This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.
Matt The Snapper’s review published on Letterboxd:
This review may contain spoilers.
Serving as a sequel to Homecoming as well as both an epilogue for Endgame and a set up for the MCU going forward, Far From Home provides a very solid Spider-Man movie that was pretty great. While I do prefer Homecoming just a tad more I will not deny that many aspects are better done here. Tom Holland continues to be just amazing as the best live action portrayal of Peter Parker (no offense Tobey) as he struggles with Tony Stark’s death and becoming a hero all on his own. In many ways this sort of a fresh take on Raimi’s Spider-Man 2 as Peter wants to focus on what he wants as opposed to being the hero that deeply affects his personal life only to learn to step up as “With great power comes great responsibility” (there’s no mention of Uncle Ben here either so don’t expect that). If anything, what I feel the MCU is doing is slowly but surely giving us the Spider-Man that we’re most accustomed to (though still different).
As for stuff it improves on from Homecoming, there are many elements. The pacing and overall structure of the story is a lot better as Homecoming did kind of have a paper thin plot more focusing on Spider-Man hijinks while this film a more focused narrative with a little elements of hijinks. The action is a major step up with a lot more creative battles. Zendaya is giving a lot more to do as MJ as her character feels a lot more fleshed out instead of her one note personality in Homecoming. Not to mention her chemistry with Tom Holland is pretty sweet and awkward (in a good way). Even Jon Favreau as a more prominent role as Happy Hogan.
But of course the true highlight of the film is Jake Gyllenhaal as Mysterio. Now, it was obvious from the beginning that he was going to be revealed as the villain of the film (as Mysterio is an iconic Spidey villain). But you know what? It doesn’t really matter. Of course his lie that he's from another Earth is all a facade through VR and hologram projections. But he’s really an ex employee of Stark Industries who made the B.A.R.F. technology from Civil War who was fired and bands together other former Stark employees (even the scientist Jeff Bridges yelled at in the first Iron Man reprises his role) to be fake heroes. In many ways he’s basically just Killian from Iron Man 3 (who in short is a rip-off of Syndrome from the Incredibles), but what makes Mysterio stand out is 1) Gyllenhaal’s performance (hell he’s basically his character from Nightcrawler set in the MCU) and 2) he delivers easily the most unique Spider-Man villain on screen since Doctor Octopus in SM2. The whole scene where Spider-Man is trapped in an illusion is one of the most visually engaging and best scenes in the MCU as well just Spidey films in general (even Spider-Verse doesn’t have a scene like this).
The events of Infinity War/Endgame are addressed in a very funny way through the Midtown High news at the beginning. And finally, the mid-credit scene id just fantastic not only setting up Spider-Man’s next film as not only is he framed by Mysterio to be a murderer, but his identity is revealed to the world, but the return of J.K. Simmons as J. Jonah Jameson is just perfect. Plus the reveal that Nick Fury and Maria Hill were the Skrulls from Captain Marvel is not only funny but gives a good reason why the two seemed to have acted a bit out of character in the film. I mean come on, seeing the real Nick Fury run a Skrull ship in space is just amazing.
There are however some issue with the film but I’ll just list them off real quick
1. Aunt May is still sort of just an after thought and pushed to the sidelines. I mean her knowing Peter’s identity should be a crucial plot point
2. Some of the effects aren’t great
3. Most of the humor didn’t do much for me
4 the first half-hour is not particularly good and a bit slow moving
I know I’ve wrote about this film more than I should’ve but I did really enjoy Far From Home. Still can’t compete with Spider-Verse and SM2 and I still like Homecoming just a bit more but it was a good time. Even with the Infinity Saga done, the MCU still shows that they still have a plan for the foreseeable future.
