Home Reviews Review: Spider-Man: Far from Home

Review: Spider-Man: Far from Home

Tom Holland stars as Spider-Man in Columbia Pictures' SPIDER-MAN: FAR FROM HOME

Spider-Man: Far from Home is a tricky movie to review. Not because it’s following Avengers: Endgame, but because almost every new feature that you can speak of is a spoiler. With that being the case, I’ll still do all that I can not to ruin anything for those reading this. However, I know it probably doesn’t matter since you’re going to watch it anyway.

I’ll start off by stating that the spoilers that you might be worried about pertaining to this movie aren’t Endgame level. I’m sure many want to be surprised and that’s understandable. And while I won’t give any actual spoilers, some people will probably be able to figure certain things out just by reading certain details that I touch on when it comes to Mysterio.

The details don’t spoil the movie, but you might be able to figure it out if you come to understand how it relates to a specific movie from the MCU that was released a few years before. There are similarities between the two that are obvious to anyone who ends up seeing both movies. Once I get to that part of the review, you can stop reading if you want and jump straight to the very last paragraph for my closing statement and just check the score.

With all that being said, I’ll say that I liked Far from Home even though it isn’t on the level of Homecoming. There’s a lot of story here, but it doesn’t focus as much on Endgame as you might anticipate. It certainly looks at that stuff throughout the movie, but the clear focal point of this is Spider-Man/Peter Parker trying to get on with his life.

While Parker’s trying to find a way to balance things, he’s also placed in situations that won’t allow him to settle down and simply mature. Some of this was important to show where he is at this point, but some of it was unnecessary. Most of what I see as unnecessary happens closer toward the end as we approach the climax and enter into the two end credit scenes. When looking at what they give us, it made me wonder if they have any idea where they are going with this.

Then again, they might have all of this planned out already. If that’s true, I just want it to work out. For all I know, what they give us could be glorious. However, I have enjoyed watching this character in these Marvel movies so far as he’s just learning how to live as somewhat of an idealistic hero wanting to protect his neighborhood. Based on what it looks like they could be doing, that part of his development might be coming to an end already.

Forgetting that for a moment and just looking at Spiderman as a character, Tom Holland delivers again as a seemingly normal teenager dealing with a unique set of issues to go along with the typical one’s kids his age deal with. When thinking about it, I don’t know if they could have chosen a better person to play a more believable Peter Parker. I’m sure there are guys out there who could have been exceptional in the role, but I can’t see anyone out there right now being as good of a fit as he is.

Turning our attention back to twists and spoilers, I guess you can say that the two scenes at the end are twists that you definitely won’t see coming. But, there are also twists spread throughout the movie itself. There’s one in particular that I’m sure plenty of people will see coming if they know anything about the characters. I won’t go into details, but I will point out that they work in some ways while they don’t work in other ways.

What I mean by that is that what’s here is both authentic and inauthentic to the comics. For those who want something similar to the comics, the changes may have a negative impact on your feelings about this movie. At the same time, the changes kind of fit and blend in with the rest of the movie in a way that gives it an extra dimension while connecting it to past films.

Anyway, this leads me to the portion about Jake Gyllenhaal’s Mysterio that I mentioned earlier. I thought his performance was solid all around and I liked him in this role, but they didn’t do all they could have done with the character. Once we begin to get know some stuff about him in the early going, he intrigues you and makes you want to find out more about him.

Obviously, you knew they would change something’s about him in order to convert him into a film character, but they went a bit too far for my taste. I guess it’s not a surprise, but Mysterio is stripped down quite a bit when speaking of all that he’s capable of. Despite that, they still manage to stay faithful to the spirit of the character to some degree. For some who don’t know much about the character, this will be okay either way. Others on the opposite end might feel a little differently.

The more I learned about his character in this movie, the more torn I was. What they do works overall, but it was also a bit disappointing. Either way, I think it fits enough to tell the story they want to tell. I just wish he had been a little more complicated in terms of his abilities and his backstory. Those could have changed things and made me want to see more of him down the line.

In spite of me not liking the direction they take as much as I wanted to, Spider-Man: Far from Home is a movie that I liked overall. There’s plenty of good stuff here, but I think some of the ideas they had didn’t really land well. Is it anything that will damage the character and the upcoming movies? In some instances, I would say no. But in others, I’m not so sure. Of course, that will depend on what they have planned for the future.

Rating: PG-13

Director: Jon Watts

Screenwriters:
Chris McKenna
Erik Sommers

Cast:
Tom Holland
Samuel L. Jackson
Zendaya
Cobie Smulders
Jon Favreau
JB Smoove
Jacob Batalon
Martin Starr
Marisa Tomei
Jake Gyllenhaal

Film Length: 129 minutes

Release Date: July 2nd, 2019

Distributor: Sony Pictures

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