MCU Commentary Rewatch: Spider-Man: Homecoming
(Cover art by Matt Ferguson, for the Blu Ray release. https://www.cakesandcomics.com/)
TL:DR;
Commentary Ranking: #24 of 24
I’m going to cut to the chase here, there’s no joy in Mudville. SONY Pictures did not elect to commission or include a commentary track for this movie.
I was hoping that there may have been a John Watts convention appearance I could listen to akin to the Favreau/RDJ one for IRON MAN, but the best I could find were YouTube videos done by fans, and that rather defeats the purpose.
What the disc does have is roughly an hour of special features (again, a disappointing amount of bonus content), about half of which are featurettes. Including a text-based, pop-up commentary overlay that mainly speaks to how HOMECOMING relates to Spider-Man’s comic book origins.
So while interesting, this movie moves straight to the bottom of the list. I did learn some things from the featurettes, though, so I can talk takeaways.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spider-Man:_Homecoming
Special Features takeaway
Tom Holland is absolutely the best Peter Parker as a young man I’ve ever seen. But more than that, he is hands-down the best Spider-Man ever to put on the suit.
Holland is a dancer and gymnast, and does 90-95% of his own stunts and wire work. In this film, if you see someone in the suit, it’s almost certainly Holland himself, unless the shot require two actors to pull off the visual.
Example, in the suburbs chase Spider-Man has to crash through a shed, but they didn’t have enough space to get multiple cranes in place for the shot. So Holland suited up and climbs inside the building, and a stuntman flies in on wires and busts through the ceiling while Holland busts through the front door.
Be it backflips, climbing on the washington Monument, or sliding on his back in a hail of broken glass, Tom Holland gives his all to the production. Kevin Feige, Jon Watts, Producer Amy Pascal, Stan Lee, and RDJ are all interviewed, and all say exactly the same thing: Tom Holland is Peter Parker, and is an absolute joy to work with.
Jacob Batalon (Need Leeds) and Zendaya (MJ) talk about how daunting the experience of working on this film was–until they spent time with Holland, who turned the process into the best production they’ve even been a part of.
Even though I watched a third of this movie yesterday between commentary tracks, I was sorely tempted to watch it all the way through today just for the joy of it. But even though the pop-up boxes are full of interesting content (see below), it’s just not the same.
YMMV, of course.
Commentary Ranking:
1. DOCTOR STRANGE
2. CAPTAIN AMERICA: CIVIL WAR
3. CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLDIER
4. GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY, VOL. 2
5. THOR: THE DARK WORLD
6. GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY, VOL. 1
7. CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE FIRST AVENGER
8. AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON
9. ANT-MAN
10.
11. IRON MAN 2
12. INCREDIBLE HULK
13. IRON MAN 3
14. MARVEL’S THE AVENGERS
15. IRON MAN
23. THOR
24. SPIDER-MAN HOMECOMING
I really wish the text commentary was better. But having someone show up to talk would not only have been cheaper in the long run, it would have told me more about the film itself, rather than the comic book stuff I already know. So Kenneth Branagh gets an unexpected bump.