Film Summary Bundle IV (Spider-Man homecoming, Spiderman far from home, Civil war)

 


I'm house-sitting for the family and I have nothing to do. 

They have a fairly nice television and a Netflix account. 
So I might as well watch some of these Marvel movies that keep popping up every year. 
I decided to go with the Spider-Man ones

The word that comes to mind while watching either of them is ''syndicated''. 

As in this film feels like it's a TV show that's part of a much bigger franchise with movies you need to see in order to get what's going on. 
It's not so bad with the first Spider-Man film. Peter Parker has connections to Tony Stark and he already has a well-made Spider-Man suit. 
I was able to grasp what was going on without really understanding the greater world around it. 

I didn't see Civil War so I had no idea that Spiderman was already involved with the Avengers and all the things they're doing and therefore already owned a suit. 
And completely skipped over his origin story. Which I'm happy about we don't need to see that again we already had that was Sam Raimi. 

But when the second movie comes around and everything gets super confusing. 
Tony Stark is apparently dead, vast amounts of people disappeared from existence and then came around again. 

And a great deal of the story is peppered with references two other movies I've never seen. It was like watching that Star Wars Revenge of the Seth prequel movie. There's a whole whack of material I haven't seen and it's taking away from the overall experience of the movie I'm actually seeing. Not that the second Spider-Man movie was anything all that great. You have a boring generic story with a fake superhero called Mysterio who goes through this ridiculous elaborate plan to take sunglasses from Peter Parker of which I'm not even sure how he knew Peter had in the first place. 
Coupled with a romance subplot between Peter and MJ that feels very flat. 
Like the two characters shouldn't even be a item flat. 
They just don't seem all that well connected or invested for that matter. 
You have a secondary romance with Peter's friend and this random girl that's just there for comedic effect and I found it far more interesting than the actual love story. Mainly cuz it was a subversive Oddball Romance. 
But overall it's just not that grand a film especially given that the first Spider-Man did a fairly decent job. 
Spider-Man has a good introduction he has good chemistry with all the people around him, all the secondary characters were rounded enough and his Romance with his original Crush felt a little bit more deserved. Even if she is completely thrown to the wayside and forgotten about him future films. 

But really the overall experience with this Spider-Man and 'Far from home' is lackluster at best. 
They're serviceable and enjoyable movies but in the grand scheme I think they'll be forgotten by the General Public. 
Especially given how much they depend on other movies to make any sense of their stories. 

That said they'll probably remain more visible in the public Consciousness than those last Spider-Man movies that I didn't even bother to watch. As far as I'm concerned these movies came out of the proper time after the Sam Raimi films you have to give a bit of distance between you and the former franchise before trying to reboot again. And it seems like a good time even if there's also that animated Spider-Man movie that I personally thinks better than this one. But still this is not a bad Spider-Man interpretation and the guy that's playing Spider-Man is pretty darn good and makes for a fairly believable teenage character in fact all of the teenage characters are to some extent believable here Even Peters run-of-the-mill pointless bully character who becomes more of a joke it's time for dresses.

Captain America Civil War. 

Let's take a popular yet not well-received comic series gut the majority of the story, keep the most vital points and turn it into a Marvel Cinematic Universe film. Where the Civil War is more of a backdrop to the mystery of the Winter Soldier character and the Mysterious program there involved. 
Honestly it was a far better use of the story and events than the original comic ever was, even though the whole thing feels extremely uncharacteristic. Like Captain America and Ironman fighting at the end of the movie. 
It just comes out of nowhere, Tony Stark is super angry now and wants to kill this guy because he killed his parents despite everything he already knows about him and the personal character growth of both these characters over multiple films. 
But hey we need a generic action scene at the end of our movie so here we are. 
Also Black-panther is here probably as an introduction to his own film. 
I thought he'd have a bit more of a presence in this movie, but no. He's there to chase the Winter Soldier for a couple of minutes and then he just disappears into the Shadows.

And that's all I really remember about Civil War. Despite being a serviceable action comic-book-movie I just can't remember anything else about it. That makes three Captain America movies that were all indifferent in my brain.
It's possible that like the second 'Spider-Man Far from Home' movie there's 20 different references I'm not getting because of previous Marvel flicks, but none of it's stuck have to me. Either it's integrated better into the story or it's so minor in importance that I couldn't pick up on it.

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