Spider-Man Far From Home Review (2019)
Spider-Man Far From Home 🕷️ (2019)
Disclaimer: Will discuss spoilers at the very end of the review
The Story
the movie starts with an emotional tribute to all of the heroes who died in endgame it is truly a loving and heartwarming tribute after the mess that Endgame left us in it was truly appreciated. Obviously the movie is much light hearted compared to Endgame and deals with different issues. Sidenote: they handle the occurrence and the impact of the snap (which they call 'The blip') pretty well, you'll see.
It mostly takes place in Europe as Peter and his friends are in vacation, despite that Peter is recruited by Nick Fury for a task which could be of as high stakes as other Avenger movies. Here Peter gets to know about the elementals which are loose in their world and have already destroyed other worlds.
Here we meet our newest character in the ever extending ensemble of Marvel Casts, Quentin Beck played by the ever charming Jake Gyllenhal. He is introduced as someone who was from another part of the multiverse, which was apparently destroyed during the elementals evasion, which is now gonna occur on this planet's Earth.
Obviously this responsibility to save the world is bestowed upon our protagonist Peter B Parker AKA Spider-Man
This movie truly is a classic Spiderman movie because man does Spiderman suffer in this one, he gets blown up, beaten, stabbed in the back and faces other setbacks while trying to make sure no one uncovers his secret. It is much more intense compared to previous Spiderman movies as the character had to deal with a lot of the problems he hadn't faced in Homecoming.
Most importantly his actions have actual repercussions now, he has to face consequences. He isn't the superhero kid who gets into situations which he wouldn't be able to handle but does it anyway since Tony stark can get him out. In this one, despite having over 80 heroes, it is somehow only Peter's responsibility.
The story is well paced mostly, it doesn't get to boring or stretched out it instead feels evenly paced. The first half is more centered around the premise of the Europe Trip and Peter trying to impress MJ which really was cute and enjoyable (I am a teen). The second half though is completely Mysterio's show. I don't even wanna tell you what he does and who he is but let me tell you this.
If I had to rate him, he would probably be one of the best acted and done characters in recent Spider-Man movies. Jake Gyllenhal really had fun playing him and it shows.
I wouldn't give away much more about the story, as I pretty much loved it a lot, it was well written had good twists and was overall quite well written. Really thought out and tightly packed. It also has call backs to other previous MCU movies like Civil War and Iron Man of all MCU movies.
Story Rating- 9/10 classic Spiderman Story
The Direction and Sound Mixing
Jon Watts really does make me feel like he really really knows how to make this kind of a Spider-Man movie, though he must have guidelines he was still able to bring to screen some beautiful shots and sequences which were so beautiful and well done that I wouldn't dare spoil them.
I'd say for a rookie director whose work I haven't really seen he handles it pretty well. That being said, The characters, the story and the overall Marvel Tone and aesthetic of the movie is pretty similar to other Marvel movies but that doesn't make it bad. It just makes it a bit bit bit bland.
The Sound Mixing and the soundtrack is pretty well done, the choice of licensed music is pretty good to bringing classic songs from the likes of Whitney Houston and AC/DC. The original soundtrack is a mix of the original soundtrack of homecoming with added elements which make it quite a fulfilling experience. The music pumps up your adrenaline during fight sequences which I must say are literally the best in series.
Direction despite being standard was still quite good. 8/10
Sound mixing was pretty good and so was the soundtrack 8.5/10
Special Effects
The special effects in this movie were so brilliant it deserves a watch just for the sequences of Mysterio and Spider-man, definitely amazing work from the special effects departments.
The Acting and characters
I am someone who didn't really exist when the Raimi films first came out and hence despite loving them from pinpricks of memory that I still have of them from earlier watchings, I still love Tom Holland's interpretation of Spider-man.
Most of the characters do exactly how I had expected them to behave from a teen movie which is also light hearted, however, I still found a lot of the things odd with the characters:
Aunt May, I like Marisa Tomei as much as the next guy but damn she is not a good aunt May, not only does the whole cliffhanger of Spider-man Far From Home gets left to be unresolved, since May doesn't really behave in the manner that I had expected her to, she doesn't freak out about having a son-like figure fighting crime everyday, she doesn't feel sad about the fact that Peter could end up just like Uncle Ben, (who barely exists here). Her character is pretty much non existent. I hated that and also the whole Happy and May relationship, Marvel, stop.
Peter Parker/Spider-man; I really haven't had complaints against Tom Holland's portrayal of Peter Parker, he is charming, charismatic yet awkward, sometimes indecisive, unable to decide whether he wants to stay the Super hero that he looks up to or want to be a normal kid from Queens who has a crush on a girl from his class. I do have certain gripes with this character which I will address but that would be later. I felt Tom was great as this incarnation of Peter Parker, he wasn't like the comic book one in certain ways but he still was a good Spider-man. Chemistry with Zendaya is tooooo good and I hate it for that.
Mysterio/Quentin Beck: I really liked this character's motivation, though it wasn't really as related to Peter as I had wanted, I had expected a few things and they did happen, which was kind of sad since I was hoping they would subvert expectations, however they were unable to. Jake Gyllenhal did a phenomenal job bringing this character to life and surely had fun with it.
SPOILERS: His evil scenes were pretty intense which was unexpected coming from Jake Gyllenhall. He plays nice dudes mostly so yeah.
Ned: Ned was absolutely hilarious in this movie and I thoroughly enjoyed Jacob's performance, he really does feel like the kind of best friend that Peter Parker would have.
MJ: I like Zendaya, she is just the right amount of quirky and I did feel that her character had a clear shift coming over to this movie, I had wanted them to take their time making Peter and MJ's relationship but they clearly rushed in on it and it surely was very very disappointing in some aspects, despite that as I have stated earlier I liked her character. Also she has great chemistry with Tom Holland and they should date.
Happy: I was Happy to see Happy get the treatment that he received, I mean him dating May is absurd but I liked the fact that he was able to pick up a broken Peter Parker and give him the exact kind of motivation and words that he required to hear. I liked the fact that he was one of the few people who knew what Peter must have been going through internally.
Now that that is done and I am not discussing Betty, Thomson or Brad since they are barely characters let me move on to the next section of my analysis of this movie.
Gripes I have (things I feel angry about but not enough to dislike this film) Also THIS PART HAS SPOILERS AND YOU ARE WARNED
1.Handling of the Snap;
This was a disaster, the movie did handle how they were going to tell us about the implications of the snap but the emotional handling was absolute garbage. I did not like the fact that there was no amount of seriousness or stakes about the snap, there was no implications of what affects did Tony's death have on Peter. He did seem down here and there feeling bad about Tony but it wasn't explored and I felt extremely pissed at that. It is just like how they skipped the whole Uncle Ben death shenanigans about RESPONSIBILITY. Tony dies and we don't see Peter slowly pick himself there and start to become Spider-man, he is still the kid in the suit, though he has started to experience a bit of the famous Parker Luck now. Tony deserved more than the small joke of a tribute he received, his death should have been grieved properly, not ignored. Peter would probably have been the most affected but there were no signs showing that, it was instead as if Peter had already instantly moved on, he already had a crush on MJ which brings me to the second point!
2.Handling Peter Parker and Michelle Jones/Mary Jane Watson/Zendaya;
You know the one thing I liked about Homecoming? this relationship, they shared a friendly frenemy kind of relationship which was completely overturned and destroyed for the sake of having them romantically involved already. I mean come on Marvel, they should have given him time. The slow descent of Peter dealing with Tony's death and being lost and depressed and then being hit by this new world ending 'elementals' crap would have set a much better and darker tone for this movie. It would have been better.
3.Tone and Marvel not trying to up their game:
Now Infinity War was dark, I liked the fact that Disney was able to do that, make our heroes disappear in a whiff, having a more serious tone and allowing that tone to remain with one or two odd jokes here and there. This Spider-man film's problem is that Jon Watts doesn't know what he wanted to do exactly, whether he wanted to make a movie about Peter coping with Tony's death, or about Peter wanting to be a normal kid and not having to face being the one to carry on Tony Stark's legacy, or maybe about whether he was ready to grow up and accept his responsibility. He tries all and doesn't nail either. This movie is too light hearted and doesn't do justice to Endgame and its implications of the MCU. I felt bad about that. I wanted it to be more serious, I did like the jokes and the cute relationship but I wanted to love them and long for them, not just like them. It was acceptable though.
The Rating
At the end of the day Far From Home was exactly as advertised and didn't subvert expectations, it instead relaxed into the kind of fun enjoyable cinema going experience that most cinema goers would want to have seen after the heartbreak of Endgame, the movie is worth watching and I personally liked a lot of things about it, just not as much as I had hoped for.
It was still awesome, and The mid credit scene totally pissed me off. Also Peter and Mj were too cute and Quentin Beck was such a great jerk of a character.
I would go with a
8/10 - Definitely Worth Watching.
(8 is a fantastic score, I am going to be more strict with my ratings from now on and I would want you to know that I am not going to be handing out 9s and 10s like i previously used to. 8 is a rating for a movie I greatly enjoyed and would remember)
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