Saturday, July 13, 2019

Spider-Man: Far from Home (2019)

Huh. I hadn't realized going in that Disney had no production or distribution claim on this movie. Or on Spider-Man: Homecoming, whose tags I've since corrected. Better be careful with these things. Regardless, the first entry in the Marvel Cinematic Universe to follow Avengers: Endgame does retain continuity, being set some eight months later.

Peter Parker (Tom Holland), still in high school, goes on a class trip to various European nations. With its inadequate planning, this would be a pretty lame vacation if not for Peter secretly being Spider-Man and thus a fated danger magnet. In this case, the danger takes the shape of rampaging elemental giants, which Spidey takes on with help from a new super stranger (Jake Gyllenhaal), aptly nicknamed Mysterio. He may be reminiscent of both Iron Man and Dr. Strange, but many Marvel fans already know him better than that....

In a way, there's a reversal from Homecoming. Instead of wishing the Avengers would take him more seriously, Peter wants less on his shoulders, especially during a vacation when he plans to court MJ (Zendaya). But according to Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson), he's the only accessible Avenger right now, and SHIELD will pull any strings necessary to send him where he's needed while trying not to arouse his classmates' suspicions.

Some things haven't changed. Peter, for all his resourcefulness, still faces a learning curve when it comes to Stark technologies. His Aunt May (Marisa Tomei) looks younger and more attractive than she has any business looking, as Happy Hogan (Jon Favreau) would agree. And (Endgame spoiler!) even after his departure, Tony Stark (Robert Downey, Jr.) has a habit of accidentally paving the way for supervillains.

Then there are the challenges of the post-Endgame era, which Marvel is not about to gloss over, tho calling the temporary erasure of half of all life "the Blip" seems flip (not that "the Snapture" is so much better). It seems that Peter's most notable classmates were all blipped with him, including his former mission control guy, Ned (Jacob Batalon); and his nemesis, ironic Spider-Man admirer Flash (Tony Revolori). But they mention associates who have aged and advanced five years while the blipped were basically in stasis. It's an intoxicatingly weird concept.

Speaking of weird, prepare for a lot of outrageous, sometimes nightmarish images in the third act. They have a more reasonable explanation than some phenomena in the MCU, but they must make Peter question the nature of reality even more than I did at 16.

My dad and I found FfH moderately fun. At 129 minutes, it lacks the exhaustion factor of epics like Endgame and retains the adorkability that drew us to Holland's Spider-Man. I wouldn't quite put it on par with Homecoming for humor, but I did laugh once or twice. I haven't decided where it falls in terms of intelligence; the villain scheme does have a substantial hole when I think about it.

BTW, do stay for the mid- and post-credit sequences. They're not comic relief but present important implications for sequels.

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