Spider-Man: Homecoming has become the newest Marvel Cinematic Universe movie to get the Honest Trailers treatment. The latest Spidey reboot was a big commercial success and won critics over with its brisk pace and sharp sense of humor, but it was as much a coming-of-age tale as it was a superhero movie. Placing Peter Parker deep into high school life allowed him to experience all the ups and downs of adolescence while simultaneously slinging webs and fighting crime in one tight two-hour package.
Homecoming added up to one of the MCU's biggest successes, and a triumph for Sony Pictures as it teamed up with Marvel to reinvigorate the Spider-Man franchise. It stands as one of the most fun, thrilling installments in the entire mega-franchise, but that doesn't mean it's perfect. Even good Marvel movies are not safe from the biting wit of Screen Junkies' Honest Trailers series, which has lent its distinctive brand of humor to Spidey's latest by taking a hard look at Tom Holland as a Millennial.
Related: Was Spider-Man: Homecoming A Box Office Success?
Check out the new "trailer" above, via the official Screen Junkies YouTube channel. The main focus is on Holland's performance as a high school-aged Parker, who exhibits plenty of stereotypical Millennial behavior. As the video points out, Parker "can't stay off his phone, constantly blogs, watches himself on YouTube, and has zero patience for anything." It also pokes fun at the peculiar fact that Parker does a lot of questionable things (quitting on the debate team and destroying all kinds of property, for instance) with no consequences besides getting a stern talking-to.
The trailer also takes aim at Michael Keaton as Adrian Toomes/Vulture, who is somehow more terrifying when he's "just being Michael Keaton" than when he's actually fighting Spider-Man as the Vulture. It laments that the writers (all six of them) couldn't resist giving the character a "forced personal connection" with Parker, much like Alfred Molina as Doc Ock in Sam Raimi's Spider-Man 2. The trailer is topped off with the ultimate coming-of-age reference, calling the movie "The Perks of Being a Wallcrawler."
There's also a reference to the glaring MCU timeline problems that the movie created. The biggest burn of them all, however, may be that Sony Pictures figured out it should just "let Marvel do the work" in order to make a successful Spider-Man movie after The Amazing Spider-Man and its sequel ultimately fell short of expectations. The video is another win for Honest Trailers, which has not pulled any punches in skewering the otherwise acclaimed, successful MCU.
Plenty of comments took issue with referring to Parker in Spider-Man: Homecoming as a "Millennial", arguing that he's only 15 years old and therefore too young to be one. But it's more about the behavior than the age, and it's hard to argue with the Honest Trailers' assessment here. Where the video really goes astray is the question of why Toomes didn't just sue Stark Industries at the beginning... Well, there's no movie if that happens. But a few nitpicks here and there can't take away from what continues to be one of YouTube's most clever series.
Next: Spider-Man: Homecoming Trailer Recut as Horror Movie
Source: Screen Junkies
