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Spider-Man: Far From Home

Well, it's been almost a month since I saw Spider-Man: Far From Home and I have to admit, I've been dragging my heels on this one. It's not because it's terrible, though it wouldn't be far off the bottom of the Marvel pool. I think it's a deflation factor. Coming so soon after the Endgame colossus, this just didn't grab anything for me. It might also have a bit to do with my antipathy towards the character of Spider-Man. He simply shits me. Tom Holland is a charismatic, winningly gormless presence but sadly, he's not enough to win me over. That said, Spidey in the other Marvel films has been fun and reasonably interesting but in these stand-alones, I'm not having it.

There's a case to be made that the best part of this film is the post-credit sting. Not the mid-credit sting, though the return of J.K. Simmons is a good move by the Marvelii. The final sting asks some questions and sets up some tasty possibilities for Marvel's fourth phase. The producers are on a hiding to nothing in their attempts to follow the events of Endgame so maybe having a 'buffer' film for people to kind of reset their expectations is a necessary evil. A buffer that has made over a BILLION US dollars at the time of writing.

Some things to half-heartedly note about the film - Mysterio (played a Rizla's width away from ham by Jake Gyllenhaal) is basically Syndrome from The Incredibles. There's the same misplaced megalomania with suspect, but understandable, reasoning. The idea of faking a disaster event then saving the public from it comes straight out of Syndrome's handbook. There are some sweet moments between Holland's Peter Parker and Zendaya's MJ and the wrinkle of Mysterio taking the role of a film director specialising in 'fake news' is nicely worked. Oh, and there's a surreal sequence where Spido wigs out thanks to Mysterio's illusions. Slightly reminiscent of the mind-bending parts of Doctor Strange.

Ultimately though, I couldn't get on board with the whole American high school kids go on tour to Europe bollocks. Too affected and twee for this grumpy old bastard.

See also:

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018) is an off-kilter, multiverse animation rendering of the character(s) and Denis Villeneuve's Enemy (2013) with Jake Gyllenhaal and a different kind of spider (!).

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