After many years of waiting, we are finally getting a solo Spider-Man film. Tom Holland reprises his role as Peter Parker/Spider-Man and, from "Captain America: Civil War," Robert Downey Jr. takes a supporting role as Tony Stark. Most notably, Michael Keaton joins the Marvel family as The Vulture and he has an all new suit completely tricked out with tech.
For comic fans, there are a few treats here: Liz Allen, one of Parker's first love interests, is finally being included in a film version of Spider-Man along with a Gwen Stacy easter egg in plain sight.
Viewers get a character named Leo who didn't have a pronounced role in the comics but essentially takes the role of Ganke from the Miles Morales Spider-Man issues. Ganke is the clear comic relief character in this movie. We also get a glimpse at Shocker through two different characters: one is Caucasian and the other is African-American. As of right now, it is unclear who will actually don the Shocker costume and gain his power set. It is clear though that Shocker will take a backseat to Vulture, at least for this movie, seeing as how he is marketed as a secondary villain.
I theorize there will be an end-credits stinger or another minor appearance in the costume where Vulture isn't involved. Then again, we could also have a battle with Spider-Man and Iron Man fighting Shocker and Vulture. It seems to me that if Tony Stark is not out of commission with both of those villains appearing at once it's very likely he and Spider-Man will team up. This is a Spider-Man solo movie though so a full team up is questionable at best even though there is one shot in the trailer that does tease such a team up.
My biggest question for this movie is: will it solve the infamous Marvel villain problem, which is where Marvel villains end up with the short end of the stick in regards to relatability and character development? I hope so, though this trailer doesn't showcase anything to the contrary despite how excited I am for Michael Keaton's involvement as Vulture. So far, all the acting talent involved seem to be playing their roles and playing them well. This is nice to see considering some of the cheesiness we've had in the past with Sam Raimi's "Spiderman" films, for instance (I still love "Spider-Man 2" regardless).
With Marvel Studios' creative involvement, I think fans can rest easy that the acting talent will be sorted out and sorted out well. As for the scenes in the trailer, it feels as though they're holding much back with a couple stronger scenes here and there. We don't get a real sense of any inventive shot work or a defined chosen aesthetic by this particular director but I'm sure we will see more of that in the actual film/trailers leading up to release.
So far "Spider-Man: Homecoming" is easy to get excited about, though I don't want to get too ahead of myself. My impressions are positive overall but I do want to see something different for Spider-Man, something that pulls me into the theater. The fanboy in me will go see this movie regardless, but the critic wants to see a huge departure or innovation from what we've seen out of Spider-Man in the past and I'm not quite sure we're getting that yet.
All things considered, these are a solid couple of trailers both in the international and American markets. I can't wait to see more and I can't wait for this movie to prove every one of my nagging doubts wrong.
"Spider-Man: Homecoming" arrives on July 7, 2017.