Spider-Man: Far From Home has opened here in Australia, and I saw it Monday night.
For the first post, a couple of non-spoiler observations:
Zendaya and Tom Holland have really good chemistry, and their characters’ relationship is quite adorkable.
This is a lighter movie, in the vein of the first MCU Spider-Man, and the Ant-Man movies. The stakes are largely personal, save for the threat of the Elementals…and I’ll get into that in my next post.
Jake Gyllenhaal turns in a good performance as well.
A lot of the secondary characters, alas, were rather one-note caricatures. Ah, well.
There is a mid-credits scene, and and end-credits scene, and you should stay for both. The first will have a major impact on any Spider-Man stories going forward, and the second will have a major impact on the MCU in general.
The Elementals are a sham - the movie is entirely about Peter trying to balance his personal life with the expectations of being a superhero, and living up to the legacy of Tony Stark. Just about everywhere in the movie is some painting on the wall of Tony’s or Iron Man’s face, looking down at Peter - who just wants to enjoy a vacation with his friends, and tell MJ that he really likes her.
Quentin Beck/Mysterio is the front man for a group of disgruntled former Stark employees, who felt snubbed by Tony. They determine to get the notice and fame they feel they deserve by manufacturing a crisis, and having Mysterio swoop in and save the day. Shades of Syndrome from the Incredibles movie.
The post-Snap world (referred to in the movie as The Blip) is rather lightly touched on; May refers to popping back in to an already reoccupied apartment, for example. Mostly, it’s played for laughs. I get why they did this; the movie is fast and cheerful, and dwelling on the problems of the Blip would have distracted from this and the main theme of the movie. That being, I think, the conflict between personal desires and societal duty.
Throughout the movie, I’d thought both Fury and Hill were being rather credulous of Beck and his claims, and acting a little oddly as well. Very obvious in their machinations, reactive in their actions, with relatively little in the way of planning. Turns out there’s a reason - they were Skrull impersonators all along, specifically Talos and his mate. Fury had spent the whole movie up in space, as revealed in the end credits scene, on what looks like a Skrull-crewed spaceship.
Yah. Like I said, major implications.
Overall, I enjoyed it quite a bit. The adolescent bits were well-handled; I rarely have much patience for all of that, but they made it charming. Performances were generally good, though characters like the teachers were largely one-note caricatures. Pity, but the movie didn’t have much time for them, and that’s fine.
Not the very best MCU movie, not quite as good (IMO) as Into the Spider-Verse, but still well worth a watch. 8/10.
I didn’t think this at all, I really liked them. They were the comic relief a lot of the time, but they did that well and not in an unrealistic way, but very much like teenagers do. There’s no time to delve any deeper into their own lives, but what we saw said a lot, and also played on The Blip factor in a clever way.
But I agree that Zendaya as MJ was really good. Her cool-girl-covering-up-awkwardness was so perfect.
And then he lives up to Tony’s legacy in the worst way possible - he created his own Ultron.
Only Mysterio is an even bigger asshole, and much more clever villain than Ultron…while his post-EDITH destruction wasn’t near as bad as what Ultron managed in Sokovia, he did a LOT worse to Peter.
(OTOH, I’m not sure that his post-death plan will hold up to any scrutiny…also not sure about the Bugle apparently being the MCU’s equivalent of Brietbart.)
Totally called the elementals being a scam in an earlier thread. See, I know Mysterio.
Liked it more than I expected. The MCU has gotten much better with its villains (id say from 2017 onwards they’ve been fairly strong). Shame he’s dead so won’t be teaming up with the sinister 6 anytime soon.
I loved it. It was very Spider-Man and very Comic Book and I mean those both as compliments. Mysterio fights are always supposed to be surreal and we got that.
A few more specific thoughts:
I don’t agree that Peter and MJ had any Chemistry at all. When they kissed it was like she was kissing a second cousin.
When Peter said “Execute them all” I thought immediately that phrasing was strange and would sound bad out of context. Was glad when that paid off.
The audience I saw it with cheered when they identified their universe as 616 even though that turned out to be a lie and they cheered even louder when JK Simmons appeared.
If I had one small complaint, I wished there was more of Spider-Man swinging through the city. I was grinning like an idiot when we got a little of that at the end.
You know a movie is good when you wish you could see the next one tomorrow and that is what happened here.
I figured just from the trailers that Mysterio would be a liar and a villain but they still found a way to surprise me with him having a team of people with him. When the hologram started to dissolve in the bar and there were people still there I was wondering if he was going to kill them…and then I was like wow…
I think they laid on the “look he’s the new Tony Stark” a little too thick. Let Spider-Man be his own thing. He’s been a famous and beloved character for decades and Iron Man has only been more than a third stringer for ten. But I also get it was a theme of the movie so it didn’t annoy me much.
Yesterday I went to the 11 a.m. showing. On the way home, I stopped off for a gyro and fries to go, and I fired up my laptop and had lunch. While browsing, I saw a Youtube review of the movie was up and thought “Huh, the new Spider-man, I should check that ou - waitaminute!”
Maybe it’s too soon after Endgame or I’m burning out on the MCU but yeah, almost nothing about this really stuck with me, even just an hour after seeing it. The main film didn’t move the narrative forward at all - the most significant things happened in the end credits (including the acknowledgement that, whatever else they changed, they couldn’t improve on JK Simmons as J. Jonah Jameson).
I loved everything about it. It falls into the group like Ant-Man that are just fun to watch.
The end scene made me want more right away. I’m disappointed that nothing seems to be firmly scheduled right now. Either there are going to be some surprises or we are in for a MCU lull.
It was the chemistry of two awkward 16 year olds having their first kiss. It was perfect.
In the recent Spider-Man video game J. Jonah is retired from the Bugle and is now on the internet. He’s basically Alex Jones if Alex Jones only cared about Spider-Man. It feels just like him at the end of the movie.
The multi-verse concept is well established in the comics (See: Into the Spiderverse). The main comic book continuity is Earth 616. This is the first time it was mentioned in the MCU.
But since Mysterio is a fraud and from regular earth he would have just made it up. It’s just an Easter egg for the comic book fans.
The Marvel multiverse is designated by the convention “Earth-xxx”. Earth-616 is the main comics universe, Earth-19991 (I think) is the MCU universe, and there’s scads of others. I think every issue of “What If” ended up with their own designation, even the really silly ones.
*shakes fist at Loach Or it might be a hint - he gave the wrong designator for Peter’s universe, and said he was from one whose number I forget, but is the home of Spiderman UK. It’s just so obviously wrong!
And Beck claims to be from Earth-833, which is actually a destroyed universe, coincidentally. (The Spidey from that earth went by Spider-UK, and was also his universe’s equivalent to Captain Britain. He’s also dead.)
