What a grueling time it was a few months ago when I reviewed the entire MCU. Well here is the one other movie that was on deck prior to this month’s annual San Diego Comic-Con, when it will be announced what movies Marvel Studios has planned for the future.
As the movie in this transition period, Spider-Man: Far From Home deals with fallout from the “blip”, as the cataclysmic event from the recent Avengers movies is called.
Note: I’m establishing a policy going forward that if you’re reading a post about a movie that is a sequel of any sorts to something else, I’ll assume you’ve seen the previous film(s). Thus, even though Avengers: Endgame is still in theaters as of this writing I’m not going to avoid writing spoilers for THAT.
The movie starts off with the world mourning the loss of the deceased Avengers, especially Iron Man1, and trying to deal with the oddness of some people having been gone for five years while others have carried on with their lives. Peter is someone particularly rattled, not only being one of the people who blipped but missing the man who had essentially become his father. As a result, we’ve flipped from the last movie2, in that Peter, shell-shocked from his experiences, wants to be a normal kid but the deaths/retirements of the original Avengers lead to Nick Fury pursuing him as a new leader.
I do think the Fury character has played himself out – and so has his partner Agent Hill – but it does look to me like they’re being put out to pasture. It’s definitely a new era for the MCU but let’s focus on this film as a standalone entity.
Peter doesn’t feel he’s ready to fill the void left by Tony Stark’s death, but in comes Quentin Beck aka Mysterio. Perhaps Peter will get his wish of remaining a “friendly neighborhood Spider-Man” while Mysterio leads worldwide battles for good. Is that a smart idea though?
I can’t say much more without giving too much away but I will add that Mysterio turns out to have a REALLY cool and powerful ability. It almost gets overused but not to the movie’s detriment. The other reason he’s such an awesome character is Jake Gyllenhaal’s magnetism! In one particular scene, after a big revelation, he knocks your socks off, as that old saying goes. As cool as it would have been to have Gyllenhaal-lookalike and former onscreen brother (in a movie from 10 years ago appropriately called Brothers) Tobey Maguire in this movie as a mentor/rival to the current Spider-Man, I can’t imagine Maguire lighting up the screen to the same extent. I made clear in my review of the last movie my thoughts on him.
I did wind up appreciating Gyllenhaal more than ever though, and it got me thinking about how long he’s been excelling. I felt a little jarred seeing him as the adult meant to take on responsibilities the character played by young Tom Holland wasn’t ready for, as I am the exact same age as Gyllenhaal.
I remember when we were about the age Holland’s playing and Gyllenhaal amazed me with his first starring role in the beautiful October Sky. I also remember when we were the same age Holland really is and Gyllenhaal, in The Day After Tomorrow, played about the age Holland’s playing. Admittedly he looked too old for it.
So does Holland now. I talked last time about how nice it was having an actual teenager as Spider-Man initially, but at this point I hope the next movie has a time jump.
For now we get another story of Peter dealing with puppy love, as it didn’t work out with the girl in the last movie for obvious reasons. Seeing how this one looks we know he has a type, LOL. It’s not just some random dark beauty though – it’s Mary Jane Watson, looking very different from the Kirsten Dunst version.3 The rapport she builds with Peter in spite of a rival named Brad Davis4 is exciting and charming.
Elsewhere in the high school story complementing the one abut protecting the world, Martin Starr reprises his hilariously nerdy faculty member character and this time he’s one of the people chaperoning the teens on their Europe trip.5 Also, Peter’s best friend Ned starts dating a stunning girl named Betty. How he got her isn’t really explained but the arc of their relationship reminded me to an unsettling degree of the one I had with my last girlfriend, LOL.6
Anyway, getting to the point: it’s an exciting film with a lot of heart. Plus nearly a decade after Prince of Persia killed his chance to be an A-list star, it’s great to see Gyllenhaal take a break from indies and electrify such a big movie again.
P.S. This became the first movie I ever watched in “IMAX Laser 3-D”. I was given the gift you see.
Bottom Line: Stellar movie.
1After what I said towards the end of my Endgame review, I was really glad to see Vision included in the memoriam slideshow.
2Flipped due to the blip. A blip flip. Sorry, I couldn’t help it. I know my mom wishes I’d already provided her some grandchildren but at least I know how to make dad jokes.
3Cue the racists getting triggered just like they were with this week’s announcement of a light-skinned black actress playing a previously redheaded character in the new live-action Little Mermaid.
4I couldn’t hear that name without thinking of the ill-fated star of Midnight Express. I’m actually calling that actor ill-fated, not the protagonist for whom things actually turned out pretty well. Maybe I’ll write about Midnight Express one day.
5 I didn’t even pick up on the fact last time that he and the story co-creator I praised, John Francis Daley, were fellow geeks. If you don’t get the reference you’re really missing out!
6 The same movie featuring this romance between Ned and Betty featured one between Happy and Peter’s aunt. Never seen a movie with two different overweight guys scoring with beautiful women. I’ve talked here and here about how such things tend to be sexist fantasies of male screenwriters but at least both romances are age-appropriate. Unrelated to movies, here’s a funny thing that went viral.
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