Title: Spider-Man: Far From Home
Release Date: July 2, 2019
Director: John Watts
Production Company: Columbia Pictures | Marvel Studios
Summary/Review:
The 23rd entry in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and the follow-up to Spider-Man: Homecoming, also serves as a coda to Avengers: Endgame. The movie shows the world dealing with the aftermath of The Blip (the term being used to describe people disappearing for 5 years and then returning) and grieving over the loss of multiple Avengers, most prominently Iron Man. Peter Parker and many of his friends had to start over the year of school that was interupted by The Blip and share a class with kids who’ve aged 5 years in the interim.
Peter wants to escape the constant questions of whether he will step into Iron Man’s role and simply enjoy his school’s summer vacation to Europe and express his feelings for MJ (Zendaya). Unfortunately for him, Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) tracks him down to fight a series of invaders known as the Elementals. He joins Quentin Beck/ Mysterio (Jake Gyllenhaal) to fight the Elementals and is carried on a whirlwind journey across Europe from Venice to Prague to Berlin to the Netherlands to London. The movie blends genres among comedy, romance, road trip, and superhero action film. The supporting cast is strong and adds to the strengths of the film, particularly Jacob Batalon as Peter’s best friend Ned, Jon Favreau as Happy Hogan, and Martin Starr as Roger Harrington, a teacher/chaperone who’s doing his best trying to manage the nuttiness of the school trip.
It was pretty clear that Mysterio would turn out to be a villain, although the twist about his actual background was unexpected. I also enjoyed that Peter and Quentin got to have some important heart-to-hearts about being superheroes and hope that Peter can find someone to talk to about such things who won’t double cross him. Like many a sophomore effort, there’s a slump from Homecoming to Far From Home, mostly due to the need to raise the stakes that ends up with more superhero fightin’ and less nuance and charm. But generally this is an entertaining movie and a good addition to the MCU oeuvre.
Rating: ***1/2
MASTER LIST OF MCU REVIEWS
- Iron Man – *
- The Incredible Hulk – **
- Iron Man 2 – **
- Thor – **
- Captain America: The First Avenger – ***
- Marvel’s The Avengers – ***
- Iron Man 3 – **
- Thor: The Dark World – **1/2
- Captain America: The Winter Soldier – **1/2
- Guardians of the Galaxy – ***
- Avengers: Age of Ultron – ***1/2
- Ant-Man – ***1/2
- Captain America: Civil War – ***
- Doctor Strange – **1/2
- Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 – ***1/2
- Spider-Man: Homecoming – ****
- Thor: Ragnarok – ****
- Black Panther – ****1/2
- Avengers: Infinity War – ***1/2
- Ant-Man and the Wasp – ***1/2
- Captain Marvel – ****
- Avengers: Endgame – ****
Panorama of the Mountains 