Spider-Man Homecoming First Trailers

The first full trailer was released today for Spider-Man Homecoming. And thanks to the fine folks at io9, we’ve been tipped off to the first International trailer, which we agree is a lot more exciting than the USA trailer.

Here’s the USA trailer, it’s more high school and less action, but still has some interesting footage.

This is the sixth Spider-Man movie we’re seeing in the last 15 years. Here are a few things we noticed.

Spider-Man Homecoming

It looks like there will be a large-scale action scene involving the Staten Island Ferry. It’s too early to judge, but I hope the rest of this scene isn’t so reminiscent of the train scene in Spider-Man 2.

Spider-Man Homecoming

We get a pretty good look at to eye “lenses” on Spider-Man’s costume. This is the first attempt to allow Spidey’s eyes to be more expressive, like they have been for years in comics and animation. We’ll give the writers credit for coming up with a plausible backstory for why and how these might change size, we’re assuming that it’s to help Peter focus, to manage the overload of sensory input that his Spider-sense pulls in, as he mentions to Tony Stark in Captain America: Civil War.

 

Spider-Man Homecoming

There’s a brief shot of Peter crawling on a ceiling, and though it’s not a high-action shot, it’s pretty convincing. We’re not sure if this somehow was really shot with Tom Holland hanging upside down, but it really looks like he is. His hair seems to be hanging down, and it even feels like there’s gravity on his face. Somehow that shot feels really convincing, yet there’s another action sequence of Spider-Man scrambling up a wall, and for us that one doesn’t work quite as well. We’re not sure why. It doesn’t look terrible, it just doesn’t quite feel like he’s pulling himself up the wall, handhold by foothold, etc.

Spider-Man Homecoming

For what it’s worth, Tom Holland seems to pull off the “average American high school kid” thing pretty well.

Spider-Man Homecoming

In this trailer we get a few good looks at the Vulture costume. It looks pretty massive, with a giant wingspan. There are certainly elements here that are reminiscent of the Green Goblin and his glider from the first Tobey Maguire Spider-Man, and that’s not necessarily bad. It looks like when Michael Keaton’s character is in full Vulture-mode, we can’t see his face at all. We’re mostly fans of the first Spider-Man film, but one thing that was something of a shame was that a few of Willem Dafoe’s speeches happened while his face was completely obscured by his inanimate mask. Well, mostly, you could see his eyes some of the time. Dafoe is a formidable actor, and there’s at least one scene when Osborn and the Goblin are having a discussion through a mirror, and Dafoe fantastically distorts his face into one of the most maniacal, devilish grins caught on film. On the other hand, when he’s got Peter half-conscious on a rooftop, and gives a monologue with the mask on, it’s almost downright silly. We can expect a great performance from Keaton, to be sure, we just hope the filmmakers can work around the costume and, in particular, the mask.

Spider-Man Homecoming

Finally, so far, I’m not crazy about the title treatment. It feels very, “kid Spider-Man”. The bright yellow letters, the “I wrote this with a marker” title treatment, and the might-as-well-be-an-emoji Spider-signal “O” feels like it’s trying a little too hard, in my humble opinion. I’ll admit, though, that there have been other animated properties in the past that I initially felt this way about, including the animated Young Justice series, and also the recent Spectacular Spider-Man series, which I didn’t like at first, but once I gave it a chance it has ended up being one of my favorite animated incarnations of Pete and Spider-Man and their story and surrounding characters.

Spider-Man Homecoming

Spider-Man: Homecoming will release on July 7, 2017, and hopefully there will be much more to see between now and then!


Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.