Alright, so I just saw the new Spiderman the other day. I’m mixed on my thoughts. On one hand, I want to praise it for giving us the first decently done villain since Loki all the way back in the original Thor. We get some quick backstory on him at the start and it gives him a decent reason why he turns into a criminal. It was also nice to not get yet another origin story on Peter Parker. He was already bitten by a spider, and there was no sign of any Uncle Ben, so presumably he’s already dead. It was also nice to see that Peter has his own lame homemade Spiderman costume and only can get the nice fancy suit from the resources available through Tony Stark, rather than somehow being able to make such a nice fancy suit himself like the previous Spiderman movies. Also liked that he had to create the webbing himself, rather than it being a power given by the spider. Never was a comic book reader, but I know that’s how it was in the Spiderman cartoon which is what I grew up with, so that’s how it’s supposed to be as far as I’m concerned.

So, now to the stuff I didn’t like. I think they made him too young. I really think Marvel would’ve been better served having Peter be at the end of High School, beginning of College, like the Sam Raimi Spiderman did. There was a little too much focus on teenage angst and relationships with his fellow students for my taste. I also think Tony Stark should’ve taken the fancy Spiderman suit back sooner, so we would have to see the home made suit for more of the movie. Especially since Tony gives him back the fancy suit at the end of the movie, so this will likely be the only movie with him using his own suit.

Alright, to the real issue that bothered me. Really, Marvel? Please don’t tell me you’re going to start pushing your SJW crap into your movie universe. Do you really want to turn what’s been a cash cow for you into box office flops? So, what am I talking about? Well, there wasn’t a huge amount of the crap in the movie, fortunately, but there were a few standout issues. All of it that I can recall came from one particular character; Michelle. It starts with the scene when Peter’s group is gathering for a trip to Washington D.C. Michelle makes a comment about wanting to protest. Alright, just a one off, vague comment about protesting, but not what she wants to protest. Okay, fine. A bit later, we get to the group visiting the Washington Monument. Their group leader mentions not wanting to split the group and Michelle says how she doesn’t want to enter a structure built by slaves. Really? There were a couple other instances of social signaling by this specific character in other points of the movie too, if I recall correctly. Oh, and guess what we find out about the girl at the end of the movie? This is MJ. Yup, Parker’s future love interest is no longer a pale redhead like she always has been. Nope, now she’s a mixed race social signaling SJW.

So, I really wanted to love this movie. Growing up I regularly watched the Spiderman cartoon, it was one of my favorites. So I was kinda disappointed with this. It wasn’t bad, but it was slightly above average, really only because of an actual interesting villain. But I really hope this isn’t the start of Marvel trying to replicate the crap they’ve been doing in their comic books in recent years into their movie series. I’m interested in the upcoming Black Panther film, and, surprisingly, I’m interested in the new Thor. (I was surprised by that, given how rather boring I found Thor 1 & 2 to be). Hopefully this will be a one off deal, and not the start of a trend.