Spider-Man: Far From Home Review

Spider-Man: Far from Home

Dir:Jon Watts

Starring:Tom Holland, Zendaya, Jon Favreau, Samuel L. Jackson, Cobie Smulders, Marisa Tomei, Jacob Batalon, and Jake Gyllenhaal

Growing up is complicated. It involves shifting attitudes and desires, becoming comfortable and capable with new responsibilities, and often times the destruction and development through awkward phases where self-confidence and self-awareness builds and crumbles with every encounter within every situation. If that sounds terrible, it is!!

Think about all these multifaceted aspects of emotional and physical development and add to all of this an extra special ability, something not provided to the rest of your peers. With this great power comes the great responsibility of having the abilities to save a life, to end a life. Suddenly the algebra test, the big dance, the pep rally, don’t have the same level of importance. 

Director Jon Watts returns to further the adventures of Peter Parker with “Spider-Man: Far from Home”. Taking the story to new territory, this time away from the school hallways and into foreign countries on a class trip, the journeys of the friendly neighborhood Spider-Man grow more dangerous with added hero duties but also more personal as Peter’s two lives converge with greater risks. For a film coming off the heels of a pop culture event like “Avengers: Endgame”, “Spider-Man: Far from Home” succeeds by looking towards the future and offering a glimpse of what the continued Marvel Universe might have in store.

Peter Parker (Tom Holland) continues to go through the trials and tribulations of adolescence, however, the world isn’t the same anymore after the near cataclysmic “snap” from Thanos that altered lives and caused a 5-year pause of life for millions of people…including Peter Parker and many of his classmates. 

Now, the world is trying to return to some state of normalcy, but for Peter, the world will never be the same. Spider-Man is an Avenger, went to another planet in space, helped save the world from Thanos, and, most affecting, lost a mentor/father figure in the process of it all; for Peter, life continues to grow vastly complicated. And, just when things seem to settle down, when Peter has a moment to plan his pursuit of MJ (Zendaya) during his class trip abroad, another terror arrives destroying cities across the globe while a new ally named Mysterio (Jake Gyllenhaal) enters Earth from a parallel dimension. Complications abound.

Screenwriters Chris McKenna and Erik Sommers do a nice job of tying together the major events that have passed since “Avengers: Endgame”, utilizing Peter’s interactions, like a touching discussion with Happy Hogan (John Favreau) or humorous banter with bestie Ned (Jacob Batalon), and general world interruptions, like a funny school news report or foreign television correspondence, to move the story forward. However, amongst all of these world establishing elements is something much stronger, an emotional component that directly addresses the missing piece of Tony Stark whose memorialized visage is a constant reminder for Peter of the responsibility and ultimate sacrifice heroes must make. Most of these reminders are subtle designs, like graffitied walls or physical objects like a pair of sunglasses left for Peter from Tony.

While these components all push the story in some really interesting directions, it does take some overly deliberate time to get these pieces into operational places. For the first 45 minutes of the film, the pacing is a complete mess. Side stories like a romance between Ned and classmate Betty (Angourie Rice) and encounters between Happy and Aunt May (Marisa Tomei) are introduced quickly without much consequence towards the primary focus of everything. Amongst the complications that have overtaken Peter’s life, some of the side stories seem inconsequential in perspective of everything that has happened. Perhaps that’s the purpose, however, that the minor distractions in Peter’s life are easier to handle than the burden of the greater components. That focusing on minor issues that Peter understands how to grasp is better than trying to figure out why threats are constantly trying to tear the world to pieces. It feels like this was the direction being proposed in the early moments of everything in the film, but it’s not so clear.

When Mysterio, a really charming yet offbeat Jake Gyllenhaal, enters the equation, “Far from Home” finds exceptional traction because of some inventive narrative choices but also because it focuses specifically on Peter Parker and the enormous emotional swings that have been affecting his life. In the second part of the film, it becomes obvious that Peter Parker can no longer just be the “friendly neighborhood Spider-Man”, that the world has changed so much for Peter that his motivation and identity will forever be connected to a red mask of a superhero.

“Spider-Man: Far from Home” is connecting a wealth of story ideas to make its ultimate point. In the process, the film struggles initially to find its balance of all these themes, but by the end, the different storylines, whether delicately or forcefully placed, work in establishing a new world and direction for Spider-Man to venture.  

Monte’s Rating

3.00 out of 5.00

Spider-Man: Homecoming Review

Spider-Man: Homecoming 

Dir: Jon Watts

Starring: Tom Holland, Michael Keaton, Marisa Tomei, Zendaya, Jacob Batalon, Laura Harriet, Tony Revolori, Bokeem Woodbine, Jon Favreau, and Robert Downey Jr.

It was the summer of 2002, "Spider-Man" was swinging into theaters under the steady guidance of Sam Raimi. The result was impressive, a comic-book movie that would further define the blueprint of the superhero film. Two years later the sequel would come out, a film that I still hold as one of the top three best comic-book movies ever made.

Fast forward and in a mere 15 years audiences are getting their sixth overall film and their second reboot of the Spider-Man saga. While it would be easy to write this film off, we have seen a version of this story six times already, "Spider-Man: Homecoming" is the first film to be controlled by Marvel Studios; it is also the first Spider-Man film to make the character a piece of the expansive Marvel Cinematic Universe. 

Director Jon Watts, coming off the acclaimed "Cop Car", takes control of the film this time around. Tom Holland steps into the role of Peter Parker, previously occupied by Toby Maguire and Andrew Garfield; the noticeably younger version of Spidey is a welcome arrival, providing a tone for the film that can switch from high school comedy to action summer blockbuster with a simple change of costume. While "Spider-Man: Homecoming" plays all the safe bets and hits many of the same high notes as the earlier films, it importantly tries to add something different, some much needed life into the smaller elements that compose the web-slinging superhero. 

Peter Parker (Tom Holland) is just a kid in high school, he deals with many of the same concerns kids in high school have always faced; trying to fit in, trying to find a girlfriend, trying to deal with the school bully, but Peter is also unlike many kids in high school because he's hiding an alter ego, one that was recruited by his famous friend Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.). Together, and with help from other Avengers, they fought to keep the superhero peace. Now, Peter is itching for his next opportunity to be a hero but Tony is reluctant to give a teenager so much responsibility. Peter, wanting to prove his worth, goes looking for trouble and finds it in the shape of a weapon's dealer with a winged suit named Adrian Toomes (Michael Keaton). 

The film opens with a clever and funny nod to the film "Captain America: Civil War", where Spider-Man made his first appearance in a scene stealing cameo. In establishing the tone for this film, the introduction is perfection; it brings everything within this new Spider-Man universe and the Marvel Cinematic Universe to the current while also establishing the atmosphere for the rest of the film, which is trying to very hard to emulate what John Hughes did best with his teenage comedy/dramas. 

Unfortunately, "Spider-Man: Homecoming" rarely excels beyond the standard superhero movie cliches, however when it does excel the film is genuinely exciting and whole lot of fun to watch. In developing the Peter Parker character the film emphasizes, sometimes overly, that Peter is a kid. This, in the moments when the film transcends, does a great job of creating a dichotomy between Peter and his Avenging counterparts. At the end of the day what makes Peter vulnerable is his age, the fact that he still has a curfew, that he still needs to go to chemistry class, and that he is still fighting to find a place in the teenage world. In other moments, Peter's youth is mishandled and provided two different defining characteristics; instead of making him look inexperienced and stubborn, the way all new superheroes learning their skills would look, the film instead makes him look silly and foolish.

Tom Holland is the best Spider-Man, hands down. Mr. Holland is filled with charm and screen charisma, there is an undeniable likability to this Peter Parker. Part of why this works is because the actor has an exceptional group of supporting characters around him. Jacob Batalon plays Peter's best friend with excitement, Donald Glover plays a would-be criminal who has great banter with Peter, Martin Starr's comic timing is put to great mumbling use as a teacher, and Zendaya has attitude to spare. But the real accomplishment here is Michael Keaton, who plays the winged Vulture as Spider-Man's primary baddie. Mr. Keaton is menacing throughout, playing a disgruntled working man forced to a life of crime because of the Avengers. In one scene Mr. Keaton and Mr. Holland face off in a car, it feels like one of the many tense scenes from Mr. Watt's film "Cop Car" in the way it just simply allows two good actors a moment to chew up scenery. 

'Spider-Man: Homecoming" has its high moments of pure entertainment, but it also has its low moments when it does much of the same thing every other superhero and Spider-Man movie has done already. It's unfortunate because Peter Parker and Spider-Man have such rich emotional qualities. Still, it's nice to have Spider-Man playing well with the Marvel Cinematic Universe, here's hoping we don't need another reboot in a few years.

Monte's Rating

3.50 out of 5.00