BLACK PANTHER

            Sometimes a film receives universal approval, and I’m left wondering if everyone else saw the same film as me.  Last year’s Logan was one such and, to a lesser extent, this year’s Black Panther is, also.  Now, before you start writing those letters - I enjoyed it, it was fine; but it didn’t strike me as outstanding.  Yet the response to the film has been euphoric and unprecedented.  Rotten Tomatoes has it at 97%, which is the highest rate given any new Marvel film since the first one, Iron Man, back in 2008.  It has also, now, become the highest grossing of all the Marvel films.  So the critics love it and the audience loves it.  Who am I, then, to gainsay?

          Black Panther has been claimed as a cultural event of seismic proportions for black culture, mostly because, for the first time, viewers of colour can see superheroic spectacle featuring people who look just like them.  The response has been so one-sided and, being the pasty white-boy that I am, I am so unqualified to have an opinion about that, I hesitate to air my reservations, even though they don’t really touch on the core issue of the film - it’s racial identity - instead, my concerns relate more to the familiarity of the story being told and the slow pace at which they are telling it.

            So, before I begin, to be entirely clear - I enjoyed the film!  I did!  I went to see it again, just to double-check my response and, on both occasions, found it to be a perfectly adequate contribution to the burgeoning Marvel universe.

            I liked the fact that Black Panther takes place entirely in Africa (apart from one shoot-out and car-chase in Korea, put there to appeal to the needs of the ever-more-important Far East audience).  I particularly liked the fact that they didn’t feel the need to shoe-horn in any cameos from The Avengers.

So compelling is the notion of an uncolonised African super-power, that travel agents here in the real world have been turning customers away who want to holiday there.

            I loved the design of Wakanda, from its fashion, to its architecture, it has been diligently thought through.  They have built an entire civilisation which takes its aesthetic cues from Africa.  It has not been westernised at all, indeed, it has Africanised western notions like the skyscraper.  It’s a beautiful thing.  In the opening moments, when T’Challa flies over the city, it is a much science fiction location as the planets we see in the Guardians of the Galaxy films.

            I imagine the fashions, and particularly the face decorations, will have already entered the cosplay pantheon and, if last year’s response to Wonder Woman is anything to go by, I expect every black kid (and some who now want to be black) will be wearing Black Panther costumes at fancy dress parties!

            The all-female Wakandan army - the Dora Milaje - ( or, those “Grace Jones looking chicks”) not only have a great look, they are a great idea!  They are led by the ferocious Danai Gurira - who is even more impressive with a spear than she was, in The Walking Dead, with a sword.  To have an army that is all female and all black in the era of #metoo and #time’sup is brilliant timing.  Yet, they represent just one way that Wakanda is a contrarian nation.

I once heard a story that helicopter pilots in Viet-Nam were often female, because they are more efficient and more ruthless than male pilots.  They were less likely to take risks and get their helicopter destroyed, and they were more likely to hit their targets.  Don't know if that's true ... But I, for one, wouldn't mess with an army made up of motivated women.

            I understand the politics of the film, and can see the appeal, to the ancestors of slaves, of an African super-power which has never been colonised.  This is a fantasy, but one that speaks to the heart of black culture.  Killmonger (Gawd, what an awful name ... Sorry, but it is), in his opening scene, points out that museums are full of artefacts that the West stole from their rightful owners.  In this way, Black Panther is an unambiguously political film, moreso than any Marvel film to date.

            The first problem I had with the film came with T’Challa’s coronation, which is a mix of ultra modern (the technology to stop the waterfall) and traditional (the whole having a fist-fight on a waterfall thing) and mystical (using magic herbs to take away the king’s super powers).  This whole ceremony is repeated, later, when Kilmumble challenges for the throne.  It is dramatically quite weak for the film to repeat itself like this, especially since the betrayal of M’Baku - the first challenger - is simply a red-herring.  It would have been more dramatic, and less predictable, to combine these two narratives into one.  Yes, it would have reduced the significance of M’Baku’s role, slightly, but it would have beefed up Kilwomble’s exponentially.

            After the coronation, they bury their king, as you do, and he has a vision lifted bodily from Schrader’s Cat People (1982), featuring panthers in the trees.  Then he gets to talk to his dead dad, like Thor did in last year’s Ragnarok, and like every hero gets to talk to every dead mentor, from Luke Skywalker to Frodo to Harry Potter.  It’s okay, I get it; it’s the first time a black hero has been able to do this.  Cool.

Malcolm McDowell shows Nastassja Kinski his pussy, in 1982's Cat People.

The chosen one has undead daddy issues in Black Panther.  Use The Force, T'Challa.

            Father does offer one brilliantly tooled nugget of advice: “It is hard for a good man to be king.”  This is not only a great line, and a precursor of the dilemma that T’Challa is about to face, it also lays the foundation for the T’Challla’s discovery of his father’s mistake.

            Nakia, T’Challa’s girlfriend (played by Lupita Nyong'o, taking a break from being mo-capped in Star Wars films) is his Jiminy Cricket - speaking for his conscience.  Their first real conversation has her making her point with some fairly on-the-nose dialogue about why Wakanda should stop hiding behind its cloak of invisibility and use its power to help other nations.  So, his first scene after he becomes king, she tells him what his character arc will be.

            Interesting, when there is a case being made for a black Bond (and, let’s be honest, the success of this film has made that a far more credible possibility) that T’Challa gets equipped with his wonderful toys by his sister, the precocious Shuri (played by Letitia Wright) and her ‘design group’.  He has, in other words, his very own Q Branch.

            The showy pretend-it’s-all-one-shot fight is impressive, but that’s the way these things are done today, after two Kingsman films, one Atomic Blonde and an entire Birdman,  there’s nothing surprising in it now.  The car chase that follows it enjoys a lot of Fast and Furious type physics, although the virtual-reality auto-pilot thing is very desirable.  There isn’t a gamer in the world who won’t be wishing for one of those of their very own!

            But, of course, Klaue (played, once again, by Andy Serkis, taking a break from being mo-capped in Star Wars and Apes films), who is the subject of all this sturm und drang, isn’t the real villain,  Killmuppet is, and he doesn’t step forward until we’re an hour in - basically, the half-way point.  Then, when Klaue is done with as a distraction, he is just ignominiously disposed of; tossed away in the trash.  Which is a shame, Serkis is far better than that and deserves better.

            This, for me, really undermined that whole first hour - since what action there was, was all for nothing.  The fight on the waterfall wasn’t necessary.  The fight in the casino didn’t matter.  The car chase through the streets of Busan was an attempt to capture the wrong villain.  It’s a lot of wasted film time.  All very well made and very diverting, but not, ultimately, germane to the plot.

            Hang on, a minute.  So, when Martin Freeman (who's taking a break from selling mobile phones), as Ross, gets shot whilst being all heroic, simply sticking a metal bead in his wound will stabilise him?  Really?  And how does that work, exactly?  Magic?  Vibranium pixies?  Midi-clorians?  Anyway, it works well enough to ensure that Everett Ross gets to stay in the film.  Bilbo (or “coloniser”, as Shuri calls him) is very much the token white man from here on in.  And I still can’t get used to Martin Freeman pretending to have an American accent.

            And so, finally, attention shifts to the main antagonist - who we’ll refer to by his African name, if you don’t mind: N’Jadaka!  The explanation of his motivation is well handled, and helps make him a fully-rounded villain - like Zemo in Civil War (2016) was, before him.  King T’Chakka handled the matter badly in 1991 and King T’Challa will pay for it now.

Hail to the king, baby.

            N’Jadaka is played with total commitment by Michael B. Jordan.  But this is not surprising, since he’s working again with Ryan Coogler, who gave him his big break in 2015’s Creed.  Yes, he’d been working since he was a teen and, yes, he’d even played Johnny Storm in 2015’s ‘troubled’ Fantastic Four ... But it was the notices and accolades he got for Creed that have set him up for life.  So, he was going to give his all for his friend, Coogler.

            Although N’Jadaka is arrogant - he struts around like a gangsta rapper - and needlessly aggressive - having killed hundreds of innocents in his drive for revenge - he is, essentially, right.  He was betrayed by T’Chakka, and Wakanda has abandoned the rest of the African people to slavery and civil war.

            And so, finally, with N’Jadaka in the throne room throwing down his challenge, the story actually begins - at the end of act two!  For me, the confrontation between the T’Challa and his new arch nemesis should have been at the end of act one - then we could have had the entire middle act of T’Challa with no powers, fighting back, while N’Jadaka plots to infiltrate the world - and actually does something about it.  That would raise the stakes world-wide - it would make T’Challa’s defeat tragic, and make his inevitable resurrection more triumphant.

            As it is, he’s out of the picture barely more than ten minutes.

            Yes, my way of doing it, would have made the film more like Dark Knight Rises (2012).  But that would  be okay.  I probably wouldn’t then mind the dénouement being two Black Panthers fighting each other, which is becoming the familiar superhero showdown - as we’ve seen variations of it in Superman III, Spider-Man 3, Iron Man 1, 2 and 3, Ant-Man and, of course, Logan.

            The final battle - between all the tribes of Wakanda, is suitably spectacular - and, especially when the armoured rhinos appeared (as if rhinos don’t have armour enough already), it reminded me of nothing so much as the Battle of Pelennor Fields from The Return of the King (2003). But, again, that’s fine, because I understand what’s going on here: Black Panther mixes together and - one might say - colonises a lot of generic properties - from Fast & Furious to Bond to Lord of the Rings, as well as visiting some of the more popular superhero tropes.

            It’s a shame, given the huge strides into diversity that the film had made, that the film-makers then felt the need to have a gang of feisty women rescued by M’Baku and his mountain gorilla warriors - doing his best Han Solo impression.  In this film, of all films, I would have liked to see the women rescue the men.

M’Baku (Winston Duke) - He's the king of the swingers.  He's not given much to do but, thankfully, he does it very well.  Though, I'm not sure having black men dress as gorillas is entirely politically correct.  It certainly wasn't in King Kong (1933).

            So, when Black Panther is different from the norm - it’s excellent.  When it’s similar to the norm, it’s understandable and well handled.  But it just misses its own point too much in the first half and then crams too much into the second half - to create any real human drama.  And that’s a shame.

            And, yes, I’m fully aware that Marvel, as they count their billion dollars of profit, must be sobbing themselves silly at my humble criticism.

Dir: Ryan Coogler

Script: Ryan Coogler and Joe Robert Cole

Cert: 12A

Dur: 134 mins

THOR RAGNAROK

            Ever since they put Jon Favreau in the director’s seat for Iron Man back in 2008, Marvel Studios have enjoyed great success, through letting established comedy directors make their action movies.  The same year they put established action director Louis Leterrier in charge of The Incredible Hulk and the results were notably less successful - both in terms of fan love and box office revenue.

            The importance of striking that balance between drama and comedy resulted in the hiring of writer-directors like Joss Whedon, James Gunn and Shane Black, who are all skilled in both.  I would, therefore, characterise the bulk of the Marvel Cinematic Universe films as Action Comedies.  The action is the priority, the comedy is a bonus.

            Thor Ragnarok is a bit different:  It’s a Comedy with Action.  The emphasis is very much on the yucks, with the fights and chases just, sort of, added in by contractual obligation.  This is a very different emphasis from the last Thor film, Dark World (2013), which was criticised for being too po-faced.  It is interesting, then, that the characters who did offer humour last time - namely Darcy, the sarky scientist and Selvig, the mad scientist - have been ejected from this film, in favour of a new gang of misfits. 

            The signal that there would be a significant change of tone with Ragnarok, came with the hiring of director Taika Waititi.  Again, he’s a director with a comedic track-record and, while his movies, so-far, may have been light on stunts and CGI, they were heavy on character and eccentricity.  There is a gentle feel-good to his work, and Thor Ragnarok, despite all the pomp and circumstance of a Marvel juggernaut, manages to retain that.

            His comedy is (deliberately) a little bit hesitant and shambolic.  Natural, you might say.  He doesn’t seem to want either the performances or the delivery of the lines to be too polished.  He likes his actors to improvise and, indeed, does much the same in his own performances.  This being so, casting Jeff Goldblum as the baddie was a masterstroke.  Goldblum’s eccentric delivery is never less than delightful, his characters never less than endearing.  Yes, that’s a problem when he’s playing the baddie ... Because he doesn’t really believe he’s evil any more than we do ... But he’s just so much fun to watch, no-one minds.

Vintage Goldblum.  Did I mention I interviewed him once?  When Jurassic Park was out.  He offered the lightest, handshake ever, it was like his hand passed through mine.  There were three of us interviewing him, for different radio stations; he asked us our names and, when he was answering our questions, used our names, which made us sound more important and him sound more friendly.  Lovely bloke.

            Otherwise, there are a few pointless cameos which are mostly played for laughs (not just the inevitable Stan Lee one), Anthony Hopkins gets to join in the fun by outrageously ripping the piss out of himself, and Chris Hemsworth reminds us of the physical comedy skills he displayed in the first film.  Waititi also gives a mo-cap and vocal performance as a talking pile of rocks called Korg, who is initially hilarious but, unfortunately, I found quite wearing quite quickly.

            Did I mention Tom Hiddleston?

            Okay I won’t.

            Oh, alright, then.  He’s back as Loki, of course.  Still wearing his silly long wig, still wearing the hat with antlers whenever he gets the chance; still very aware of how silly it all is.  He’s also wearing a bit too much pancake makeup now, for some reason.  As usual, he’s sort of a baddie, but not really.  At least Thor is wise to him now, which makes for lovely interplay between the two actors - who have both had plenty of chances to settle into these characters by now.

Planet Hulk (2006-7) was a comic which I never found especially convincing, (the World War Hulk story which preceded it was far better, in my estimation) but it has adapted very well to the screen. 

            As you’ll know from the first trailer, this half of the film features The Hulk (who crash-landed on this alien world after flying off in the Quinjet at the end of the last Avengers movie, in 2015) and a short-haired Thor.  They are matched as gladiators for the entertainment of Goldblum and his planet of Scavengers.  In between bouts, Hulk and Thor find themselves rooming together, as superherodom’s funniest odd couple.  These scenes are a joy, providing some great opportunities for Hemsworth and Ruffalo to stretch their comic muscles.

     Speaking of stretching, poor Chris Hemsworth seems to have had an allergic reaction to all that Australian food, as his arms are massively swollen.  Poor lamb.

            Unfortunately, the second story - the one from which the film actually takes its title - is less engaging and less ... Unique.  Cate Blanchett is not nearly as well served as Goldblum.  She plays the film’s other baddie, the Goddess of Death, Hela, who invades Asgard while Thor is off on his jollies.  Obviously, with a name like ‘Goddess of Death’, she’s not going to get many gags.  But, it turns out, she’s just your boiler-plate megalomaniac, who simply wants the world to bow down before her.

            Then, instead of leading her army to conquer the nine realms, Hela spends her time fretting about why the Asgardians aren’t going along with her plans.  She worries that no-one remembers her and, therefore, she has no authority.  Issues over middle-management and discipline are not, sadly, the stuff legends are made on.

Hela, struggling with the powerpoint projector at another Asgardian staff meeting.

            I fear that this half of the film has suffered from some late tampering.  In the trailer, the moment where she grabs Thor’s hammer takes place in a New York alleyway.  In the finished film, it has been moved to a bleak and indifferently-realised grassy cliff-top, where Odin gets to do some pointless pontificating.  Not sure why he couldn’t do that in New York.  Anyway, this suggests that Hela’s story has undergone some last-minute surgery.  Whether this has made the story better or worse is something which, I suspect, we’ll never know.

            What’s certain, is that the Ragnarok story hangs together less convincingly than Planet Hulk, and not just because of the lack of Thor.  We never really believe that Asgard is in danger, nor that the fate of the nine realms is really at stake.  This is, all too often, the problem with Marvel movies ... Like Bond films before them ... their villains just aren’t scary enough.

            Ragnarok does afford Idris Elba’s Heimdall the chance to do some action man stuff, saving the Asgardian ‘civilians’ and leading them - Moses like - into the wilderness which, apparently, surrounds Asgard.  But there remains the sense (held over from the previous two films) that he is a character they could have done much more with, yet have let him slip through their fingers.

            Similarly, Karl Urban is an actor who seems, for some peculiar reason, to have not (yet) fulfilled his potential.  He hasn’t found his niche.  There’s no denying Urban’s commitment to this film, as he shaved his head and bulked-up for the role, even though he wears armour throughout, so you can’t really tell.

An almost unrecogniseable Karl Urban is just one of a host of Aussie and Kiwi actors director Waititi surrounded himself with.  Here, he meets all the gods, aliens, celestials and magic powers with some good old-fashioned hot lead.

            Those intense eyes of his shine out in every role he takes (with the exception of 2012’s Dredd, naturally), and he’s able to give us chilling villainy (in The Bourne Supremacy in 2004), lovable comedy (as Bones in the Star Trek films) and be a reliable leading man (in the criminally undervalued Dredd), so quite why he finds himself still playing (albeit very interesting) supporting roles, is a mystery to me.  Maybe he likes it that way. 

            Anyway - here he gives a great turn as Skurge, long-term Thor antagonist from the comics.  He witnesses the Warriors Three being despatched off-handedly by Hela, so decides to bend the knee; but his heart isn’t really in this whole lackey-for-hire business.  Like Heimdall, he’s a diverting character who deserves more than he gets.

            Back on Planet Hulk, Tessa Thompson turns up as another Thor comic favourite: Valkyrie.  I confess, when she first turned up, her sulky demeanour and bad-assery made me think she was played by Michelle Rodriguez.  That’s the kind of sass she brings to Valkyrie - who forms an important bridge between the two stories.  The flashback to the last time the Valkyries met Hela is a startling sequence and proves that Waititi can do full-on action, with no sense of irony.  It’s a shame he didn’t do a little bit more of that, at key moments.

The second best ride of the Valkyries ever put on screen.

            They have come up with an audacious and well-deserved way of tying up all the loose-ends of this story and, indeed, this three-film story-arc.  Yet, the crescendo of both stories - the Hammer of the Gods moment, if you will - should have been hairs-on-the-back-of-the-neck filmmaking but, because of the tonal shifts throughout, and because Blanchett really hasn’t been given material the equal of her skills; this dénouement, whilst entertaining, lacks the tension it should have. 

            I feel that cutting back and forth between two seemingly unconnected stories cuts into the enjoyment of both.  Planet Hulk isn’t as exciting as it could be, Ragnarok isn’t as serious as it could be.  Also, the light-hearted tone of the one, defuses the end-of-the-world threat of the other.

            Thor Ragnarok is - in parts - a delight.  Mark Mothersbaugh’s plinky-plonky retro music, for example, is suitably eccentric and energetic.  But, as a whole, is not a great film.  It’s not even a great Marvel film.  It’s tone is very inconsistent and its script is very cluttered.  However, the whole messy confection is mixed together in the mighty Marvel manner, which hasn’t failed us yet.

Thor and Hulk as roomies.  So, whose turn is it to clean the toilet?

Dir: Taika Waititi

Script: Eric Pearson, Craig Kyle & Christopher Yost

Dur: 130 mins

Cert: 12A

SPIDER-MAN: HOMECOMING

Well, it was a struggle, but I managed to find a poster for this film, that didn't look like it was put together by the Graphic Designer's 12 year old kid.

            Spider-Man: Homecoming is so called, not because of the Homecoming Dance that features briefly in it; nor is it so-called because the story features a major “there’s no place like home” revelation.  It is called Homecoming as a knowing meta-narrative nod to the audience, that the friendly neighbourhood Spider-Man has returned to the Marvel fold after decades in the wilderness.

            Spider-Man is their Mickey Mouse, he’s their Superman; he’s the flag-bearer for their entire business and, anachronistically, because of difficult financial decisions made decades ago; they haven’t been able to use him.  But now they can.  This was the chance for Kevin Feige to roll up his sleeves and say “Right, this is how you’re supposed to do a Spidey movie!”

            What’s at stake, then, is whether Marvel can weave its magic over its own characters, when they have been damaged whilst on loan.  Fox keeps managing to pull the X-Men’s asses out of the fire.  For every desperately poor Wolverine (2009), there’s a surprisingly rich First Class (2011), for every Apocalypse (2016), there’s a Logan (2017).  And then, of course, there’s Deadpool!  But The Fantastic Four, bless them, they have enjoyed no such success; each of Fox’s FF films has dug a deeper hole in the affections of the audience than the one before it.  But, despite that, it has become abundantly clear that Fox will never return them to the fold.  So, Marvel is moving on without them.  Ramping up The Inhumans as replacements for the X-Men; going cosmic without the need for the Negative Zone and Galactus.

            But Spider-Man is different.  Apparently, so the story goes, Raimi wanted to continue his old-school approach to Spidey by having his third film feature The Vulture.  Along with Doc Ock and Green Goblin, he was one of comic-book Spidey’s longest serving adversaries (first appearing in issue 2), and one that the fans were desperate to see brought to the screen.  However, this decision was overruled and, instead, Sony decided to go with Venom - a character from a very different period in Spidey’s history, with a very different fan-base.  Well, we all know how Spider-Man 3 (2007) worked out.  But that was nothing to the delights which lay in store when the franchise went ‘Amazing’.  I gave a fair and balanced viewing of that debacle, here.

            So, Sony realised that its (galactically stupid) decisions were losing it profit.  Years of back-room shenanigans ensued and, finally, they struck a deal with Marvel to return the character, at least in part, to the MCU (that’s Marvel Cinematic Universe, in case you haven’t been keeping up with your Three Letter Acronyms).  This complicated process has led to no fewer than twelve credited producers and six credited writers.

            So, what we have here is what’s now referred to as a soft re-boot.  We don’t get Uncle Ben again, we don’t get the spider bite (although it is mentioned), we don’t get the Spider Sense, or J. Jonah Jameson; but we do get Peter back at school, navigating the corridor politics of bullies and girls and tests.  We also get The Vulture.  Point made, Kevin; point made!

The 'If This Be My Destiny' story (it's not actually called The Final Chapter) is one of the most famous episodes from the early Lee/Ditko comics, and is now brought to the screen, as are many other careful references to the source material.

            The film heaves with smart acknowledgements to the original 60s comics; for those who are familiar enough to spot them.  It still irks, mind you, that the creators behind a lot of these moments, aren’t credited among those six writers.  Lee and Ditko are, but the others, John Romita, Don Heck, Brian Michael Bendis and the rest, they have to wait for a ‘based on characters created by’ acknowledgement at the very end of the credits.  ... After Robert Downey Jr’s Hair Consultant.  But then, I suppose they can’t all have cameos.

            Like the original Lee/Ditko comics, this is as much a High School coming-of-age story as it is a superhero adventure.  Yes, Tom Holland is 21 playing 15, but he actually gets away with it.  Unlike Andrew Garfield’s turn in ‘Amazing’, I can actually buy Holland as a kid.  Not too nerdy (not as socially inept as Tobey Maguire’s version), but not obviously too fit, too tall and too cool for school (as Garfield was).

            Holland’s Spider-Man is clumsy and confused and over-excited and sometimes scared.  He is, in other words, a teenager!  That works for the demographics of the Marvel movie audience, but it was also key to the character from day one.  As a comic-reading friend of mine once noted ruefully, back in the 90s: I remember a time when Peter Parker was older than me.  But the key to him is that he’s a kid, a kid given extraordinary powers that shift his entire world.  And he isn’t a billionaire or a god or a world-renowned scientist, he’s a kid.  How does a kid deal with the powers of a superhero?  That has always been the dilemma at the heart of the Spider-Man story, that’s the story that this generation of kids deserve to experience. 

            These early scenes fairly echo with the footsteps of John Hughes.  I’m grateful they resisted the temptation to put Don’t You Forget About Me on the soundtrack during the detention scene, and it is forgivable that they give in, briefly, to a Ferris Bueller gag.  But it isn’t all levity.  There is one moment in the movie, above all others, when Peter is alone and in peril and he panics.  He screams for help and, right there, we are forced to confront the fact that, however cocky and sophisticated and knowing and cynical our kids are ... They’re still just kids.

High-School Avengers Assemble:  Iron Man (top), Scarlett Witch (left), Bruce Banner (middle), Black Widow (seated), Captain America (right)

           This also informs Peter’s desperation to please Tony Stark.  He’s subconsciously looking for a father figure.  Shame he picked a globe-trotting billionaire narcissist egomaniac who has serious daddy issues of his own.

            For me, the characters and the small moments are much more impressive than the big set-pieces.  The ferry scene, which features so predominantly in the trailer, feels like a mash-up of the bridge scene in Spider-Man 1 (2002), the train scene in Spider-Man 2 (2004) and, inevitably, the ferry scene in The Dark Knight (2008).  There’s a similar big moment in Washington that also, for me, felt cluttered and confused and overly-familiar. 

            A part of this clutter must be put down to Spidey talking constantly to the AI of his suit.  Essentially, Stark has engineered the Spider Suit as a more streamlined version of his own Iron Man suit, complete with chatty computer interface.  This gives Spidey lots of fun toys to play with, some of which are unnecessary, some of which are just plain dumb; but the main thing is, it gives him someone to talk to.  In the comics, Spidey never shuts up.  He’s trading witty one-liners with whoever he’s fighting (something we’ve already seen in his Civil War fight with Falcon) but also, when he’s alone, he thinks things through or talks to himself.  That’s difficult to do well in a film.  Having an on-board AI gives him someone to talk to which, therefore, gives him a platform to externalise all that teenage angst.

Pfft.  And Falcon thinks his wings are all that.

            At the other end of sci-fi tech scale, we have Michael Keaton’s Toomes.  He starts the film in a flashback, working as a contractor clearing up the alien tech and devastation after the New York fight from the Avengers movie.  He’s a working stiff who gets stiffed by the government, in the form of the all-new Department of Damage Control (how’s that for an oxymoron).  This pushes his business over the edge financially.  So, what’s he going to do?  Well, he has a pile of unrecycled Chitauri tech and an enthusiastic tinkerer on staff; so time to make like Tony Stark and build some weapons.

            His weapons manufacture is all very low tech, though, his  gadgets seem to be being assembled in, essentially, a garage.  He has limited aspirations for his toys; but that’s deliberate, because he wants to stay under the radar.  As he says - when the film proper starts - he’s been doing what he’s doing for eight years, without ever attracting the attention of the FBI or SHIELD or The Avengers.  He’s strictly small-fry.  But, if you push the little guy the wrong way, he can develop big ideas.  This is what took the honest business man and turned him into the gun-runner.  As Spider-Man repeatedly foils his plans, the gun-runner decides to step up a gear ... After repeatedly refusing the call to get properly nefarious, he finally gives in and does what any business man would do ... He steals from the opposition.

Psst ... A little bird told me you'll be playing a different kind of birdman ...

            The key to Toomes - and, no doubt, what attracted a heavy-hitter like Keaton - is that he speaks a lot of sense.  He has been treated badly by a high-handed military-industrial complex.  Tony Stark was a gun-runner before he found he could make more money elsewhere.  The American Dream was built on the belief that it is acceptable to do anything to support your family.  Toomes isn’t a grand-standing psychopath who wants to take over the world, he just wants to put his kids through college.

            There is an electrifying scene where Keaton locks eyes with Peter and calmly explains what he’ll do to stay in business.  No shouting, no histrionics, just one guy smiling while he threatens another.  That’s why you hire someone as complex as Michael Keaton, to get that intensity from a close-up shot. 

            Back in the ’80s, when he was best known for his comedies, there was always a dark edge to Keaton.  Ron Howard saw it first, when he cast him in Night Shift (1982), Tim Burton saw it when he made him Beetlejuice (1988), and John Schlesinger saw it when he cast him as the malignancy at the heart of Pacific Heights (1990).  There was always a recklessness in Keaton’s eyes which made him potentially dangerous.  Guess what:  It’s still there.  

            Of course, Toomes is a villain so, however reasonable his argument, however justifiable his cause, the fact that he is prepared to ignore morality and kill people for it, somewhat undermines his point.

            And Spidey is a hero so, no-matter that no-one believes in him, no-matter that he’s alone and out-classed and out-gunned; he’s still going to try and protect the little guy.  Cos that’s what Spidey always was, back in the early 70s, when four-year-old me learned to read on black-and-white reprints of John Romita and Ross Andru era Spidey .... He was always the little guy, always misunderstood, always struggling to balance the demands of real-life, relationships, work and super-heroing.

This isn't Tony Stark's happy face. Maybe he's just realised how few scenes he's in.

            The early scenes of Spidey keeping himself busy whilst waiting for ‘the call’ from The Avengers, are very reminiscent of Kick-Ass (2010) but then, they would be; that was Mark Millar’s take on an updated Spider-Man ... This is Marvel’s take on the same thing; it’s no surprise there are similarities.

            The film relies too heavily on the Toomes’ henchmen being as ham-fisted as Spidey, initially, is.  Otherwise, he’d’ve been killed pretty much at the start, and then where’s your movie?  But, because Holland is so likeable, and so endearingly clumsy, you go along with the film when it wanders into cliché or the odd page of lazy writing. 

            However, there’s one particular plot-twist that is just way too convenient, and stretches the bounds of credibility too far.  Nothing like the catalogue of contrivances in the last two Spidey films, though, so don’t worry.  It’s just that this film goes so far in making Peter human and fallible, and the world he inhabits, so credible, and the friends he spends time with, so nuanced and detailed and likeable ... That they nearly throw it all away with one plot contrivance too many.

            But - thanks to some classy writing and some brilliant acting from Michael Keaton - they bring it back from the edge in the nick of time.

It's just one of those boy-meets-suit, boy-loses-suit, boy-gets-suit-back-again kinda films

            So, this film isn’t spectacular.  It certainly isn’t amazing.  It is, however, friendly; and it’s great fun to finally see Spidey in Marvel’s neighbourhood.

Written by: Jonathan Goldstein, John Francis Daley, Jon Watts, Christopher Ford, Chris McKenna, Erik Sommers & Uncle Tom Cobbly
Directed by: Jon Watts
Cert: 12A
Dur: 133 mins