Comic and superhero film fans spent months wondering exactly what would happen to the Marvel Cinematic Universe once Avengers: Endgame concluded. Who would die? What would happen to the space-time continuum? Am I Groot?
While the movie answered some major MCU questions and was solid entertainment, it also ended with an unclear path forward. (It's probably not a spoiler that a multi-part superhero epic concluded with some grim ramifications.) In some ways, Endgame seemed to set up crazy possibilities for Marvel films to come. But I'm here to tell you that, for now, those filmmakers are barreling ahead with exactly the business-as-usual fare you'd expect (or fear) from a multi-corporation entertainment franchise.
That fact lands with a thud in the form of Spider-Man: Far from Home, which plops into theaters on Tuesday, July 2. The powers that be at Disney, Marvel, and Sony Pictures (FFH's studio) followed one major Endgame plot thread to make this MCU superhero carry the whole load, and it was clearly the wrong move. The resulting adventure still offers solid action and laughs, but Spider-Man reboot lightning doesn't strike twice.
Spoiler-free review of a spoiler-filled film
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Spider-Man fwips around Manhattan.
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Peter Parker reflects on how his life has been forever changed.
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New continent, new costume.
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Peter (Tom Holland) says hello to Misterio (Jake Gyllenhaal).
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Misterio talks about a series of rising evils, which he has dubbed the Elementals.
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Serious rooftop chat.
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Parker excuses himself from the opera.
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Peter spends a ridiculous amount of the film trying to woo MJ (Zendaya).
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Ned and Peter formulate a plan.
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Peter moves forward with his part of the plan, which is mostly about being Spider-Man.
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After his solid mix of comedy and action in Captain Marvel, it's a bummer to see Samuel L. Jackson phone in this Nick Fury performance.
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Not quite the gondola ride Peter was expecting.
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You'll see these glasses quite a bit in the film.
Be warned: Marvel has made the bold assumption that you've caught up with all things MCU before stepping into a Far from Home screening. The film's opening scene tidily spoils every single Endgame plot point, then clarifies one logical question about the "snappening" before taking us right back to where the last Spider-Man live-action jaunt left off: a goofy high school.
The gang's getting ready to go on a class trip to Europe, while mild-mannered Peter Parker (Tom Holland) begins rejecting his superhero gifts. Can't I just be a normal teen? he repeatedly asks himself and the universe, all while dodging repeated phone calls from MCU vanguard Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson).
Almost immediately, Far from Home distances itself from everything that made Homecoming such a delight in 2017. In that go-round, Peter's rise from average kid to superhero put a delightful twist on the usual coming-of-age storytelling formula, and it afforded that movie's cast a ton of organic opportunities to learn about each other and laugh along the way. Every character was new, and they all bounced off Holland's nervous, straight-man performance to hilarious effect.
But this time, there's really not much compelling interaction between Peter and the rest of the cast. Best friend and comic relief Ned (Jacob Batalon) is too busy yukking it up with a new love interest with jokes that feel wholly detached from FFH's primary thrust. Peter's own love interest, MJ (Zendaya), is dangled by a series of awkward will-they-or-won't-they flirtations that feel painfully formulaic. Aunt Mae (Marisa Tomei) is relegated to a few phone calls. Worst of all, comedian Martin Starr is stuck holding the bag of pretty much every "funny" interaction with the cast of kids, a duty that was previously spread across a number of teachers and surprise cameos. His humor potential suffers as a result.
The whole first hour of Far from Home, honestly, plays out like a Marvel-ized version of a classic Beatles film like A Hard Day's Night: the teen cast romps around in montage format with some underwhelming sight gags and a painfully telegraphed love-triangle premise among Peter, MJ, and hunky student Brad (Remy Davis, Crazy Rich Asians). And Far from Home just doesn't have a Lennon & McCartney-caliber combo to hold up such a gimmick.
After a while, Fury gets hold of Parker, and the whole superhero thing starts rolling: SHIELD needs Spider-Man's help to battle a new, confusing source of evil, and they're joined by brand-new hero Mysterio (Jake Gyllenhaal), who keeps showing up and somehow saving the day. He's from "another Earth," he tells SHIELD, alluding to a multiverse principle that hasn't yet been mentioned in MCU films. (Nobody here mentions Spider-Pig, if you're wondering.)
The best part is buried
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A sampling of Elementals. First: Fire.
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Wind.
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Peter's classmates didn't sign up for this thrill ride.
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Water.
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Misterio takes on an Elemental.
This all leads to a "surprise twist" about an hour in, but it's the kind of plot surprise any grown-up can see coming a mile away. (Don't flatter yourselves, Marvel; even M. Night Shyamalan is better at this than you.) A few not-so-subtle clues land in the middle of dialogue scenes before one major veil is lifted, revealing that a campy undercurrent had been running beneath the movie all along.
We learn everything via a montage that introduces a logical plot explanation and a cast of characters to match. By the time that rip-roaring sequence ended, I nearly shouted at the screen to ask, "Why didn't y'all start with this part?"
The potential here isn't just the tantalizing series of characters who show up before being left in the screenwriting and character-development dust. It's also the special effects twist applied to this midway discovery. Turns out, there's some CGI within the film's CGI, and Far from Home looks incredible when it lets fans into these visual secrets.
Nothing is really gained from keeping this stuff a secret for a full hour; I'd weigh it as the equivalent of a movie jerking audiences around with an "it was all a dream" explanation. If anything, Far from Home could have been that much more fun with viewers sinking their teeth into a collective sense of dramatic irony from the get-go. But FFH seems stuck on replicating a twist from Homecoming, which tied up that entry's multiple dangling plots into a superhero version of one classic teenaged nightmare. FFH's twist doesn't come close to the same level of heart or stakes. Instead, it simply sees Parker mess up in the kind of way that he's clearly going to rectify by the end.
All along the way, logical lapses pile up in dramatic fashion. Why does Nick Fury struggle so much to find Peter Parker's exact location when the kid doesn't employ any infosec practices? Why didn't the people at SHIELD double-check certain allegations with their ridiculous research capabilities? Why does Peter Parker, a kid hellbent on protecting his secret identity, repeatedly stand in the middle of major metropolitan areas with his mask off for two-minute superhero conversations?
Credit where credit is due
I have spent this review nitpicking and frowning in general, but that's not to say I didn't have a decent time. Again, actor Jacob Batalon proves himself quite the scene-stealing dynamo. Additionally, actor Jon Favreau is left with a heavy load of exposition and emotion, and he pulls that meaty stuff off without losing any of his comedic bite. And Holland continues to earn his Spidey stripes with his delicate, teenaged juggle of excited and awkward, in spite of this outing taking his character in some boring directions.
(What's more, Gyllenhaal has his own very, very good moments as a new Marvel movie character. But going any further than that would spoil something satisfying about this week's film, and I'd like to leave that part vague for new viewers.)
But Far from Home gets enough things wrong to feel more like a DC Comics film than anything out of the MCU for the past few years. Quite frankly, if you're looking for a 2019 teen-comic romp to watch this Fourth of July holiday, I'd recommend a dollar-theater rewatch of Shazam! over this.https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2019/07/spider-man-far-from-home-film-review-far-from-necessary/
2019-07-01 20:38:00Z
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