SPIDER-MAN: FAR FROM HOME
** SPOILERS **
In Spider-Man: Far From Home, Peter Parker (Tom Holland) goes to Europe in pursuit of "Peter Tingles". He gets them, in more ways than one. Director Jon Watts' sprawling and entertaining follow-up to Spider-Man: Homecoming is also the 23rd Marvel Studios film, the final film of MCU Phase 3, and a sequel to both Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame (whew). That's a lot of weight to put on Spider-Man's slender shoulders, Spider-Strength or no. As such, before Peter and his school chums from Midtown School of Science and Technology, including his trusty man in the chair Ned (Jacob Batalon) and MJ (Zendaya), the girl he has the Peter Tingles for, get to go to Europe, there's some MCU admin to get out of the way. Far From Home handles this irreverently, looking at the events of Thanos' mass genocide from the teenagers' point of view: the Decimation is now called 'The Blip', the dead Avengers (Iron Man, Captain America, Black Widow, and Vision) are memorialized with a video set to Whitney Houston's "I Will Always Love You", and everyone wants to know if Spider-Man is going to take the late Tony Stark's place as the next Iron Man and the leader of the Avengers (if the Avengers are still even a thing).
Of course, Peter Parker can't just go on vacation, especially when the world is threatened by Elementals, other-dimensional monsters made of Earth, Air, Fire, and Water. Not long after Peter and his friends land in Venice, the city is attacked by the Water Elemental and Peter encounters Quentin Beck (Jake Gyllenhaal), a new superhero who no one seems to notice is wearing the most ridiculous costume ever, complete with a fishbowl helmet. The Italian news dubs Beck 'Mysterio' and he takes a shine to the moniker (a lot more than Peter does to Spider-Man's European name: Night Monkey). Soon, Peter is recruited by Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) to help Mysterio save the world from the Elementals. Oh, Beck is from another dimension and the Elementals destroyed his world and now they've come for Earth. If that story sounds like horse shit, congratulations, you've got [insert your first name here] Tingles! Thing is, Peter doesn't want to join in on this world-saving crusade; even though it's been 8 months since he's been to space and fought two Thanoses from two different time periods, all he wants to do is go to Paris and tell MJ he has the Peter Tingles for her.
Meanwhile, even though Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) is dead, Iron Man lives on in his tech and the late Avenger bequeathed his protege Peter a new toy: his favorite sunglasses, which contain E.D.I.T.H. (Even Dead I'm The Hero), an A.I. that gives Peter access to Stark's entire network of weaponry, including killer drones he can launch from Stark satellite. Peter doesn't know what to do with E.D.I.T.H. (besides accidentally use it to kill the kid who also likes MJ) and he dumbheadedly hands the tech over to Beck, playing right into his hands. For you see, Mysterio is not who he appears to be! Beck is actually a disguntled former Stark employee heading up a cadre of disenfranchised fired Stark employees and they all hold a grudge against Tony. Mysterio wanted E.D.I.T.H. to manufacture an Avengers-level threat so he can swoop in and become Earth's new Iron Man. Beck explains this in the movie's best scene: a hilarious speech of pure exposition where Gyllenhaal chews the scenery as he gleefully explains his master plan even though everyone in the room already knows it. But once Peter realizes he's been bamboozled, he throws all hope of his vacation aside to stop Mysterio.
Spider-Man: Far From Home doubles down on everything that worked in Spider-Man: Homecoming. There are more scenes with Peter and his endearing gang of buds, plus their goofball teachers, and there's just heaping amounts more of everything, to the movie's detriment. Even before they're revealed as illusions, the Elementals are letdowns as villains since, as giant water and fire monsters, they're not enemies Spider-Man can fight with his tried-and-true weapons of webs and punching. While Far From Home zips along through gorgeous European locales like Prague, Berlin, the Netherlands, and London, it feels overstuffed when the movie could have been leaner and meaner. Whereas Spider-Man received a new Stark Tech suit in Homecoming, now he has a half-dozen costumes. And while he was mostly operating alone in Homecoming, now he's got tons of help, from MJ, Ned, Nick Fury, Maria Hill (Cobie Smulders), and Happy Hogan (Jon Favreau), who happens to be dating Peter's Aunt May (Marisa Tomei). And while it seems there's no problem Spider-Man can't solve with enough Stark Tech, Peter does Spider-Man-up in Far From Home and the film addresses his Spider-Sense, making him earn one of his classic superpowers so it ends up being the difference-maker against Mysterio's incredible illusions. All the while, Holland easily plays an immensely likable Peter Parker, Gyllenhall is a dynamite Mysterio (I wish there was even more of him in the film), and the whole gang give Americans a good name all over Europe.
There are also big surprises in Spider-Man: Far From Home and the ones with the most ramifications for the future of Spidey and the MCU come at the end. Far From Home's final minutes finally bring Spider-Man to the familiar concrete jungles of Manhattan so that Tom Holland's webhead now swings across the same cityscape that his predecessors Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield did. (Only this time, MJ hates swinging along with Spidey, unlike her predecessor Kirsten Dunst.) After four films (counting the Avengers movies) of the MCU's Spider-Man avoiding the tropes of the Maguire and Garfield films, Spider-Man truly comes home to New York City - and he's hit with a double shock: the return of J.K. Simmons as (a bald) J. Jonah Jameson, who then reveals doctored footage left by Mysterio exposing Spider-Man's secret identity to the world. In the words of May in Homecoming's final seconds, "What the fu--?!?" And this is before the big Skrull reveal that seems to set up Captain Marvel 2. So despite Spider-Man's NYC homecoming in Far From Home, he's now in unfamiliar territory with the whole world knowing Peter Parker is Spider-Man. You might say it's a Brand New Day for poor Peter Parker.
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