SPIDER-MAN: HOMECOMING

SPIDER-MAN: HOMECOMING. Jon Watts, director, one of several writers on script. Jonathan Goldstein, John Francis Daley, story and script, with Watts and three others on script. Based on the Marvel comic book by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko. Captain America character (cameo), created by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby. See IMDb for details on screenplay. USA: Columbia Pictures presents a Marvel Studios, Pascal Pictures production / Columbia Pictures (US release), 2017. See IMDb for complex distribution; note that Columbia Pictures is a subdivision of Sony.

Summarized adequately on IMDb with "Several months after the events of CAPTAIN AMERICA: CIVIL WAR" (2016), "Peter Parker, with the help of his mentor Tony Stark, tries to balance his life as an ordinary high school student in Queens, New York City while fighting crime as his superhero alter ego Spider-Man as a new threat, the Vulture, emerges."

Relevant here for the interplay of technology and the politics of class — the "Homecoming" of the title is significant — and what we may see as the common-man/machine interface and the super-kid/high-tech intimate interface. Michael Keaton's Adrian Toomes is a White working-stiff who's made good and about to do much better with the cleanup of ultra-high-tech alien artifacts (etc.) from THE AVENGERS (2012 film) and other superhero battles, until his operation is pre-empted by governmental authority in league with Tony Stark's enterprises. Toomes turns to crime and an alter-ego of (The) Vulture: with Toomes slipping in and out of a high-tech but Industrial-looking flying outfit, with more than a hint of World War I/II aviator. For his part, Spider-Man is given by Tony Stark a Spider suit that is higher-tech than is good for the teenager, especially after Peter Parker's computer-guru friend Ned is able (reluctantly) to remove the "Training-Wheels" program limitations on the suit. The suit includes a Spider-emblem mini-drone and a communications system Parker eventually calls "Karen," a highly souped-up version of Siri and her sisters, capable of tracking, other GPS work, and giving advice on girls.

(IMPORTANT PLOT ELEMENT FOLLOWS) Peter Parker gives up the suit for a home-coming to his working-class/lower-middle-class life in a move recognized and accepted by Tony Stark, with a Bruce Springsteen reference. The rule has been established in a line by Tony Stark to Peter Parker, "If you're nothing without the suit, then you shouldn't have it." Since Parker by film's end can be something, someone — Peter Parker — without the suit, he gets it back, to leave his "internship"/apprenticeship with ultra-rich Tony Stark and return home to the lower-middle-class section of Queens.

RDE, Initial Compiler, 7July17