Spider-Man: Far from Home Review

We've now officially made it through three phases of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Initially I was thinking that "Spider-Man: Far from Home" was the beginning of Phase IV, because, you know, "Avengers: Endgame" is kind of a good... ending. But nope. Kevin Feige announced earlier this year that "Spider-Man: Far from Home" is the ending of Phase III, just like "Ant-Man," not "Avengers: Age of Ultron," was the ending of Phase II. Makes sense, I guess. But now it has me really curious as to what exactly is in store for Phase IV. We know they have a lot scheduled. Two movies next year. Three movies in 2021. Three movies in 2022. But they haven't announced any specific titles. All we can really do is make guesses as to what they could be based on previous movies that either set up sequels or made enough money that you know a sequel is coming. Then, of course, there's rumors flying around about various projects and casting news. But nothing official. And now I have July 18 - 21 circled on my calendar because that's San Diego Comic-Con and they better tell us something there. At least tell me what's coming out next May because, given that that's 10 months away, they have to be really far into production, right? Anyways, I digress. Let's talk about this final Phase III film.

"Spider-Man: Far from Home" is the 23rd film in the MCU and the second one that's NOT distributed by Disney. Because, remember, Sony still owns the rights to Spider-Man. They didn't give away the rights to Marvel and Disney. They came up with an agreement that they'd let Spider-Man be a part of the MCU if Marvel helped them make a better Spider-Man movie. That's because I was one of only five people on Earth who actually enjoyed "The Amazing Spider-Man 2." The rest of the world thought it was trash and it failed at the box office based on what Spider-Man movies should be doing. That's when Sony panicked and both planned the animated Spider-Man movie and struck a deal with Marvel in yet another reboot that would translate into "Spider-Man: Homecoming." That animated thing worked out pretty well, too. So now Sony is really happy, especially since their "Venom" was also a major success, meaning they have three different Spidey avenues to go down. Even though I personally would've liked more Andrew Garfield, I'm certainly content because Tom Holland has done a great job. I'd still argue that Tobey Maguire is a better Peter Parker and Andrew Garfield is a better Spider-Man, but Tom Holland is the best combination of the two.

Now after making it through the Homecoming dance wherein the father of his date was the sinister villain Vulture, played excellently by Michael Keaton, and after surviving the events of "Avengers: Infinity War" and "Avengers: Endgame," Peter just wants to escape the superhero life and go on a fun European vacation with class and hopefully spend a lot of time with his new girl crush, that of Zendaya's MJ. We also learn that things are a bit crazy at school following the events of "Endgame" (SPOILERS for that movie, by the way). Some students are five years older. The students that got snapped came back at their exact same age as when the snap happened. And despite being finished with midterms, the school decided to start the year over when everyone came back. And now somewhere along those lines, Peter, Ned, MJ, Flash and friends are going on vacation with their science teachers to Europe, as I mentioned before. Because of the whole "with great power comes great responsibility" thing, Peter's feeling a lot of weight on him due to a lot of people expecting him to step up and be the next Iron Man. Because, you know, Iron Man died saving the world. I told you spoilers were happening. But Peter doesn't want to be the next Iron Man. He just wants to be a kid.

Things are going well for Peter until Nick Fury interrupts his vacation because they need help with these elementals that are wreaking havoc around the globe. There's a sand monster, a wind monster, a water monster and soon to be a fire monster, the latter of which is the worst of them. And there's no other available Avengers to go help Nick Fury with this. So Peter begrudgingly decides to help, partially because Nick Fury gives him no choice when he pulls some strings to direct their vacation to a different part of Europe. Luckily Spider-Man isn't the only hero that shows up to help with these elementals. A magic-wielding hero by the name of Quentin Beck, played by Jake Gyllenhaal, shows up from another Earth in the multiverse after claiming the elementals destroyed his Earth. Peter and friends initially nickname this guy Mysterio because they don't know much about him, but he becomes a good friend and mentor to Peter, who doesn't have a whole lot of people to talk to about this superhero stuff. And, yeah, Mysterio is supposed to be a bad guy in the comics, but this Spider-Verse that the MCU has set up has already veered far away from the comics, which has worked nicely so far. Plus, anyone who is caught up on the Arrowvese certainly understands multiverse stuff.

And that is about as far as I'm going to take this whole plot summary thing. The only part of this movie I've described is what the trailers have set up. And even though, in typical Sony fashion, there are some moments that shouldn't have ever been put in the trailers, they actually did a pretty solid job of hiding the bulk of this plot. All this stuff I've described is only the initial setup of the film. Perhaps the first 20-30 minutes. This movie takes you on a lot of twists and turns. With some of those twists, I was like, "Well, duh, of course that was going to happen." While other twists I was genuinely like, "Wait... what?" And the problem here is that my opinion of this film relies quite heavily on the execution of some of these hidden plot details, making this a bit of a tricky review to write. Make no mistake, a "Spider-Man: Far from Home" Review 2.0 is definitely required here to give my full thoughts, but I don't think that review is ever going to get written because there's too many other things that I want to get to, like my ranking of Phase III of the MCU, so I'm going to do my best to beat around the bush and dance around spoilers in order to somehow get my thoughts out. Just know that you might have to message me or talk to me in person if you want my full thoughts.

Much like "Homecoming," this movie is one-half high school drama and another half superhero stuff. It helped that director Jon Watts, who Marvel pulled out of nowhere to directing "Homecoming," was able to return to "Far from Home." That meant he was able to establish some consistency from one movie to another. In many instances I even think that he did a better job at. Specifically I think he did a much better job at the high school drama element of the movie. Even though I really liked "Homecoming," my one big flaw was that the movie just kinda aimlessly floated around with all the high school stuff. There wasn't a whole lot of focus or direction. Just kids living through high school and there were parts of the movie that I got bored. "Far from Home" adds a lot more focus in those elements. I think one benefit here is that we're not just following the kids through school. We're honed in on this vacation. Peter has some specific goals that he wants to follow through on and most of the drama is centered around these goals. There's a lot of contrast here with his character because in "Homecoming" he was overly obsessed with being a superhero and now he just wants to be Peter Parker. That adds a level of maturity that helps him become a better hero.

While Tom Holland does an excellent job here, I think the standout here is Zendaya. I've come to really like Zendaya as an actress, but I was surprised that she carried a big portion of the emotional drama here. In "Homecoming" she was mostly sidelined because it wasn't revealed who her character was until the end of the film. Now that we know she's MJ, the Peter Parker and MJ romance gets center stage. None of this feels forced, though, as it's a very naturally built relationship between the two of them. Peter simply wants to express how he feels about her at the appropriate time, but his socially awkward personality makes it so expressing his feelings is a hard thing to do. In the meantime, MJ has a very unique personality. She's strong-willed and independent, but also quite straightforward and blunt at times, with a hint of a sarcastic sense of humor. It's hard to come up with the exact adjectives to describe her, which is why Zendaya has the chance to shine. She's such a fun character to watch and her interaction with all the characters is gold. You don't know if she's going to let Peter in, but then there's some subtle moments where the audience gets clued in on the fact that she really likes him, too, but also doesn't know the exact way to approach this.

In the middle of all this, Peter keeps getting dragged away to do his superhero stuff, which makes you feel for him because you really want to see him get the opportunity to be a high school kid, but yet you admire his commitment to doing what he needs to do in order to keep everyone safe. He wants to just disappear and ignore all the danger around him, but he just can't, which is why is such a great superhero. However, this is where the review gets a bit complicated because I have a lot of thoughts on all of the superhero stuff, but I can't give you any of them. Instead I'll just say that "Homecoming" as a whole is a significantly better movie. Even though "Far from Home" is more refined in the high school drama elements of the movie, it's a lot more rough around the edges when it comes to all the superhero stuff. If you're one of these people who is burned out with all this superhero stuff, "Far from Home" really just delivers more of the same stuff you've been given a hundred times. And when we have Sony pushing so hard on all of their Spider-Man stuff, with this latest reboot, his involvement in the Avengers movies, as well as the animated "Into the Spider-Verse," we've been given a lot of Spider-Man to the point where it's suffering from overexposure. Thus we now require a bit more in terms of quality.

The reason why "Homecoming" worked so well was because of the specific plot revolving around Michael Keaton's Vulture. He was more than just your average comic book villain. He felt like a regular, working man who had some legitimate frustrations with all of this superhero stuff. And the way his story arc weaved into Peter's story arc was quite remarkable. The scene where he's driving Peter and his daughter to the dance is one of the most intense moments in any Spider-Man movie. Then we jump to "Into the Spider-Verse," which was one of the most emotionally-driven origin stories I've seen and also implemented one of the most entertainingly bizarre story arcs regarding all the Spider-People from different parts of the multiverse having to work together. Both of these Spider-Man movies managed to transcend the genre in certain ways to make them feel unique. "Far from Home" certainly has some fantastic sequences in it that caused my jaw to hit the floor, but as a whole I walked away with the feeling that it was simply another superhero movie. A placeholder for whatever happens in our next Spider-Man movie. Given that I enjoy superhero movies, I was sufficiently entertained, but nothing really jumps out at me as being super unique.

I know you're going to read those last two paragraphs and scream at your computer saying, "But Adam, [insert reasons why this movie was amazing]." I know. I get it. And I probably agree. But I can't elaborate here. I just... can't. There are specific reasons why this movie doesn't work quite as well as "Homecoming" and certainly not as well as "Into the Spider-Verse," but I just can't talk about them. There's also elements of this movie that are absolutely fantastic that I really want to bring up. But I can't talk about them either. And I'm this close to just giving in and typing a spoiler review, but instead I'm going to leave the ball in your court. If you actually read through this review and I've made you curious enough that you want to know what the heck I'm referring to, then come talk to me because there's a lot to talk about. Just know that I really did enjoy this movie. I saw it at midnight after a long day. I was tired when the movie started and it kept me awake the whole time. There's just certain things that hold it back from being a truly great Spider-Man movie. In fact, I'd still call it the fourth best Spider-Man movie behind "Spider-Man 2," "Into the Spider-Verse," and "Homecoming." And it's another solid entry in Phase III. My grade for "Spider-Man: Far from Home" is an 8/10.