Review: Spider-Man: Far From Home (2019)

Okay, first things first. You may notice that there's a particular Marvel movie that I have not done a review of, the first, in fact, since I started doing these reviews. And it's a big one, too. I have not written a review of Avengers: Endgame, and I probably never will. Why not? Well, it's simple, really. I already wrote my review of Avengers: Infinity War last year, and everything I said in that review applies double to Endgame. It's a downright colossal movie that I can't really give a score to, not when it's the culmination of eleven years of interconnected movies that more or less delivers exactly what it promised. How do you review something like that? It'd be like writing a review of the Apollo 11 landing. "4 out of 5, America f*** yeah, but it's 'one small step for a man', Armstrong"? Well, here's the only review I can possibly give to Endgame: you've probably seen it already and made up your own mind.

Anyway, moving on...

Spider-Man: Far From Home (2019)

Rated PG-13 for sci-fi action violence, some language and brief suggestive comments

Score: 4 out of 5

After the massive shifts that Infinity War and Endgame collectively brought to the table, every Marvel fan kind of needed a breather, and Spider-Man: Far From Home accomplishes just that. Initially presenting another seemingly world-destroying threat to the viewer only to reveal that there's something much smaller in scope going on, it returns to what made Homecoming work two years ago, a mix of heroics with teen comedy to focus on a hero who, while superhuman, isn't functionally godlike and has to balance his life as a superhero with that of a teenage boy. It's light fun, albeit one that ends on a stinging note after the credits, that still isn't the best recent Spider-Man film (that would be the animated Into the Spider-Verse last year) but still delivers the goods in a way that I wouldn't have expected any less from coming from Marvel.

After the events of Infinity War and Endgame, Peter Parker and the world at large are still recovering from the devastating events of those films, between getting snapped out of existence by Thanos, snapped back into existence, and then, for Peter specifically, watching his idol and mentor Tony Stark die in front of him. (I'd call it a spoiler, but this film sure as hell doesn't think it is.) Now, he has to shoulder the burden of being a full-fledged Avenger, with many New Yorkers looking to him specifically as their hometown hero. He's eager to cool down by traveling to Europe for a school trip with his friends Ned, MJ, and Betty... but unfortunately, once he gets there, he runs straight into an attack on Venice by a water creature who's only thwarted by a strange new superhero named Mysterio. Real name Quentin Beck, Mysterio is a refugee from an alternate-universe Earth that was destroyed by elemental monsters that have since followed him to our world, and with Nick Fury at Mysterio's side, Peter must once more suit up in an unfamiliar place to help Mysterio save the world.

I'm gonna be blunt: Mysterio's the real villain. He's full of it, and is actually making up a threat so that he can swoop in, "save the day", and look like a hero, without concern for any civilians caught in the crossfire. He's actually a former Stark Industries engineer who, much like Adrian Toomes in Homecoming, got screwed over by Tony Stark, and proceeded to steal some of the holographic projector technology he was working on in order to make a name for himself on his own. You really can't talk about the film in any measure of depth without giving that away. And honestly, it's not even much of a twist. I knew this going in just from browsing the character's Wikipedia page and figuring out that he was one of Spider-Man's most enduring villains in the comics, but even if I didn't, I'd have known it from Jake Gyllenhaal's performance. The man has made a career out of playing shifty, socially awkward, and kinda scummy characters in films like Donnie Darko, Nightcrawler, and Velvet Buzzsaw, and here is no different. Quentin Beck isn't a superhero, but he plays one on TV, and Gyllenhaal is convincing as both the seemingly traditional, too-good-to-be-true hero he poses as and as the vindictive and petty bastard that he really is. More broadly, he reflects Peter's desire to go back to the good old days, serving as a corrupted father figure before Peter learns the truth. and later dishing out one of the most creative visual sequences in any Marvel movie when he starts using his mastery of illusions to go after Peter's emotional vulnerabilities. Mysterio may draw a bit too much... "inspiration" from the Vulture for my liking, but even so, he's an effective bad guy, thanks to Gyllenhaal's performance as a charming yet dangerously unhinged madman.

The cast is as good here as it was in Homecoming. Tom Holland once more proves that he was an inspired choice to play Peter Parker, while Zendaya, Jacob Batalon, and Angourie Rice all get greatly expanded roles this time around, Zendaya's MJ taking the place of Laura Harrier's Liz as Peter's new love interest and Girl Friday while Batalon and Rice get a great comedic subplot in which they strike up a relationship during the trip. Samuel L. Jackson plays Nick Fury, and he is... Nick Fury. Not a whole lot else to say, though he does get some room to shine during the climax as he realizes that Quentin isn't a hero. The action scenes and special effects only really get to cut loose in one scene late in the film where Mysterio throws Peter into a trippy nightmare-like sequence, but all of it is still handled very well, hinting early on that something isn't right about the epic battles that Mysterio is waging. The humor is on point as well, especially as it concerns Peter having to cover up his secret identity, especially given that, if people realize that Spider-Man, an iconic symbol of New York, is currently in Europe, they (especially his classmates on the school trip) will immediately figure out that it might have something to do with the tour group from a Queens high school that's traveling the continent -- hence why he must don a new secret identity as "the Night Monkey". (There are mishaps.)

The Bottom Line

It's kind of hard to talk about this movie beyond just giving it a firm recommendation. It's pure mid-tier Marvel, a rock-solid and exciting superhero movie that knows exactly what it wants to be and do, even if it's not particularly ambitious in that regard, and proceeds to do it. Check it out.