A “Spectacular” movie in the name of the wall crawler, Marvel studios giving us the spider-man movie for which we fans have been longing for.
I personally loved the film. It felt like a true Spider-Man movie. Tom Holland nailing the persona as both Spider-Man and Peter Parker. The storytelling, emotions, action and the villain(Jake Gyllenhaal’s portrayal as Mysterio was an amazing cast decision and hats off to marvel for that) were on point.
The movie gives an homage to the fallen heroes from endgame and analyses the after effects of endgame, referring the ‘snap’ as the blip. The movie jumps right into the plot of europe trip without wasting any time (I so badly wanted to see an introduction to the Manfredi Group). Peter seems to be more focused on expressing his feelings to MJ (Michelle Jones) and distancing himself from the hero life. On reaching Europe he faces one of the elementals and meets Mysterio for the first time. Honestly Mysterio’s on screen portrayal couldn’t have been better, the suite and the iconic fishbowl looking helmet made his character so surreal. We then get to see Nick Fury, Hill and few other new agents of Fury’s new crew(Dimitri being one of the more suspicious one). Marvel trolled us with the whole multiverse gimmick. A relief for me as MCU has its own multiversal place in the marvel comics, Earth-199999 and I didn’t want Marvel to disturb that.
Peter fools around with EDITH doing the normal stuff which a teen would do in order to keep his good rep in front of his crush. One very important thing which MARVEL missed the last time but kept it pertinent this time were the “consequences” and “heroic stakes”. For a character like Spider Man, the stakes are everything, the consequences which the protagonist faces is all in all the most crucial part of the Spider Man arc which just makes the story more complex and substantive.
We witness the real face of Mysterio, “the master illusionist” and his team all being a reminder of Tony’s past. One thing which was very annoying to me was Peter revealing his secret identity to everyone (and i literally mean everyone). It bugged me off in the start as for spider man his identity is very important (but it’s no use now).
Coming to the first Mysterio v Spider Man scene, it was spectacular. I was on the edge of my seat for the entire time and didn’t blink for once. One of the reason why I loved it so much was that scene in particular displayed Spider Man’s vulnerability, his weaknesses and his guilt from not being able to save Tony. A transition which the fans would have noticed from the last film was the change of responsibility that peter faced during his run in the MCU, from doing the big stuff and to now just wanting to be the friendly neighbourhood which seems very ironic and I loved to see that character development. In this movie we see peter’s emotions flesh out very well as both a character and a hero.
Happy and Peter have developed a very beautiful relationship. It was always lovely to see both of them on the screen together. Happy, no longer looks at peter as a kid but looks at him as a hero and always helps him out, filling in that gap which was left open by Tony’s death. I wouldn’t mind at all seeing Happy as an “Uncle” figure to Peter, which is kind of indicated at the end of the movie with Peter confronting May and Happy with the “thing” going on between them. The scene where Happy and Peter were having a talk in the jet was very heartwarming. If seen closely during the part where Peter was making himself a new suit, you could see the holographic projections of few suit designs which have a resemblance to the different suit designs in comics. Peter confusing AC/DC for Led Zeppelin was hilarious.
The film’s ending was nothing less than perfect. I enjoyed every bit of the concluding part of the movie. The action scenes were on point. A great thing about the fights were spidey using his environment to the advantage and putting his nerdy skills to use. Pretty funny to see spider man with an explosive device he made swinging it like Mjolnir and holding a tower bridge board, looking like Cap from Endgame. One thing marvel left out was Spidey’s quippy nature and those annoying silly jokes he cracks during fights. It would have just made few of the action scenes more comical and lively. The interesting part of the finale was dividing it into 2 scenes and connecting to it later on. When Happy and the kids were running for their lives, dodging those drones it gave spider man the incentive to finish Beck as quickly as possible. The fight scene involving spider man’s spidey sense (pardon, peter tingle) was an amazing recreation from one of the best animated portrayal of spider man, “The Spectacular Spider-Man”. The awkward romance between MJ and pete was beautiful and pretty comical. And what better way would there be to end a Spider Man movie with spidey freely swinging in New York City, doing those flips and taking pics. The only thing which bothered me a little bit was Stan’s absence. I don’t know for the rest of the people but Stan’s cameo in a Spider Man film always had something magical to it and I miss it.
Now coming to one of the mind boggling part of the movie. The mid and post credits scenes. First thing first, I was thrilled to see J.K. Simmons reclaiming his role as J.Jonah Jameson. The Daily Bugle no longer seemed to be a newspaper company but has altered into an online media source (similar to the daily bugle seen in Insomniac Spider Man). The main scene, which was Spider-Man’s identity reveal. It was so SHOCKING due to the fact that no one would have ever expected this. I’m really really excited for what Marvel brings to the table for Spider Man after this and how they’ll fix it as it connects to one of the more popular story arcs in marvel comics. Dr. Strange and Wanda probably mind erasing everyone, or probably something else. For now we can only theorize.
The end credit actually connects to the more cosmic part of MCU. We see that Nick and Maria were actually skrulls, Talos and his wife. They call the real Nick Fury who seemed to be enjoying a tropical vacation (presumably Tahiti, if you know what I’m indicating towards) which was actually just a V.R. illusion. Nick Fury in space probably involves the creation of S.W.O.R.D. which might tackle on space related disputes.
Now what does the future hold for our wall crawler. I’m suspecting a Sinister 6, many spider man villains have been introduced in the MCU in one way or the other (The Jackal being indicated through Ms.Warren, peter’s high school teacher, The Chameleon through Dimitri, the Scorpion and Donald Glover as Aron Davis or otherwise known as the Prowler). Flash Thompson will definitely have something of a big role in the later films, there is definitely something suspicious about him and his family which is shown through few of the scenes indicating towards the tension between him and his family. I don’t think that Mysterio is dead yet. A character so interesting and so evil will obviously have something to do in the future, the fact that he is a “master illusionist” has something to explain about. Even if Quentin Beck is dead, doesn’t mean it’s an end for Mysterio as in the movie Mysterio seemed more like a program than a person and his team is still alive, so probably we can see this character again, who turned out to be the most notorious of villain for our wall crawler. The original Avengers tower was seen to being reconstructed in few of the deleted scenes from the movie which is being speculated to probably be the Oscorp tower, which everyone knows is the most important thing in spider man story arcs which have given life to characters like Green Goblin, Dr.Octopus, Electro and the list goes on.
Overall it was a great action packed, comedic, teenage movie with amazing storytelling and interesting story arcs. Spider-Man’s future in the MCU seems to be shining bright. Let’s see what marvel holds for our friendly neighborhood after the recent announcement of PHASE-4. Pretty excited for it as it involves a totally new chapter for MCU in general. Marvel doesn’t seem to be having any plans before 2020, but that doesn’t mean no more hero or villain flicks.
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