Spider-Man: Homecoming

SPIDER-MAN: HOMECOMING (Jon Watts, 2017)

Although Peter Parker (Tom Holland) tries to balance life as a high school student and a superhero in SPIDER-MAN: HOMECOMING, naturally he’s drawn more to fighting crime and being a beloved part of the community. To his frustration, Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) cautions him about getting too involved in such extracurricular activities, although he does provide him with an improved suit. After a night patrolling the neighborhood, Peter’s best friend Ned (Jacob Batalon) learns that he is Spider-Man, a fact that delights him to no end.

Peter stumbles upon the shady dealings of Adrian Toomes (Michael Keaton), a former salvager now using and dealing alien technology to enrich himself and his associates. While Tony doesn’t want Peter to pursue the matter, he can’t help but investigate, which puts him and and his classmates at risk.

SPIDER-MAN: HOMECOMING brings more of the traditional comic book sensibility back to the superhero universe. Director Jon Watts, one of six credited screenwriters, constructs the film like a teen movie with some regular people possessing extraordinary powers than something rooted in the realm of fantasy. Doing so grounds SPIDER-MAN: HOMECOMING and gives it a touch of wonder at the incredible feats the heroes and villains perform. Watts also suffuses this SPIDER-MAN with a breezier tone that gooses the humor, particularly in the scenes with Peter’s high school peers, and makes the protagonist and his struggles more down to earth.

Holland exudes a lot of charm in his first time playing the ordinary teenager turned webslinger. He imparts Peter with infectious enthusiasm, which he tempers with the insecurity and desire to push limits that are a hallmark of adolescence. He is confident scrambling up the Washington Monument but less sure of himself when it comes to asking his academic decathlon teammate Liz (Laura Harrier) to the dance. Holland lends a dancer’s grace to the physicality with which he plays Peter and Spider-Man, which reinforces the joy that buzzes through the film.

SPIDER-MAN: HOMECOMING surrounds Peter with a splendid supporting cast. Batalon is funny and endearing as the pal who is excited for Peter and at the prospect that he might be able to be his assistant, the proverbial guy in the room in action movies. As wisecracking classmate Michelle, Zendaya often gets some of the biggest laughs from the withering way she expresses herself. Harrier adds depth to the potentially thankless love interest role as she evokes the complexities in the romance Liz and Peter hesitantly begin.

Keaton fleshes out the antagonist so that his perspective is understandable even if it isn’t justifiable. Adrian’s bruised sense of fairness and need to provide for his family guides him down a darker path that gradually eases him down the moral slippery slope. Keaton lets the character cook in his righteous outrage, like a frog not realizing it’s being boiled as the temperature in the pot slowly increases. For Adrian the outcome is similar as his corruption he gives in to slowly grows.

It doesn’t seem like there are a zillion different things happening in SPIDER-MAN: HOMECOMING or that it absolutely has to fit within a larger framework of the Marvel films. The less convoluted story allows the film to feel fleeter and dig into the character elements. After a string of unsatisfactory SPIDER-MAN movies, it’s a pleasure to encounter one notable for its zippy sense of fun, humor, and thrills.

Grade: B+

Cop Car

COP CAR (Jon Watts, 2015)

Two runaway boys stumble upon an unattended sheriff’s cruiser in the Colorado countryside and decide to take it for a joy ride in COP CAR. Travis (James Freedson-Jackson) and Harrison (Hays Wellford) appear to be ten years old at most. While that’s old enough to know better to make the choices they do, the gravity of their actions is lost on them. They have fun getting their first taste of driving a vehicle without a video game controller and attempting to fire the guns they find in the backseat.

The patrol car belongs to Sheriff Kretzer (Kevin Bacon), and as is to be expected, he’s not at all happy to find it missing when he returns. The boys would be in a world of trouble no matter what police officer’s car they could have taken, but in this case they swiped one belonging to a lawman who was in the midst of disposing evidence that unmistakably proves his corruption. Something incriminating remains in the trunk, which makes the sheriff’s urgency to retrieve it all the greater.

The boys in COP CAR display the obliviousness of youth, especially to the real danger they put themselves in. It’s no judgment of their intelligence that they say and do the kind of stupid things that might occur to unthinking kids but a reflection of their impulsiveness and inexperience. Director and co-writer Jon Watts mines their actions humor and terror. Of course they assume they can drive the car because they’ve played MarioKart because it’s the kind of logic a preteen might employ. It’s horrifying when they play with guns or speed down a lonely country road because they aren’t aware of how reckless they’re being.

To a degree every character of consequence is a bumbler in a manner similar to those in Coen brothers films. While COP CAR can be funny as things unravel and stakes heighten, the tension that develops is its primary asset. Watts demonstrates his ability to construct scenes loaded with apprehension as events pile up and in miniature, as when the sheriff tries to use a shoelace to break into a locked car. The film’s narrative leanness is only a shortcoming in that it doesn’t quite have enough material for even a pared down running time.

COP CAR delivers no backstory because it isn’t necessary. The film lives moment to moment, and the suspense intensifies as it builds to the convergence of its relative innocents with the antagonists. COP CAR turns somewhat cruel in the final act, which is probably a more accurate reflection of how an incident like this might be resolved, but it leaves a bitter taste that comes across as contrary to the scenario’s tone for the majority of the film.

Grade: B-