Enough is enough. It comes a day when you simply feel more discomfort than pleasure, you get more annoyed than entertained. What is wrong with simplicity? It feels that they are missing the point: its beauty and excitement came from the personal struggle and overcoming great difficulties. It was the well chosen words, the effort that went behind each scene, the built-up of tension, the unsure and gentle steps towards the unknown world of Love...
I am talking about Spider-man and how it is now, sadly, just a milking cow... Some may say that I grew up and became bitter, but there is no smoke without a fire: maybe the movies did become dumber and less credible with each passing decade...
For me, the best phrase is still this one: "with great power comes great responsibility"... In the rush to squeeze every last cent out of people's pockets Marvel have diluted the tone, the anguish the spectators felt when Spider-man found out his uncle died; the heartbreaking, soul-tearing sensation of loneliness, vulnerability and purposelessness when his aunt's life flickered for the last time and her body became limp and cold (as the comic books presented)...
Aunt May is no longer that white-haired, wizened, gentle and supportive figure, the healing fountain in Peter Parker's life... in The Amazing Spider-man she is simply in the 50s range, frustrated, unaccomplished, bitter, demanding, inpatient and hysterical woman... Like so many parents are with their kids these days. Can children then be blamed for not feeling the connection with this part of the film? With the new Homecoming series you actually see more curves than content... (less love and respect, more cleavage and booty!)
This is why Spider-man youtube searches still show most often parts of the 2002-2004 series. Indeed, my favorite continues to be the films with Tobey Maguire: the believable shy geek, friendless and always poor, but determined and permanently struggling against the odds: pretty much the life of all of us, those who enjoy comic books even in our thirties and beyond, who truly appreciate table games and who place creativity, imagination and dreams above everything, including ourselves. I cried myself along with Spider-man on the screen and felt the draining pain at loosing uncle Ben, while I found Andy Garfield's interpretation was more like asking for a smack or a flip-flop in the face!
The battle scenes were sometimes borderline brutal and, oh boy, the hero was indeed taking a beating, no easy win during the old days!
All these wiped away and replaced with something less sensible, less traumatic... This leads to less attachment, less interest in Spider-man...
You don't feel the pain anymore, no more sharp corners - everything is smoothed down. No more unpolished, skin-scratching surfaces: everything is germ-free, risk-free and simply... emotionless. But this passing from the bottomless pits of misery to the ecstasy felt after raising from the dust, overcoming credible and painful challenges is what made countless children shout "yeaaa!" and roar their approval while beating their chest in the most ferocious way human cubs can display. Delightful experience.
The Spider-man Homecoming does another thing which gets your skin all goosebumps: brainwashing to another level, selling, selling, selling. It feels like you are watching the screened version of producers who live by The Wolf's strategy, who do not give up until the kid buys or f*cking dieees! (0:38-0:55)
Why can't Spider-man exist along with Venom, Goblin, Rhino, Doctor Octopus, Lizard, and all the others villains and grey characters? Why so much the need to cross boundaries and make out of something good and well defined a tasteless goo? For one tiny important reason: money. Why sell a toy when you can place Iron-man in so just from watching one single film, parents will have to buy both figurines? In the new films Iron-man crafts the spider-suit and a few other items. Soon we will have Spiderman wearing Thor's winged helm and Wonder Woman's bling, driving a counterfeit East-Asian made Batmobile, while injecting himself with some Hulk DNA in order to get ripped fast and bang Mystic...
But this is not the worst... To add more insult, they show kids dressed up like Spider-man... in the Spider-man movie!!!
We know it's just a film, that it is not real, there is no need to remind us how pathetic the grown-ups, or the kids will look while wearing a suit. This is such a turn off, comparable with an intense, hot porn scene where the actors just stop, face the camera and say "you know this is not real and you're just jerking off, right?".
There used to be some passion, some vibrating emotions, but all are dumbed-down now and replaced by explosions and CGI. With each passing days it is more difficult to be able to close your eyes and think of the "possibility" of becoming Spider-man... They are getting there: releasing nothing else than money focused, action sprinkled and expensively coated, soulless fiction.