Super Frat

Look for Your Fratoscope on Monday this week, I’m pressed for time and just got back from the movies.

I gotta tell you, Spiderman: Homecoming was a lot of fun.  Maybe it was because I really wanted to like it, maybe it’s because I was kinda feeling bummed out recently, but the movie really lifted my spirits.  It hit all the right comic book notes, paying homage to the comics and the Marvel movies without making me wish I had waited for Netflix.

In this incarnation, Spiderman is 15, still in high school.  He’s a guy from Queens going to a science-y high school.  This paid homage to the Peter Parker scientist angle from the comic.  Marvel’s relentless drive for diversity was integrated well by the screenwriters, who didn’t let ethnicity define the characters.  The stand out, however, is Michael Keaton.

Keaton’s take on the Vulture is multi-layered, creating a guy that could easily come back.  His motivations were not forced and his criminal moves all made sense.  Tom Holland’s Peter Parker is nerdy without being a stereotype, although Flash Thompson kinda gets shorted.  Then again, Flash wasn’t exactly the greatest character from the comic book anyway.  Marvel character cameos abound, but my favorite cameo is from actor, Donald Glover.  He has one of the funniest throwaway lines in the movie during a gun buy gone bad.

Robert Downey Jr., of course, kills it as a supporting player.  He’s integral to the plot without overwhelming it too much.  It comes just a hair breath’s away from “The Spiderman/Iron Mean Team Up Movie”.  But still, as his role as Peter’s mentor, it makes sense in the confines of the movie continuity.

So thank you Sony and screenwriters Jonathan Goldstein, John Francis Daley, Jon Watts (the director too), Christopher Ford, Chris McKenna and Erik Sommers.  Nice work guys.

I give Spiderman: Homecoming 9.5 keggers.