Spider-Man: Far From Home review - Nah, it'll be fine

I've made no secret of the fact that my interest in the MCU is taking a bit of a hit since the big blow of endgame a couple of months back it feels to me like the most meaningful stories already been told and anything beyond this point is just Marvel spinning its wheels trying in vain to keep the momentum going like that annoying guy on a knight always wants to go to one more bar even though it's 3 a.m. and you're fighting a losing battle to hold in the contents of your stomach and your bladder and believe me I've lost both of those battles in my time the point I'm trying to make here is that I didn't exactly rush to my local cinema to see far from home on its opening night neither did I go into it with particularly high expectations especially since homecoming was the most thoroughly safe predictable and unimaginative cookie-cutter example of a Marvel movie had ever seen until that point at least and perhaps that combination of bad experience in general pessimism worked in the movies fever because I was pleasantly surprised when I finally dried to my arson to see it I mean far from home doesn't exactly blaze new trails in terms of storytelling or dramatic revelations it's not the kind of movie that's gonna rock anybody's world but it does what it does tolerably well and in a summer movie season that's generally been kind of [ __ ] and disappointing maybe that's the best we can hope for needless to say I'm gonna go into major plot spoilers here that's what I do so if you don't want to know what happens in far from home go watch something else something else made by me incidentally I apologize for the lack of proper movie footage in this video but this movie was released by Sony and as I've learned from past experience they can be real [ __ ] when it comes to copyright claims much as I enjoy waiting the full 30 days from my appeal to be answered I'm sure you'd rather watch this review while it's actually still relevant so we'll just have to make the best of it anyway with that being said pour yourself a pint of ramen let's begin so far from home picks up about 8 months after the events of endgame the world is getting back on its feet that all the people wiped out by the snap have been restored even though everyone else is now five years older so things are a bit awkward especially in Peter Parker's High School where for some reason they're trying to reintegrate original classes despite the five-year age gap wait what wouldn't those people have already graduated high school by now and moved on to boring on fulfilling corporate jobs that slowly bleed away every ounce of hope passion and ambition they once had or have they've just been hanging around doing nothing for the past five years in the hopes that everything would someday go back to normal did the world literally just stop when Thanos snapped his fingers nah whatever Peter Parker's back in high school and doing his best to move on from everything that happened in end game especially the death of his mentor Tony he's decided that the whole infinity war thing was a bit intense for him so he wants to put the superhero stuff on the back burner for now and focus on just being a regular teenager and by that I mean trying in vain to born girls they don't seem to have any interest in him the object of his affections in this case is m-g although [ __ ] knows why I've had better conversations with Tollbooth attendants because they can't walk away nah anyway Pierce classes all excited because they're going on a summer field trip to a bunch of different European cities Wow lucky them muscular filled trips never got beyond methyl Beach because most of my classmates came from families that treat KFC is nouvelle cuisine it's also the reason my urine still glows in the dark to this day I'm not sure I'm convinced by Peters motivation here you've jumped through interdimensional portals and walked on the surface of other planets mate you've battled Titans and aliens for the fate of the entire universe you've handled an affinity gauntlet and walked alongside literal God's surely maths exams in fortnight is gonna seem pretty inconsequential now anyway they go to Venice first and mgs being annoying and weird as usual and Peter's trying to work up the courage to ask her out but then a magical water monster rises up out of the canal and starts destroying nearby buildings so Peters trying to protect people from the water monster but then a magical space wizard wearing a fish bowl filled with bong smoke shows up and takes it on himself and for some reason Peter wastes all his time and effort trying to stop a church terror from collapsing even though there's nothing and nobody beneath it it's almost like the script writers just needed to keep him busy for a while anyway fishbowl head kills the monster and then they meet with Nick Fury who introduces him as Quentin Beck aka Mysterio and explains the thing we thought today was a water elemental there were three others but only one is left now the fire elemental you see Beck comes from an alternate version of Earth that already got destroyed by these elementals and he's here to stop the same thing from happening again wow this guy almost seems too good to be true according to Beck the last and most powerful elemental is due to appear in Prague in two days from now they have to get there an interceptor or it'll destroy the planet unfortunately all the other Avengers are conveniently unavailable and I'm not kidding they literally say Doctor Strange and Captain Marvel are unavailable and I guess Black Panther is too busy with that community center in Auckland but what about war machine or Falcon or Hawkeye anyone it's become kind of a running joke in these lower tier Marvel movies that the other Avengers never have time to help them out because obviously they could sort the entire thing out in like five minutes and to be fair it made sense in spider-man homecoming because Peter was basically up against petty criminals and with laser guns but now he's in the big leagues these elementals have the potential to end all life on Earth isn't that worth mobilizing the B team at least anyway fury wants Peter to team up with Beck to stop the final elemental and save the world but Peters like nah it'll be fine Beck can handle this himself I guess he's not worried a bit of the fate of the world anymore so he tells fury to piss off any Leafs to try to Bourne mg again good luck with that one son she looks like she'd rather pretend to know something about video games than let you play hide the sausage with her is it just me or does this scene play out like a [ __ ] goofy sitcom ignoring for a moment in the Riddick this idea that anyone in their right mind would send a 16 year old kid into battle against enemies beyond our scientific comprehension the fact remains that Nick Fury is one of the most powerful and experienced military commanders on earth well apart from that moment we'd rather forget and if nick tells you to jump you'd be well-advised to ask how high this really isn't the kind of man you see no to and even if he was the elementals pose an existential threat to the entire planet the thing you and all the people you love live on Peter it pisses me off when movies lay out a simple logical and easy-to-follow path for the hero to walk down only for him to refuse it because the story needs to generate some cheap drama by making him question if he's up to the task Captain motherf lurk in America and never stopped to question whether he was worthy or ready for what he had to do he just went ahead and got [ __ ] done the American Way be more caps son anyway at least Peter doesn't leave empty-handed Tony left him a pair of [ __ ] looking sunglasses that are actually some kind of virtual interface to Edith Tony's artificial intelligence that no manages his entire arsenal of orbital weapons kill drones and can hack any device on earth how many a Isis this guy gone through in the past few years first it was Jarvis and then that weird ol Friday sokovia is going for a ride yeah whatever so when Peter gets back to his hotel he discovered the school tour has been redirected to Prague and everyone just totally goes along with this drastic change of plan without question what's a coincidence so they get on a bus and leave and Peter almost gets them all killed by accidentally misusing Edith but somehow he manages to brush it off and everyone acts like nothing happens well these are truly some of the dumbest most oblivious people I've seen in my entire life your boss almost went off a cliff a [ __ ] armed drone crashed into the road and exploded like 20 yards behind you and ten seconds later you're all chatting and clowning around like you're having the time of your lives [ __ ] off them so they get to Prague and the fire elemental shows up and Peter and Beck fight it and Beck ends up doing some special move that finally kills it but during the battle a piece of it gets blown off and lines conveniently close to MJ who picks it up and puts it in her bag as if this isn't some unknown and potentially deadly piece of alien tech that could explode or emit dangerous radiation or be infected with killer pathogens for all she knows so peter and beck go for a drink to celebrate when in prague a and peters got a real man crush on him he's smart he's powerful he's brave any selfless and sure he's the perfect guy to leave the Avengers know that Tony's gone superior hands control of Edith to him without bothering to learn anything about his personal history or motives and then he just leaves and then Beck starts laughing because the whole thing was just some weird holographic projection because I guess actual bars are in short supply in Prague or something they're not trust me neither are strip clubs or drug dealers the point here though is that Beck's not a super hero from another dimension it so the whole thing was a lie designed so that he could get control of Edith what a barracuda sir it turns out that Beck is actually the leader of a group of former Stark Industries employees who faked the elemental attacks with Holograms and remote-controlled drones so he could set himself up as a hero and now Beck wants to become an Avenger because he's jealous of real superheroes wait what so that's his plan to become an Avenger by killing off legitimate team members and actively diminishing the world's ability to survive existential threats why surely you must realize the other Avengers are going to show up sooner or later and see through his victory especially if he has to take on real enemies that can fight back now whatever superior meets up with MJ and they have yet another awkward conversation and then she tells him she figured out he's spider-man ages ago because she actually paid attention to the fact he constantly vanishes whenever spider-man shows up to be fair it's refreshing to see a movie finally acknowledge how [ __ ] stupid the whole idea of all Riegel's actually is but it's time to get the flop moving again so mg drops the piece of text she recovered during the elemental battle and it starts playing a holographic projection of one of the other elementals and Peter immediately figures out that the whole thing was nothing but smoke and mirrors all along and Becca's a total fraud Wow that was a lucky chain of events I mean if mg hadn't found that projector unit and kept it with her without reporting it to the police and she hadn't dropped her on the ground while she was talking with Peter and it hadn't magically come to life despite being disconnected from its power supply and central control unit and it hadn't started projecting an image of one of the other elementals right in front of them then he'd have been none the wiser to what was happening we're never seen this kind of thing before you know I'm getting tired of Marvel movies relying on contrived [ __ ] like this to resolve their stories like basically the entire third act of this movie hinges on a completely chance event that yields up some vital piece of information that would have gone totally unnoticed if things had played out literally any other way it's the laziest and most contrived way of moving your plot forward because it requires absolutely no thought or imagination it relies on nothing more than blind luck and a complete leap of logic on the part of the hero a smarter script would have had Peter gradually pieced together a trail of clues about Beck through hard work determination and sheer intellect to arrive at his conclusion just in time to act but no why waste time on that kind of tedious character building stuff when we can just snap her fingers and have Peter magically put everything together [ __ ] off film so anyway Beck's gone to Berlin to meet with Nick Fury about joining the Avengers because obviously they couldn't have just had the meeting in Prague where they already were got a squeeze in another famous European city somehow right sure you don't need to go to Budapest for some reason so Peter goes there to warn fury but it turns out to be back in disguise Beck uses his Holograms to confuse Peter into giving up the location of his friends and lure a monster a railway line or a tix a [ __ ] train to the face but somehow he survives this and climbs the board and passes out for the night Wow I know weiter mines meant to be stronger and suffered than the average human and all that but this is some therel 'evil [ __ ] right here I mean that train must have been going at like a hundred miles an hour how did that not shatter every bone in his body and why didn't the driver stop or report such a horrific incident to the police [ __ ] off film so he wakes up in a prison cell in Holland we've all been there may bricks himself vote and flies to London to take on Beck before he can kill NJ and the others with a swarm of drones lost by Edith so he gets there and finds Beck who tries to use more Holograms to confuse him like he did in Berlin but this time Peter uses his spidey sense to see through the illusion and Beck ends up getting killed by stray gunfire so the movie ends with Peter back in New York and he goes on a date with MJ who's still awkward and annoying but then he finds out that Beck uploaded a video before he died that paints spider-man as the bad guy and gives away his secret identity whatever will he do next and that's it that's the plot of far from home so what did you think about it well there are plenty of things that far from home does right so I guess I ought to talk about them first apart from a few glaring issues that I've already covered the story generally hangs together pretty well there are some decent character beats and the pace really seems to drag even though they could have skipped the school bus scene and it wouldn't have hurt the film at all the hologram fights are fun to watch and visually impressive as Peter flails around and constantly changing environments trying to defend himself against imaginary enemies never knowing what's real and what isn't it really demonstrates Mysterio's power as an illusionist and gives us an antagonist this kind of different from most others we've seen with new abilities of his own he relies more on the image of power than power itself that being said the finale starts to rely a bit too much on the tired old Marvel beats we've seen a dozen times before what's that our protagonist has to fight his way through an army of anonymous unmanned drones whose only real power is their ability to swarm in overwhelming in order to reach his true enemy is there no end to your inventive sir lik basically every spider-man movie ever far from home deals with the age-old struggle between power and responsibility and our willingness even our desire to place that responsibility in the hands of a worthy hero someone who can fight the battles we don't want to who can shoulder the burden so we don't have to Peters young and unprepared for what's been thrown at him and like most kids that are in over their heads he wants nothing more than a strong and capable adult to take the reins and tell him everything's gonna be okay he desperately wants to believe that mysterio can be that man and it's only when he's forced to step up and defend his friends that he realizes maybe the true potential lies within himself see it's really not that hard to give your protagonist an interest in art if you're willing to make them act like an actual human being Tom Holland once again proves that he was the ideal cast and choice for Peter perfectly capturing not only the characters youthful energy and optimism but also his self-doubt and teen angst he's a kid torn between two very different worlds still trying to hold on to one even his fate pills and more and more towards the other it's charming and endearing and he really seems to get what makes Peter such a popular character there's been a lot of speculation about spider-man's role in the Avengers through phase four and I think far from home drops some pretty heavy hints about him being the next Iron Man Peter smart and strong but beneath the suit and the technology there's a flawed and very human hero forced to step up to the big leagues even if he's not ready for it Peter doesn't have Tony's Swagger and self-confidence but neither does he suffer from his self-destructive arrogance and narcissism he's a character who has a lot of room still to grow I also have to give props to Jake Gyllenhaal for the way he switches so easily between the charismatic and heroic Mysterio and the bitter and volatile Beck Mysterio is kind of a parody of our old perceptions of superheroes and a reflection of her expectations have changed after decades of comic-book saturation ten years ago you could almost imagine a character like him actually existing as the legit hero in his own movie my only Chris some is that it's never really made clear what his endgame is what does he actually expect to achieve with his plan to impersonate a superhero clearly he's gonna get phoned out at some point all we get is some vague speech about making people listen to him but what does he have to say in that case I mean to be honest this is a criticism I could level at most MCU villains so what mark far from home don't too badly for it but it does kind of irritated me when movies put all their effort into how their antagonists do what they do without really exploring the more interesting question of why maybe that's why I appreciate than a so much one of the things that least some of the fun out of homecoming for me was the character of Mg every time Peter seemed to be having fun this charisma vacuum would show up with some lame attempt at a witty put down or a goofy joke that didn't land fortunately the writers were smart enough to keep her screen time to a minimum so when I find out that a romance with Peter was going to be central to the story this time around I was kind of worried it would drag the whole movie down but as it turns out I was both right and wrong about this yes she's still stiff and wooden and annoying as [ __ ] a lot at the time yeah she still makes [ __ ] jokes that bomb harder than the US Air Force and yet most of the time she acts like her characters on the autism spectrum but every softens shoulder snot smile and laugh and start acting like an actual human being and I can stop gritting my teeth for a while and just enjoy the movie shame it doesn't happen more often really and if nothing else I'll give the movie props for exercising a bit of common sense and having her simply work out spider-man's identity Nick Fury also gets a decent amount of screen time although he seems kind of muted and clueless now and they seemed to play him for laughs more often than I'd like maybe I'm still a little sensitive after the way they totally abused him and Captain Marvel but the scene where he keeps getting interrupted during a big dramatic briefing it was just painful to watch but drink her at you mercury or polymaths ah here you see the reason for Nick Fury's behavior is explained in the post-credits scene well theoretical straw man that post-credits scene was probably one of the dumbest decisions Marvel ever made because not only does it allow them to explain away any and inconsistencies in his behavior but it casts doubt on basically everything his character has done up to this point and I've got this weird suspicion that it was added in last minute for that very reason as for the rest what can I say the soundtracks fun and pretty appropriate for what's going on and there's a nice callback to ac/dc from Iron Man that brought a twinge of nostalgia to my cold black heart from a cinematography point of view it's competently shot and the special effects look great but then what doesn't these days oh yeah I'll have to talk about that one eventually but that's a rant for another day right now I guess it's time to deliver whatever passes from a conclusion a bit far from home at certain previous Marvel videos that the MCU has become the cinematic equivalent of McDonald's these days churning out a range of reliable but predictable products that satisfy your needs but rarely take any risks or make any deeper impressions I also suggested that without the Infinity Saga to tie everything together the series is at risk of running out of narrative steam and haven't watched far from home I can honestly say there's very little in this movie to change my mind it's a decent enough film that's not going to challenge you in the slightest way much like its predecessor it's a colorful undemanding and refreshingly light-hearted effort that kept me reliably and entertained for a couple of hours even if it relies a little too much on humor and the likeability of its actors to coast to an easy victory but once the credits rolled and I walked out of the cinema I'd already pretty much forgotten half of what I just seen then again there may have been another reason for that anyway let's so have for today go away No

Channel: The Critical Drinker

Views: 860,078

Rating: 4.9060087 out of 5

Keywords: Marvel, MCU, Tom Holland, Peter Parker, Quentin Beck, Mysterio, Nick Fury, MJ, Zendaya, Samuel L Jackson, Jake Gyllenhal, review

Id: 8MDmKFddWzk

Length: 21min 47sec (1307 seconds)

Published: Thu Jul 11 2019