Spiderman: Far From Home (2019) Tom Holland, Zendaya, Jake Gyllenhaal and Directed by Jon Watts
"You’re all alone. Your friends are in trouble. What are you going to do about it?" Jon Favreau (Happy Hogan)
So we are at the end “Phase 3”, we know the fate of several characters from Avengers: Endgame, we know the weirdness that is “The Blip”, people reappearing (5) years after they disappeared, and now we need to realign the superhero-verse and move forward, the question Spiderman Far From Home asks (in a sort of unnecessary and incoherent way) is: who will be the next Iron Man?
**This Review contains mild spoilers for Avengers: Endgame and Spiderman Far From Home**
Returning Director Jon Watts (who made his name with 2015’s Cop Car) does a noble job picking up after the star studded and momentous events of Avengers: Endgame. The opening of the film directly addresses the losses of Tony Stark, Steve Rodgers, and Natasha Romanoff with a clever song choice. Spiderman is now front and center of The Avengers, whether he likes it or not. Peter Parker (a solid Tom Holland who again is no Tobey Maguire) is clearly overwhelmed with his new responsibilities and has not dealt with the emotional blow that losing another father figure has handed him. Peter wants nothing more than to take the summer off to process all this and figure out a way to tell his crush M. J. (a perfectly cool Zendaya) he really likes her. Unfortunately (or Fortunately) for us this is a superhero movie so that isn’t going to happen. A sleepy Nick Fury and Maria Hill show up and hijack Peter’s European vacation and inject rather sloppily, a lackluster bad guy Mysterio (played adequately by a bearded Jake Gyllenhaal, who was almost cast as Spiderman once) into the fold. Peter makes a bunch of bad decisions, a bunch of mediocre CGI occurs, and the legacy of Tony Stark and his infinite supply of robot killing machines gets a little more tarnished. This move is perfectly watchable, don’t get me wrong, it is very charming especially when it forgets it’s about an Avenger and focusses on entertaining teens doing teen stuff. I found the action sequences lazy and the villain backstory rather unimaginative. Tony Starks killer robots are starting to feel like Batman’s parents dying (if I have to watch them one more time…!!!!). I admire the attempts to keep Tony’s name involved here, but reminding us that he was a flawed narcissist who continuously put the world he cared about at risk because he kept inventing and losing control of killer robots (in this case drones) and didn’t treat people who worked for him very well, maybe isn’t the best way to honor the guy that helped save the planet (tip o’ the cap to my man Capt. America!). I did enjoy the flirty relationship between Jon Favreau’s Happy Hogan and the lovely Marisa Tomei’s Aunt May (my favorite Aunt May ever!). It was also nice to have a quiet moment where both Happy and Peter get a few scenes to grieve the loss of Tony, it is some of the most earnest filmmaking in the MCU and I commend them for making time for it.
I read somewhere that Michael Keaton’s Adrian Toomes (Vulture) was supposed to be in this film, I am not sure why he wasn’t, I really felt like Mysterio’s character was poorly conceived, he maybe could’ve used a little Sinister Six backup. After Thanos it looks like Marvel will go back to its generic “bad guy” problem that has plagued many of the solo adventure films. And I don’t know if Marvel will ever recover from losing (2) of its major stars (Evans and Downey Jr. we know Scarlet Johansson will be back for at least one more), but I do hope they find more interesting ways to introduce and interweave these characters together for future team-ups. Holland is a good Spiderman and Watts is an interesting director, but I would suggest this be their last film together, Spiderman has to grow up and maybe Watts and these teen stories need to be swept aside for some more “adult” problems. The movie contains (2) post credits scenes (you will want to see both) and ends with a nice little twist (and **SPOILER**heee’ssss back!!! J. Jonah Jameson played by the brilliant J.K. Simmons). Spiderman Far From Home has a clever teen charm to it, but ultimately feels like a letdown after Avengers: Endgame, I could’ve lived a little longer without this film (think Sony rushed it a bit), waiting would’ve allowed us to digest Endgame a bit more. SEE IT!!! but no need to rush
(The Shawshank Scale 1-10) Zendaya’s M.J. needs more screen time, Parker needs to make better decisions, and Happy Hogan needs to be in all these films! Spiderman: Far From Home is fine, I will give it the same rating I gave Homecoming, a 6.0 on The Shawshank Scale, but it isn’t as cool as Homecoming and it isn’t as epic as Endgame, so what it is? I think it is just another middle of the pack Marvel movie, let’s hope for a fresher take next time out!
My Peter Tingle tells me it’s time to rank the Spiderman Films (No Into the SpiderVerse*):
1. Spiderman 2 (2004)-Sam Raimi is the perfect comic director; it all comes together here.
2. Spiderman (2002)-I was blown away that they were able to get this so right, it felt groundbreaking in its day.
3. Spiderman: Homecoming (2017)-The charming “John Hughes-like” take wins you over.
4. Spiderman 3 (2007)-Overstuffed, often ridiculed, but I still like many parts of this film.
5. Spiderman: Far From Home (2019)-It’s a tad lazy, but still maintains its charm.
6. The Amazing Spiderman (2012)-Marc Webb made some interesting choices in this unnecessary film, Garfield and Emma Stone are too EMO to be charming though.
7. The Amazing Spiderman 2 (2014)-The rails come off, though Jamie Foxx was good, and they had the gaul to kill Gwen Stacy.
BE SURE TO CHECK OUT MY GUEST APPEARANCE ON TALKING FLICK!
Talking Flick: Listen to my
recent guest spots on Talking Flick a great movie podcast where we talk
about all things Spiderman! Available on iTunes, Sticher, Anchor, or wherever you listen to Podcasts: Links below.
Talking Flick on Anchor (Spiderman: Far From Home Episode)
Tallking Flick on iTunes (Spiderman: Far From Home Episode)
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