Mark Reviews Movies: SPIDER-MAN: FAR FROM HOME

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Review by Mark Dujsik | July 1, 2019

Of all the superheroes in this so-called Marvel Cinematic Universe, the movies of the current iteration of Spider-Man might be the most tonally consistent. The others have always had a problem of balancing the severity of world-ending, galaxy-changing, or universe-shattering threats and the melodrama of their characters with the belief that superhero tales should be fun. These two entries in the adventures of the newest iteration of the famous web-slinger mostly care about the fun part.

Compared to the concerns of the other heroes surrounding him in this world, the life of a teenage Peter Parker is filled with relatively low stakes. He wants the girl he like-likes to like him. He has to deal with, in the bigger picture, a not-so-tough bully. He tries to maintain his few friendships while going around New York City, usually stopping petty crooks, as that friendly, neighborhood Spider-Man. In Spider-Man: Far from Home, he's just trying to have a pleasant European vacation with his classmates, leaving the Spider-Man suit in the hotel room and hoping to tell the girl he likes that he does really like her.

Next to all-powerful gems and time travel and alien menaces and giant monsters and everything else those other superheroes have to deal with, the world of Peter/Spider-Man is quaint. At this point in the extended franchise, after the fallout of ending that purple alien's plots to halve the population of the entire universe, quaint sounds pretty good. In fact, this second film in the franchise to focus exclusively on Spider-Man feels like the series releasing itself from all that stuff about Infinity Stones and the highest of stakes for dozens of characters.

Here, we again get a story about an ordinary kid who accidentally became superhero. He worries both that it'll get in the way of his everyday life and that his desire to have a regular life is wrong, because with all that power comes a whole lot of responsibility beyond himself. A lot of people want Spider-Man to become the next big superhero, but he isn't sure if he wants it. He is, after all, just a kid.

This sequel is bigger in scope than its predecessor (the Spidey-centric one, obviously), what with all the traveling across Europe, and for a good while, it appears to be even bigger in scope than it ultimately is. Once a major secret is revealed, though, we realize how intent the filmmakers are on having fun with their superhero story. It's so much so that screenwriters Chris McKenna and Erik Sommers are even willing to jokingly take some of the air out of the franchise's recent obsession with turning everything into an end-of-the-world-or-galaxy-or-universe scenario.

Still in mourning after the events of that last adventure with the Avengers and re-adjusting to a return to existence, Peter (Tom Holland) is ready to get away from it all for a week-long class trip in Europe. His big plan is to spend time with MJ (Zendaya), his crush with a macabre sense of humor. At the end of the trip, atop the Eiffel Tower, he'll tell her how he feels.

There's a hitch in the plan, though, in the form of Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson), who needs Spider-Man's help to stop a group of giant monsters that take on the form of basic elements and have been terrorizing parts of the world. According to Quentin Beck (Jake Gyllenhaal), who flies around wearing a cape and a dome on his head as a superhero later called Mysterio, the monsters have, like himself, come from another dimension. If the heroes don't stop the beasts, the massive creatures will destroy this Earth, just as they destroyed Beck's own.

Unlike the other series in this ever-expanding franchise, which often seem to insert humor simply to lighten the mood amidst everything else going on, the filmmakers here are actually playing for and in on the joke. That joke is a pretty good one, too—that an awkward teenager will be just as giddy and uncertain and prone to mistakes in his role as a superhero as he is in his everyday life.

Here, for example, he receives a pair of sunglasses with a built-in artificial intelligence, and his first act with this new power is to try to stop Brad (Remy Hii) from getting in the way of his plan with MJ. Instead, he accidentally unleashes a military drone, set on killing its target. The persistent humor has a foundation in this character, in the assorted new and returning side players, and Peter's constant dilemma of trying to be a normal teen while also having the world counting on him to save it.

The film's most daring move is in its eventual revelation of the motives and methods of the real villain behind what's happening. Those with even a cursory knowledge of Spider-Man lore will be on to the truth pretty quickly, and the actual implementation of that villain results in some cutting commentary on the state of the world (what people believe and why they believe it) and this franchise (Everything has to be big, or nobody will care), as well as a couple of inventive action sequences that have Spider-Man battling his fears and his understanding of what's real.

The villain here is one of the best we've had in this franchise and one of the better we've seen throughout all of Spider-Man's cinematic iterations, but more importantly, Spider-Man: Far from Home is a nice return to the days when superhero movies cared about one superhero, as well as the joys and trials that come along with that role. One imagines this will only be a temporary pause, before some new bigger and worse threat appears but hey, it's nice to have a breather every now and again.

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