to his look in the comics So all that stuff or you know, we don't see the scorpion in costume or anything, but we see it You know, he's got the tattoo on his on his neck and all that so we get so we know who he is So again, all that stuff works very well
01:01:41
Speaker
Um, you'd mentioned the supporting cast and I want to talk a little bit about them because I thought the supporting cast works so well in this movie. Although I did find myself wondering why they kind of chose the characters they did because Ned Leeds in the comics was never really like him and Peter were friends, but they were never like, he's almost like written as like a Harry Osborn type in, in this movie. And.
01:02:09
Speaker
Also Flash too, he's, and again, I think these actors did a great job. I'm not dissing their performances anyway, but I do think it's an interesting disconnect because I realized this when I was watching Far From Home that they kind of gave, they kind of combined Flash Thompson and Harry Osborn into one character in this movie where he's like this rival of Peter's, but he's also this, you know, this
01:02:32
Speaker
Kid from this rich family who's kind of ignored by his parents that that's Harry Osborn all over it So I thought that was an interesting thing where then they take you know, the friendship aspect of Harry Osborn and then they mix it with gank from whose Miles Morales is best friend in those comic books and they combine it and he's also kind of like an overweight guy in in the Miles Morales comics and they combine it and give him this Random name from Peter supporting cast in that so I thought those are some interesting little twists they came and I
01:03:02
Speaker
And they're not bad. It's just interesting. I'm just I kind of wish I was there in the meetings to figure out like, what was your thought process to get from that point and these characters to what you ended up with in the movie? Yeah, I think you know, I think they've spoken about it a little bit. And I think that what it is is that
01:03:21
Speaker
if Peter were alive today in a slightly heightened universe, right, he would be going to a science high school in the city. And that would, and if it was a science high school in the city, especially in Queens, it would be a very diverse community of like nerdy people of variety of different statuses and cultures. And I think that they wanted his high school to reflect that. And I think that they do that really well. And I think what is true is that
01:03:49
Speaker
Spider-Man's high school set in the comic books back from the 60s is not really reflective of what
01:03:56
Speaker
a science tech high school in Queens would look like in 2017. It just isn't. But Miles' high school team is a little bit more. I think the idea to pull Ganke from the Miles storyline, but just give him a Peter relative name, is probably the most craven thing that they did from an adaptation choice, but I think it also works the best, so it's hard to argue with.
01:04:24
Speaker
With the flash thing, like I didn't go to a science tech school, but I did go to a prep school in this, in right around the same area that he is living in. And that was exactly what the bullies were like in my prep school. It was like a high status academic achieving, um, non white person with rich parents who were not attentive and put a lot of pressure on them. And so they let it out by being mean to everybody else. So for me, I was like, that's perfect. That's exactly what the bully would be like today. It wouldn't make any sense for him to be this blonde haired
01:04:53
Speaker
blue eyed, six foot tall, jock playing football on the quad. That doesn't make any sense. But having him be this, the way that Tony plays him, is perfect. And I love that. And I don't necessarily think that they're trying to merge him with the Harry Osborn thing. I think they just, in the first movie, they really established him as this rich kid who's mean to everybody. And then in the second movie, they were like, well, let's dig slightly deeper to say, well, why is he mean to everybody?
01:05:22
Speaker
In the first movie, you get this sort of sense of he feels intellectually insecure because he knows Peter is smarter than him. And in the second movie, you get a little bit more of like, oh, and also his parents don't really seem to care very much about him. But I don't know if that necessarily has to be a specific Harry Osborn trait. I think that that's true of a lot of
01:05:40
Speaker
people in that situation. I really love the adaptation choices, and I think it really works. I think Betty Brandt is really fun in these movies as a character who may or may not resemble herself in the comic books, but I think works really well as part of this ensemble. Liz Allen is a great adaptation choice here, and then the MJ of it all. I think the way that they see MJ in this movie, and then
01:06:03
Speaker
Allow it to flourish later is just so Confident in a way that so especially Sony spider-man movies rarely are Usually they have this feeling of like we need to put everything we possibly can into these movies So that way everybody pays attention to them and there's like a lot of insecurity there And I think there's such confidence to be like it we're gonna cast and a who's a pretty big star
01:06:23
Speaker
less of a big star in 2017 than she is now, but she was still a pretty big deal then. And we were just going to have her kind of like on the corner, like on the edges of scenes, just like hanging around. She's Michelle. We don't really know what her deal is. And she constantly keeps like popping up and like, she's clearly watching Peter, but we don't really, but acting like she doesn't care when clearly she does, you know? And then, and then, and you know, far from home, obviously, well now she's MJ and she's this love interest and, and through these great love and everything else. But I really admired the way that they play that.
01:06:53
Speaker
Yeah, I thought, um, I thought the MJ stuff, I feel like Zendaya was a much better reflection of MJ in Far From Home and No Way Home. Like she actually, she felt there, you could see aspects of that character come through her performance in those two movies, I felt, in comparison to this one, where, like you said, she just kind of like there in the, in the background, she's there in the sides here.
01:07:14
Speaker
And her performance is great, but it didn't really feel like MJ to me. So when at the end, when she says, oh, you know, my friends call me MJ, I'm like, oh, so I guess this is our MJ. Okay. Didn't see that coming. And yeah, you make, you make good points and you're right. Sorry, go ahead. I'm curious if that changed at all for you watching this movie now, having seen the other ones, because I remember at the time, feeling a little bit random.
01:07:35
Speaker
And then watching it now, having seen the whole arc and seeing the progression, it working a lot better for me and me realizing kind of the seeds that they were laying in more subtly in a way that I don't necessarily think I picked up on initially on the first couple of viewings. I'm curious if you have a similar experience.
01:07:51
Speaker
I didn't really pick up on any of that for not for me. I didn't really pick up any of that. Like I just I just think she's much better utilizing the other films. I did like the choice of starting off with Liz in this movie and I think and Liz has had connections to supervillains in the comic books. So I think connecting her to to Vulture of all of Peter's supporting cast. I think she's the one who feels most like a character from the comics like and and even I think there are some aspects of the
01:08:18
Speaker
the spectacular Spider-Man TV show, the the the End made series, that that version of Liz, there were some aspects of that in her performance as well, too, I thought. So I thought they did a great job with her. And I love I love Ned in this movie. I do love Flash, but I did also kind of find myself thinking wistfully and like,
01:08:40
Speaker
I cannot see this version of Flash Thompson becoming Agent Venom like he does in the comic books, which is a great arc for Flash Thompson. And also the whole thing where he goes through this.
01:08:52
Speaker
maturing aspect in the comics where him and Peter, you know, he starts off as Peter's bully in college, they're kind of like rivals, but then he then Peter goes then flash ends up enlisting in the military and going off to war and comes back and then afterwards, like him and Peter, Peter becomes like the only one he from high school he can really rely on and becomes like they become very close friends in the comics. I think
01:09:17
Speaker
I can't see that same arc in those same ways paying off with Tony Revolori's version of Flash Thompson. So part of it is just me from the comic books thinking wistfully about what we'll probably never get to see. And then that's a big part of it. But otherwise, I think you make some really good points about why they chose this take for Flash. Yeah, I think that probably, you know,
01:09:43
Speaker
When you have 60 years worth of comic books to kind of draw from, you're going to have to make some adaptation choices that will then end up having downstream effects. And I definitely agree with you that that is a downstream effect. It's a lot easier to believe. Peter's jock bully from high school then developed into a begrudging friendship. And then he went to the military, and then he became Agent Venom. Peter's nerdy, rich bully from his science high school
01:10:11
Speaker
probably less likely to follow down that same path. But doesn't mean I couldn't do other interesting things unexpectedly along the way that has a similar sort of reverse heel turn, face turn sort of thing down the road.
01:10:24
Speaker
You know, adaptation trees is like that close off some story potential, but it also opens up other ones. No, you're right. And the MCU has done a really good job with that. Like they've made some interesting choices that are very divorced from the comic books, but end up working in other ways. I mean, I think, you know, Tony Stark's Journey is one version that
01:10:44
Speaker
easily comes to mind because in the comics, he had dealt with the whole alcoholism thing. Whereas in the movies, they didn't really, they kind of came close to hinting at it in the first two movies, but then after that, it just kind of, they instead lean more into the PTSD aspects from the first Avengers movie. And that almost like becomes his defining character trait over the course of these movies. And also like, he develops this,
01:11:12
Speaker
long-term relationship with Pepper, which never happened in the comic books, but it works for those characters in this setting. And I could easily see them doing something like that with Flash and finding some different way to have that kind of the relationship develop
Post-No Way Home Spider-Man Story Possibilities
01:11:28
Speaker
more. Although after No Way Home, it'll be interesting to see how they can do that. But yeah, I think, yeah, you're right. It's a very good point. Even though we're not getting the same thing we get in the comic books, there are different ways they could play that out.
01:11:41
Speaker
Yeah, like, I mean, you think about you talking about Iron Man more. He's such a huge part of this movie, right? And this is the sort of arc that just
01:11:48
Speaker
wouldn't have happened the same way in the comic books, like having Tony as a surrogate father figure to Peter doesn't make as much sense there as it does here, but it works so well here. And it really ends up being this kind of like emotional spine that runs throughout like the next like five years of movies in a lot of ways that is, that really pays dividends, right? Like when you get to like all of the relationship work that starts a little bit in civil war, but they don't have a lot of time for it, understandably. So they really lay it in here and layer it in here, I should say.
01:12:15
Speaker
And you know the idea of having like Tony Stark who is like the king of daddy issues having to become a father figure to this kid without a without a father figure
01:12:25
Speaker
is so ripe for opportunity. And I feel like Robert Downey Jr. really must have been so excited to get his handle on this sort of material because he really excels at the scenes that he gets. And then it just becomes like his investment and emotional connection to Peter becomes this thing that then just, you know, in Infinity War, obviously, he loses Peter and the guilt and grief around that ends up propelling him to kind of making that ultimate sacrifice in Endgame.
01:12:55
Speaker
And so it's it's such a core part of who the Iron Man as a character ends up being and you would never have gotten any of that if you didn't, if you
01:13:03
Speaker
held tightly to the relationships as they were established in the comic book universe. Right. So I want to talk about Iron Man, too, because again, one of the things that really annoys me when, you know, Spidey Twitter goes off on this movie is they dismissively call it the Iron Boy movie because they say like, oh, Peter Parker is just, you know, he's just Iron Man sidekick, basically. And I'm just like, did you did we watch the same movie? Because that's not at all what's happening in this film. Yeah. And I think it so.
01:13:34
Speaker
One brief correction there. There was a mentor-mentee relationship between Tony Stark and Peter Parker in the comic books. It just wasn't at this stage in their lives. In the comics, in the early 2000s, Spider-Man ends up joining the Avengers and
01:13:50
Speaker
Tony kind of takes Peter under his wing because Tony's a little bit older. They have similar technological interests and scientific background. So Tony kind of takes Peter under his wing, develops some new tools for him, and he does take on a mentor role for him in those comic books. And I thought moving that to this time in Peter's life, it makes so much sense in the context of the MCU because in the comics,
01:14:17
Speaker
if I'm not mistaken, if I'm remembering my comics timeline correctly, Spider-Man actually came out before Iron Man did. So there was no real opportunity for that relationship to happen in the comic books. But in the context of the MCU, you know, the Avengers first appeared when Peter was, you know, in elementary school probably. So he would have grown up
01:14:40
Speaker
watching Tony Stark as Iron Man and seeing this guy who's using science to become a superhero and making science look cool like I think that would be that would totally influence him I could totally see him being influenced and idle and growing up idolizing Iron Man in a way in the comics they there have been stories that have been done afterwards where they kind of show like Peter growing up idolizing Captain America because Captain America was in World War II he grew up
01:15:06
Speaker
Reading about Captain America and Captain America comic books and all that so he grew up idolizing Captain America in the comic books in the movies They just they kind of changed that and they make it Iron Man instead which totally makes sense for this universe so I thought all that stuff was and there's also an element of
01:15:22
Speaker
never meet your heroes type of thing in it, right? The whole idea of like, he's, you know, he, he so wants that acceptance of, and they've had different aspects of this type of relationship in the comic books too, right? You know, him wanting the acceptance of some older figure. And just like that constant striving to find some sort of father figure now that now that Ben is gone, I think they, they played that really well.
01:15:47
Speaker
I'm not a comic book expert as I've said, but I do understand that pretty early in the first iteration of Spider-Man back in the 60s, one of his big things was wanting to join the Fantastic Four to get validated as a hero. I feel like they're taking that energy and bringing it into the Avengers here, which makes sense because the Fantastic Four doesn't exist. Avengers have that status here that would make a lot of sense.
01:16:11
Speaker
It captures something that's so great about these movies and something that it does bother me a little bit when Spider-Man Twitter complains about this because I feel like for the longest time what I heard was, you know, the other Spider-Man movies are great.
01:16:26
Speaker
But the biggest downside is that in the comic books, Spider-Man is just this one guy. He's a kid, a young adult trying to make a difference in this world of superheroes. And he's this low status guy. The New York tabloids are always on him for making the wrong choice and messing things up.
01:16:44
Speaker
He's a low status superhero, right? And the movies can't really do that because he's the only hero in their universe, right? So he has to tackle the world ending events. And the opportunity for the MCU was to reestablish that status quo. If he is a low status hero who wants to be one of the Avengers, but can't, you know, like that's what his whole thing is. And it's like, I feel like
01:17:07
Speaker
these movies then do that perfectly and then people complained about it. It was like, isn't this what you asked for? It drives me nuts when I see all these people suddenly coming out and saying like, oh, the amazing Spider-Man movies were so great and you know,
01:17:25
Speaker
I'm like, well, I was defending those movies back when they first came out and I was doing it by myself. Where the hell were all of you people? And it's like, there's this weird thing where it's the whole nature of Twitter and the internet where it's like, you got to be contrary. You got to be a contrarian all the time type of thing is really what I think drives a lot of it.
01:17:42
Speaker
But yeah, it yeah, and you're right. You're right. In fact, the very first issue of Spider-Man solo comic was him trying to join the Fantastic Four and him breaking into the Baxter building is to try and impress them with his powers, which again is a stupid, reckless, irresponsible thing to do.
01:17:58
Speaker
But that makes sense for that character because he's always doing a stupid irresponsible and reckless thing and then realizing his mistake and then trying to fix it. That happens in almost every single Spider-Man story. So when people say that this Peter doesn't understand responsibility, I'm just like, well, no, he does. Like you would so accurately said, it's just, he's still a kid. He still has, you know, that.
01:18:22
Speaker
youthful, impulsive, reckless nature about him. And just because he doesn't have the experience to know better. And I think that's 100% accurate. Yeah. And I'll also just say we're making movies and Tom Holland and Robert Downey Jr. have great chemistry together and every scene that they're in crackles. And if you have that, use it, you know, like relax people like we're making a film within this world. And we have these incredible assets that work so well together.
01:18:50
Speaker
and you don't want to use them because you feel like it's not true to who the character was 50 years ago, like, give me a break, you know? Another aspect that annoys me is when people say that Uncle Ben doesn't exist in this universe. I'm like, well, no, he does. It's just that we don't have to see Uncle Ben get shot in every movie to understand that's part of Peter's backstory. Everybody knows that origin. We've seen it in even, you know, going back to, you mentioned the Fox animated series.
01:19:16
Speaker
They never opened up with Uncle Ben's murder. In fact, I don't even think they showed it in the first few episodes. Because they understood that we don't need to show it all the time. People understood this. In fact, in The Amazing Spider-Man, as much as I love Martin Sheen's performance in that movie,
01:19:33
Speaker
The whole sequence where he gets shot just feels so tacked on and by the numbers like, okay, we have to do this. Let's quickly get it out of the way. Whereas it would have worked so much better if we had opened that movie with Ben already being dead and then maybe showing Martin Sheen in flashbacks would have worked much better. And this movie, we don't see Ben, but we get hints of him every single time.
01:19:58
Speaker
in civil war, right? When Tony asked Peter, why do you do this? And he gives that whole speech, like when you can do the things I can do, and you don't, and then the bad things happen, they happen because of you. It's a clunky speech, you know, and it's obvious they were trying to write it without using the word speech. I think it's a little bit clunky. I love that speech because I think Tom Holland delivers it so well. He does deliver well, yeah. And something that I also really like about that speech is that
01:20:24
Speaker
they start, like he starts to then explain more, which is like the, which is like, of course, like the fans want to know, like, so what, like tell us more about this. And Tony being Tony just cuts him off immediately. He's like, yeah, yeah, yeah. I get it. Okay. You want to bring the guy for the, stick up for the little guy. I gotcha. So it's like, it also kind of subverts it in a, in a kind of fun way. That's true to those characters. I love that moment.
01:20:45
Speaker
I think you're right. They play it really well. I do feel like when they were trying to write that they were trying to write it without using the words great power and great responsibility, though.
Aunt May and Spider-Man's Local Hero Focus
01:20:54
Speaker
It feels like they're the third one. They're saving up for the third one. Yeah. But, you know, that's obviously a reference to Uncle Ben. Otherwise, what else would he be talking about? The bad things happening. It's clearly about Uncle Ben in this movie, too, when
01:21:08
Speaker
when Ned asking him why Mae doesn't know, and he says after everything she's been through, she couldn't handle this. Again, that's a clear reference to Uncle Ben. In fact, there was a sequence that was cut from, I don't know if it was ever filmed, or if it was filmed and then cut, where the suit that Peter wore is to the dance, they make reference to the fact that it was Uncle Ben's suit when he was younger. So
01:21:31
Speaker
There are all these little references to Uncle Ben in Far From Home. The suitcase has Ben's initials on it. Ben exists in this movie. We just didn't see him get shot on screen. But he absolutely exists. He absolutely died probably because of something Peter did. So all of that is there. The movie doesn't hold your hand. You can figure this. That's another thing that annoys me when they call it a plot hole. And that's not a plot hole. That's not a plot hole. Yeah, exactly.
01:21:59
Speaker
It's not what a plot hole is. People don't. People need to go to school and learn what plot holes are because the internet is filled with people calling things plot holes that are explicitly not plot holes. It's one of my biggest annoyances. Yeah. I'm like, no, that's not a plot hole. You just don't understand. Right. Just because you don't understand something doesn't mean it's not a plot hole.
01:22:18
Speaker
Right. Or they didn't explicitly say it, but they implied it. Obviously, that was a mistake. It's like, no, maybe they actually meant to imply it. But anyway, let's not talk too much more about bad fans, because they said, instead, you mentioned the Ned thing, that speech with Ned, where he's talking about what Aunt May has gone through. And I love that scene so much.
01:22:43
Speaker
because I love the slow reveal of Peter crawling onto the ceiling, dropping down, taking off the suit, and then Ned being there, and being like, oh my god, you're Spider-Man? And Peter going, no, no, no, no, no, I'm not. And he's like, you were on the ceiling.
01:22:58
Speaker
This is so, so great. And then he's like, you can't tell anybody. He's like, I'm going to be honest with you. Uh, this is the coolest thing that's ever happened to me. There's no way I couldn't tell people. It's like such an honest, like, this is how your best friend would react if they found out you were a superhero. And I think like there's such like a kind of hacky way of doing this where it's all kind of like, uh, you know, Oh, you need to keep my secret. And then it's like torture to like, keep your secret. It's like, and Ned just like punctuates that completely with like a realism that I really appreciate.
01:23:23
Speaker
Also, I love what they did with, I think this might be my favorite version of Aunt May, with maybe the possible exception of Lily Tomlin's version and Into the Spider-Verse, because I love that version of where she's like, where she's like, you know, Peter's Alfred in a way. But I did think that she was, I love the way Marisitome plays it here, because
01:23:44
Speaker
realistically, it doesn't really make sense for Aunt May to be this frail old woman, right? I mean, you know, it's- Yeah, people need to relax with that as well. It's- Well, I think- It makes no sense that- Yeah. That Peter would have an 80-year-old aunt that he was living with.
01:24:00
Speaker
It should be a woman in her fifties and taking care of her brother or sister's kids like that makes sense. It makes total sense. Yeah. In fact, I think the original intention of Aunt May in the comics was that she was supposed to be Peter's great aunt. And then over time, they just made it his you know, the the his Uncle Ben
01:24:20
Speaker
Peter's father's brother as opposed to being like his grandfather's brother or something like that. And it makes so much sense for Aunt May to be younger and she plays such a believable version of this character in this type of situation, right? She's just struggling to get by, struggling to raise this teenage kid on her own. And you see aspects like,
01:24:45
Speaker
you know, she's not his mom. She's, you know, she's trying to be like the cool aunt type of thing where she's like, you know, you know, she's like taking him to the party and stuff like that. And, you know, and she's she's trying to scene when they're like the scene when they when she they had the confrontation lead in the movie when she's when he's coming back after the fallout with the with the ferry.
01:25:05
Speaker
I love that scene because that fills in so much of what we are not seeing from May's perspective, where it's like she knows that he she doesn't know he's Spider-Man, but she knows that he is a wreck. He's a mess. He's going through something and he's lying about it and he's sneaking out of the house. And she's trying her best to do what she thinks is right. Maybe do what her parents couldn't do for her by giving him space to figure this out. But it's but she's a nervous wreck and she just can't handle
01:25:32
Speaker
this anymore. And she needs him to be honest with her. And I love that moment because it just it breathes. There's so much about Aunt May that these movies unfortunately don't give us because they just don't have the time. And I think Marisa Tomei just brings so much depth to that relationship and makes it feel specific in a way that isn't necessarily on the page. But her performance really helps bring to life. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. I mean, I think the line when she I think you made a good point like that line when she says I used to sneak out too.
01:26:00
Speaker
That says it all right there. I was completely right with you when you were saying all that stuff. Maybe she's trying to do this in a way that her parents didn't do with her.
01:26:08
Speaker
And that line, just in that one line, she says it all right there. Like, I'm trying to do this differently than my parents did it. And just like her trying to struggle with that. And I see this as a father myself, right? Like, you know, my kids are very young, but still I see that with like, you know, I don't want to do things the way my parents do, but you know, I still got to lay down the law in some way. So there is that, that push and pull. I totally get that. In that moment, it makes so much sense the way she reacts.
01:26:33
Speaker
And there's also that level of like, I'm not your mom. I don't, I'm not trying to be your mom. I'm not trying to replace your mom, but I am a person who's here and who cares about you and who sits up at night wondering if you're okay. And I need you to respect that. Like there's that tension there, which is really complicated. And this movie unfortunately doesn't have enough time for, but the little glimpses of it that we get, I think are great. And it makes me wish that we got more of it throughout these films instead of where it's just like John Favreau was her boyfriend for
01:27:00
Speaker
a whole movie and then it's like okay it's like I feel like when I look at the Marisa Tomei arc it's a real missed opportunity because there's so much there and she really wants to communicate it in this movie and she just doesn't get the opportunities often enough but what she gets phenomenal again that's why I say like the best way to handle spider-man would be like in a tv show like if we get like you know
01:27:22
Speaker
six or 12 episodes of like Peter going around trying to be in high school while also dealing with the occasional supervillain and then maybe cap it off with a big budget movie or something like that. I think that would be the perfect way to handle this character. But unfortunately, you know, he's what he's Marvel's arguably most recognizable character. So we're not going to get that. As much as I might like. It's a question of both like budget for TV, it would be hard to execute this character and then also just
01:27:48
Speaker
like the economic opportunity of a Spider-Man movie is just significantly higher than a Spider-Man television show in the world unfortunately. I know we have to wrap up soon, but I wanted to quickly just talk about some of the set pieces before we go because there's a couple of important moments that happen here from an action perspective that are really interesting and I think sets this movie apart from other superhero movies.
01:28:13
Speaker
We really only get one big like supervillain superhero fight, which is the climax. And even in that, it's mostly kind of like Peter trying to stop a robbery, not like beat up the bad guy, you know, and then that's exactly what I was going to say next. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, perfect. And then the other scenes that are big set pieces, it's like he like this, this the fairy set piece where he's trying to, you know, arrest these guys basically. But the majority of the action is around trying to save
01:28:40
Speaker
everybody from the ferry disaster that he created. And then the Washington Monument thing, which has no villain in it at all. It's just this sort of like accident that he again created by accident and trying to rescue people. And I just love the fact that this movie is so invested in establishing him as a character who is most concerned about saving people, not punching the bad guy, and especially not killing the bad guy, which is unfortunately what happens in all of the other Spider-Man movies basically, which is not really true to who that character is.
01:29:11
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. I think the what I love about this movie and what kind of annoyed me about a lot of the other movies is that it's always we got to save the city in some way, right? It's like there's some big event that's going to happen to destroy the whole city. Whereas this one is just no, I'm just trying to stop this supervillain from stealing a bunch of high tech shit. That's ultimately what it is. It's not about saving the city. It is just about
01:29:34
Speaker
you know, stopping this robbery. And it goes to show that not every superhero movie needs to have those stakes where the whole city is going to be destroyed or the whole world is going to be destroyed. We can have a movie where it's just about stopping this plot and it can still be very entertaining, can still be just as throwing and still feel just as high stakes.
01:29:57
Speaker
Yeah, it's because it's high stakes for him. He's on the side of a plane. He's trying to keep this bad thing from happening without having his girlfriend's dad die in the process. Like, I don't know how you if you were a real person, that's as high stakes as it gets. You know, you don't need a giant beam shooting into the sky, letting demons fly through the city. Like it's if you can sell the story, if you can tell the emotion of the story, it's going to feel high stakes no matter what.
Spider-Man's Unique Role and Determination
01:30:22
Speaker
And I just love that this movie had the courage to be like, no, this is a teen hero. We're going to give him
01:30:27
Speaker
a low stakes story that feels high stakes to him. And then they executed that flawlessly. Yeah. Well, so I think to the, and you know, I know everybody wants Spider-Man as an Avenger and all that, but I've always been against that idea. And I think this movie really makes a strong argument for why Spider-Man should not be an Avenger, not because he
01:30:47
Speaker
He's not good enough, not because he hasn't earned it. None of that is true. He's absolutely good enough to be up there. That speech he gives to Tony and Happy at the end when he says, I want to be a friendly neighborhood Spider-Man. I want to stay close to the ground and fight for the little guy.
01:31:04
Speaker
they smartly tied that in with the lesson he learns from the vulture, where he's telling them, look, the Avengers and all that, they don't care about guys like us. And it also made him, Peter also realizes, yeah, well, if the Avengers aren't paying attention to the little guys, they're also not noticing the little threats like the vulture, right? That's why the vulture was able to go for eight years without any attention from the feds. So I think he's realized five years. Five, yeah, yeah, that's right.
01:31:31
Speaker
You're right. Yeah, it's five years. But it makes a it makes a very good point, though, that, you know, if there's, you know, and I remember there's one my late co-host Derek always talked about this one issue of Avengers where they're looking for Spider-Man and someone said to, you know, why are we bothering? Why are we wasting time trying to find Spider-Man when he's he's missing? You know, don't we have better things to do? And I think it was it was either Iron Man or Captain America who said, like Spider-Man takes care of the stuff that we we don't. So, like,
01:32:01
Speaker
for us to be able to take care of the scroll invasions and Thanos and all that, we need someone who's being able to operate on the ground and take care of the stuff that we can't notice. And this movie makes that argument, right? When he says, I just wanna be a friendly neighbor.
01:32:18
Speaker
We need somebody to stop the grand theft bicycle, you know, exactly. Yeah, yeah. But I think that makes such a great argument. And also, I feel like it's it's hard to imagine Peter as this put upon, you know, struggling middle class guy when he's got Tony Stark on speed dial, too. So that's another aspect of it, too. I think that's why the idea of Peter being a local hero who just tries to stay to the ground
01:32:44
Speaker
Works so much better than him being a member of the Avengers and I think this movie makes that argument very well Yeah, I fully agree. I think you know in the Avengers movies I like to see him there because he's a great actor and a great character, but
01:32:56
Speaker
I agree from a storytelling perspective, it always feels better when he's on the ground handling things the way that we see him in this movie. And I will say one thing that we- Sorry, go ahead. Yeah. No, well, just one thing that goes towards that is, and we kind of allied it, we went over this moment and I want to just double back to it because it's such a core part of this film, the kind of the moment when he's under the rubble, right? And it's an homage to a classic comic book that I'm aware of that then has been an homage in other comic books for his whole history of him being under the rubble and seeing his
01:33:26
Speaker
face and the mask and the reflection and everything like that. But in the movie itself, in this movie, it's this fantastic moment where he's literally like he is a scared kid. He thinks he's going to die. He's screaming for help, right? He does this is way over his head. This is he has gotten himself. He's been making mistakes throughout the whole movie underestimating the situation. And now he has a literal building on top of him and he is panicking.
01:33:49
Speaker
And then he sees himself in the mirror in his, himself in the reflection in that mask and says, I'm going to be Spider-Man. Like, come on. And he does that kind of like, come on, Spider-Man, come on, Spider-Man. And he takes on that mantle and he becomes the hero that he needs to be, not by proving things to everyone else, not by making Tony Stark happy, not by becoming an Avenger.
01:34:09
Speaker
but by proving to himself that he has the fortitude to rise from the rubble and save the day. And that's just the best Spider-Man moment, I think, across all of the films that we've gotten. And it's excellent. It's just so great. And it's a great kind of combination of paying homage to the comic books, having a great actor in a great role, and giving him the material, and having the whole movie built to that moment that works so well.
01:34:35
Speaker
100% cosigned. And what I love too about that moment when he sees his his face in the mask, like that's, that's an iconic image of like the the Peter Parker with like half his face as Spider-Man half his face is Peter Parker. And you know, it works in the comic books because they they're showing you know, it's artistic license and all that kind of stuff. And it's a way to show to the audience that he's, he's struggling with those two sides of his identity. And
01:34:58
Speaker
working it into the story where like half the mask is submerged and he sees his face's reflection in the water and it's just such a brilliant way of showcasing it just like to the the idea of the eyes moving I never you know in whenever I'd see that happen in the comic books like his eyes move and I'm just like okay that's ridiculous those those lenses can't move like that
01:35:18
Speaker
And then after watching the five movies that preceded this one, you're just kind of like, okay, well, there feels like there's something missing in Spidey's face, because those lenses can't move. And so when in Civil War, they worked into it, so where the lenses are mechanical and they can adjust based on how much sensory input, that was such a brilliant in-universe way to be able to give him expressive eyes in these movies. And I thought that worked so well. It helped add so much to the,
01:35:46
Speaker
to the character and the performance. Yeah, I fully agree. It just it and it works. It just conveys a lot visually that I think is necessary. And it also gives us an opportunity to leave him in the damn mask for longer than movies do because the other movies, every time you have an emotional moment, he takes off his mask. That way he can actually act.
01:36:05
Speaker
And in this movie, they don't do that. They really only take his mask off in a meaningful moment once, right at the end, when he's trying to save Vulture. And I think they save it in a way that really pays off and it makes that moment land much more. Like when you think about like the Tobey Maguire movies, he takes that mask off every single scene it feels like. And it's like, and it just breaks the reality of who that character is supposed to be. So I think it just, it works really well from a storytelling perspective as well as also feeling like true to the visual sensibility of who that character is supposed to be.
01:36:34
Speaker
Although that did annoy me in the Avengers movies when the mask is constantly coming off. That's one of the downsides of them having the nano suits is now they can easily take the mask off whenever they want.
01:36:46
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. But she's in space. He doesn't need to protect his eyes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, but yeah, I think overall, like I I think yeah, I think I would say this is this is this is definitely my favorite Spider-Man movie. I think it combines all those different aspects of what you want a great Spider-Man story to have. And it's got the Peter Parker struggling with his life and struggling to balance the superhero aspect with the with his regular day to day life. You've got the supervillain that's that's
01:37:16
Speaker
You know, you know, somewhat comically coincidentally connected to Peter's personal life as well. And and you've got him just, you know, being a local superhero, basically. I think this this movie completely captures what I love about Spider-Man. Yeah. And for me, I think it might not be the best movie starring Peter Parker as Spider-Man, but it is the best Spider-Man movie.
01:37:42
Speaker
Okay. Um, it does. It does. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. All right. All right, Alex. Well, thanks. Thanks so much for, for coming on. So do you have any final things you want to say about this movie? I, I just wanted to also briefly compliment Michael G Kino score. I think it's fantastic. Um, he had a really steep hill trying to kind of like,
01:38:00
Speaker
you know, one up Danny Elfman in the original and I think that he did just an excellent job.
Podcast Promotion and Conclusion
01:38:05
Speaker
It really works throughout like just from the start of the movie where you've got the Spider-Man theme over the Avengers like Marvel Studios logo and then off to the race to start the whole film. I think it's just an expertly crafted score that I really, really like. I think it's underrated honestly.
01:38:20
Speaker
That instrumental version of the Spider-Man theme is just perfect. When I saw this in the theater, and they started playing that theme, I got chills when they started playing that theme. And I wasn't even a fan of that whole cartoon, but still, that theme is so iconic.
01:38:36
Speaker
Yeah. Also, one other thing I wanted to mention that I forgot too, I love that they got Jennifer Connelly to play Karen, the suit lady in this, because for anyone who doesn't know, Jennifer Connelly is married to Paul Bettany, who, you know, now he's visioned, but before that he was Jarvis. So bringing in that, you know, meta aspect to it, I thought was a nice little touch. And I was kind of disappointed that we didn't see her in any of the other movies.
01:38:59
Speaker
Yeah, I think she works really well here in moments where Peter really needs somebody to talk to but just doesn't have anybody. And in the comics maybe or in the cartoon, it would have just been like this voiceover narration that doesn't wouldn't have felt at place here. You get him having someone to talk to. But I think it's also the right call in future movies to not have her back because I just don't I because I just don't think that he needs to have a voice in his suit.
01:39:20
Speaker
Telling him what is happening across the street, you know, I feel like that's not necessarily Who spider-man should be so I liked I think it's very well used here And it's I think it's very smart that they don't continue to use her in the future even though the performance is great
01:39:35
Speaker
Yeah, you make a good point. I mean I can definitely understand why it would be not necessary in the other movies Although I I just love Jennifer Connolly and I want to see her in anything Well, you know see Top Gun Maverick for why she is exactly. Yeah. Well said era. Oh god. It's such an underrated actress I feel Anyway, so Alex. Thanks so much for coming on the show Why don't you tell people where they can find your podcast and the other stuff you do?
01:40:00
Speaker
Yeah, it's absolutely my pleasure. You can follow me. A good place to find all of my links is on Twitter. I don't really post that much there anymore, but I do like to keep up where you can find me over there. So that's at media thinkings on Twitter. I have a letterbox, which is a film specific social media site where you can follow all of my written reviews and comic book rankings over there. That's also at media thinkings on letterbox.
01:40:26
Speaker
My film podcast is actually coming to an end. So you can definitely check out our back episodes at cinemajos on Twitter. Cinemajos on all major podcast platforms, but we're not getting putting out any new episodes moving forward. But you can definitely subscribe to Pop Break TV to listen to my TV podcast, which I didn't discuss here. And you can also follow Pop Break today, where you can find my Bill versus the MCU podcast, which comes out
01:40:50
Speaker
the second Tuesday of every month. So definitely check that out as well. Okay, great. We did an episode on all of the Tom Holland Spider-Man movies. Okay, yeah, so definitely check that out. And we'll have links to that in the show notes. So we'll make sure to send me an email afterwards. We'll talk off mic and make sure we get all those links set up for you. But yeah, everybody else, check those out in the show notes. Check out those shows. Alex, thanks again for coming on. Welcome back anytime you'd like to talk about MCU or anything else.
01:41:18
Speaker
Anyway, that does it for this episode of Superhero Cinephiles. Superherocinephiles.com is the website. We are SuperCinemapod on Twitter and Instagram. I'm also on Hive under Per Constantine, P-E-R Constantine, and hopefully going to be using that more since Elon Musk is a psychopath, so you can find us there.
01:41:38
Speaker
Yeah, let us know what you think, and if you subscribe to the Patreon, you get these episodes a week in advance, and you also get access to the Superhero Cinephile's book club episodes, where we talk about comic books and graphic novels about once a month. Thanks so much for listening, and we will talk to you next time.
01:41:54
Speaker
If you enjoy the Superhero Cinephiles, then you'll also love my companion podcast, the Superhero Cinephiles Book Club. All my Patreon subscribers get access to this exclusive podcast where I review superhero comics and graphic novels. Not sure what comics you want to read next or what you should dive into? I've got you covered on that. I'll be doing reviews, recommendations, and also talking to you about useful entry points.
01:42:15
Speaker
If you're interested in reading some comments and don't know where you should start, plus you'll get access to all episodes of the main show a week before everyone else. On all of this, for as little as just a dollar a month, all you have to do is go to patreon.com slash SuperCinemaPod and you can sign up at any subscription amount to get started. Thanks so much for your support and please don't forget to rate and review us on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
01:42:58
Speaker
Thank you for listening and as always good night. Good evening. God bless.