Spider-Man: Homecoming, the Kevin Feige–rabbai’d reboot of the always-being-rebooted, beloved-by-the-teen-at-heart superhero property, is coming to theaters July 7, and Tuesday morning we got another trailer. Let’s sling some web content.
This is the most significant look we’ve gotten so far at Michael Keaton’s villain, the Vulture. The math here seems to be Steve Bannon + Bane (nice jacket, Birdman).
“The rich and the powerful, like Stark, they don’t care about us,” the Vulture (real name: Adrian Toomes) tells a dazed and confused Peter Parker. Of the role, Keaton said, “He’s a really interesting — and more interesting than I thought — villain because there’s parts of him that you go, ‘You know what? I might see his point.’ Really, really. It makes it interesting to play.” Interesting. Toomes runs a salvage yard, makes mechanical wings, and apparently hates ferries. He also has beef with Iron Man, which sucks for him because Iron Man is the star of this Spider-Man movie.
Yes, it’s a Spider-Man movie, and yes, Tom Holland seems like he actually has the goods, but you cannot put Robert Downey Jr. in this thing and ask him to burn any less brightly than the sun. Not going to happen. This is what we call …
… the Robert Downey Jr. Problem.
The Robert Downey Jr. Problem is that when you use Robert Downey Jr. to fortify your movie, you wind up making a Robert Downey Jr. movie. This is good news for people who like Robert Downey Jr. movies, but bad news for people who want Tom Holland to be a movie star. Spider-Man: Homecoming will fund our national infrastructure project, but it will be a Stark Industries endeavor, make no mistake.
Otherwise, this looks fun, with the obvious caveats that it’s always fine to make a movie where national monuments don’t get destroyed, and I am definitely ready for Marvel movies to be shot somewhere besides an industrial park outside of Atlanta. You’re Marvel. Go to New York. Have a hot dog, for Pete’s sake.
