 |
| spider-man with mysterio aka quentin beck |
SPIDER-MAN: FAR FROM HOME is the first Marvel movie after the events of “Avengers: Endgame” and it somehow feels like an extension of it. In the last Spider-Man movie, “Homecoming”, Peter Parker (Tom Holland) is shown accepting the responsibility of being a superhero. Now, he is grieving over the loss of his father-figure and discovers that life is not easy to be an Avenger without Tony Stark who tragically died in “Endgame” and who is given a tribute here, along with the other superheroes who perished, to the tune of the late Whitney Houston’s “I Will Always Love You”.
That showed the end of one era and this new movie hints the start of another one. There’s a new threat facing our planet: four Elementals that can destroy Earth easily.
Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) and Happy Hogan (Jon Favreau) want to promote Peter and form a new team, with him as Tony’s successor since he is Iron Man’s protege, but Peter is more interested in joining his school’s trip to Europe so he can express his romantic feelings for his crush, MJ (Zendaya). But he ends up sitting with his teachers in the plane while MJ gets to sit with the Asian-American heartthrob, Brad (Remy Hill).
This part of the movie is a combination globe-trotting road trip to Venice, Prague and London, and teen romcom where Peter also tries his best to hide his secret identity from his classmates while saving them from various threats. Peter is aided in his new mission by an ally from a parallel universe, Quentin Beck aka Mysterio (Jake Gyllenhaal).
And this is as far as we can go in sharing with you the storyline as anything more than will be a big spoiler. Suffice it to say that it’s basic peg remains to be the usual superhero trope of a nice guy hero versus a deceitful villain who has his own evil agenda.
We’ve never really liked Tom Holland as the rebooted web slinger as he’s vertically challenged at 5’6” and plays a 16 year old teenager when he is really now 23. But his role is written in an endearing and charming manner and he plays it with such a spunky, breezy spirit that we liked him here more than in his previous outings as Spidey.
But we still honestly prefer Toby Maquire (not so much Andrew Garfield in another reboot). Even Tom’s romantic chemistry with Zendaya here doesn’t hold a candle to that of Tobey and Kirsten Dunst in the magical “Do you really want to know” scene in the very first Spider-Man directed by Sam Raimi 15 years ago.
Make sure you don’t leave the theatre right away as there are two additional sequences in the end credits. The first one is shown in mid-credits and makes a shocking revelation you’d wonder how they’d go about it in the next sequel. The second one after the entire credits reveals that Nick Fury asked the help of his shape-shifting friends, who we first met in “Captain Marvel” (and who also actually appeared unannounced in the end of “Endgame”), to persuade Peter Parker in accepting his superhero responsibilities.
The movie is directed by Jon Watts, who makes sure the tone is as light as possible, just like in “Homecoming” which he also directed. This is the right move since after the “Endgame”, there’s still a dark cloud that hangs over the world in what they call The Blip. Two new romances are introduced in the movie. First is that of Peter’s corpulent Asian-American best friend, Ned (Jacob Batalon), and his whirlwind romance with Betty (Angourie Rice.)
Then there’s Peter’s hot aunt, May (Marisa Tomei) and her flirtations with Happy Hogan. So, with some CGI-heavy action scenes, a lot of comedy and some romantic episodes, the movie certainly accomplishes what it needs to do to guarantee another blockbuster for Marvel after the big U.S. summer flops that were “Godzilla”, “Dark Phoenix” and “MIB International”.
