Spider-Man: Far From Home
Now that we’ve seen our second full film focusing on Peter Parker for the Marvel Cinematic Universe, it’ll be interesting to see how the character’s arc continues in a third film. I hope it will be interesting, because I can’t help but feel like some of the same mistakes that Sony made with their previous attempts with the webslinger are being repeated here.
I can say this much for Jon Watt’s “Spider-Man: Far From Home”- this has probably my favorite performance from Tom Holland as Peter Parker to date, and one of the best in the 9-film run of “solo” Spider-Man movies dating back to 2002 and Sam Raimi’s first shot at the character. Holland’s casting as Parker is one of the smartest choices Marvel has made in that department, up there with Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark. That he is easier to accept as a teenager than Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield ever were is the biggest plus, but more than that, he makes us feel the weight not only of “with great power comes great responsibility,” which has been unspoken in Holland’s run, but we also feel the weight of Tony Stark’s loss on him. Yes, Stark has essentially replaced Uncle Ben in this iteration of Spider-Man, and it’s a fine choice, because this MCU Spidey was already at work when we first met him; Stark was a surrogate father figure, and the two character’s arcs have benefited from that dynamic.
“Far From Home” picks up several months after everyone was brought back at the end of “Avengers: Endgame,” with Hulk’s snap called “The Blip,” and a hilarious “news report” by the students at Peter’s school setting the stage for how that happened, and affected the people in Peter’s orbit who were dusted by Thanos. We first see Aunt May (Marisa Tomei) as she is speaking, and Peter is there for photo ops as Spider-Man, at a fundraiser for the people displaced in the 5 years after Thanos’s snap. Peter is also getting ready for a trip through Europe with his classmates for the summer, where he hopes to tell MJ (Zendaya, whose work in this character, bringing new life to her, is one of my other favorite things about this film, and Holland’s “Spider-Man” films, in general) how he feels about her. When Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) comes calling, however, Peter kind of needs to answer, especially when creatures from an alternate dimension Earth- followed here by Quentin Beck (Jake Ghyllenhaal)- are showing up in the cities he and his classmates are going in Europe.
I’m going to try and avoid spoilers, as much as possible, but it goes without saying that Beck is not quite who he says he is, and while the movie has some of the characters in the movie fooled by that, it’s likely very few in the audience will be, because usually we see the big villains in the MCU films in the trailers, and no one else is really on this movie’s radar. Ghyllenhaal does good work in the role, but we kind of get the impression that Beck has some things to hide; when we find them out, though, I kind of wish they had stayed hidden. Beck/Mysterio is a great villain for this film, and his true nature leads to some visually-spectacular sequences between he and Peter in the second and third act of “Far From Home,” but the reality of who he is points to one of the big mistakes I worry this “Spider-Man” franchise is making, and it’s the same big miscalculation the “Amazing Spider-Man” movies made, where all the villains seem to originate from one hub, and one motivation. Please, please please tell me we won’t have to go through this again in the third Tom Holland “Spider-Man” movie, Marvel. And please, don’t let Sony win out and force Venom into another “Spider-Man” film; granted, I’m probably the biggest fan of Raimi’s “Spider-Man 3” you know, for a variety of reasons, but let Kevin Feige work in Venom on his own timetable. Holland is too good in this role; he does not deserve the same fate in his solo films that Andrew Garfield faced.
I really like how Watt and his writers- this time, Chris McKenna and Erik Sommers- have basically been making teen comedies of Parker’s stories in this and “Homecoming,” and that sensibility is a big part of why these two movies have worked as well as they have when the big action sequences are not happening. Peter Parker is a teenager, and in “Homecoming,” it was him itching to be doing more than what he was as a crimefighter while still balancing a personal life with school and, possibly, love that was well-executed. Here, he feels that pull of doing more with his superhero gifts as the Elementals make their appearance, and Fury comes knocking on his door- and tranking Ned (Jacob Batalon) in their hotel room- and all he wants to do is have a normal life; does he really want that responsibility anymore? In a way, this is exactly the same structure Raimi had with his first two films, and while I think Raimi’s “Spider-Man 2” is still the best live-action Spider-Man film, “Far From Home” does a very good job with exploring that struggle Peter was dealing with, with Holland and Zendaya making their mutual, but unspoken, affection for one another as palpable as Maguire and Kirsten Dunst did in that film. More than anything, this is the big reason for looking forward to a third MCU Spider-Man film- how does Peter and MJ’s continue in that one, especially given the revelations we learn along the way in “Far From Home?”
I have a feeling that, like with “Homecoming,” I’m probably going to enjoy “Far From Home” more the second time around. Both films require sitting on and stewing over, but what’s good in them is what usually keeps movies like these hold up on multiple viewings. There are certainly things to be concerned about, however, as the MCU Spider-Man story moves forward. Will Feige be able to keep this series from making the same mistakes some of the previous attempts to tell Peter Parker’s story made, or will history keep repeating itself? I’ll show up whenever Parker is back on the big screen to find out, and I will not be afraid to call out Marvel if the worst case scenario happens.
