(Warning: If you care about what happened in "Avengers: Endgame" and for some reason haven't seen it yet, don't read any further because this review addresses some massive spoilers that are integral to the basic plot of "Spider-Man: Far from Home".)
It's the dawn of a new era for the MCU. Three of the founding members of the Avengers are dead following the events of Endgame- which means someone's going to have to fill the leadership void left by the fallen. Naturally, the first person to get a crack at being one of the new focal points of the most powerful superhero team in the galaxy is a 16-year old high school student from New York City. Like its protagonist, Spider-Man: Far from Home alternates between major triumphs and disheartening growing pains as this mega franchise begins its daunting transition into the next wave of movies.
A raising of the stakes for the teenage webslinger was inevitable after the universe-altering events of the last two entries in the Avengers saga. Peter Parker has been involved in intergalactic missions where the fate of all living things were in jeopardy and now the person he turned to for guidance whenever he had a question about being a superhero has passed away, so making another relatively low-key movie about a bumbling teenager trying to thwart neighborhood crime wouldn't have made a lot of sense.
However, this transition to a bigger scale ends up feeling far too abrupt and the unnatural acceleration of Parker's maturation process as a hero doesn't mesh with how this iteration of Spider-Man has handled the character to-date. Is Parker still making boneheaded mistakes and dealing with trivial issues that his colleagues in The Avengers simply don't have to deal with in the present? Of course. The problem is that those signature awkward high school character dilemmas get overshadowed by a pretty routine "stop massive world domination plot"-which strips the series of its distinct, goofy identity and causes Far from Home to blend in with the merely good movies Marvel churned out with regularity from 2011-2016. Spider-Man's status as an eager, bumbling kid made him stand out and forcing the character to rapidly mature undermines some of the good the MCU has done with their take on the character.
Of course, this transition in tone also could've been smoother if Kevin Feige had tapped someone else other than Jon Watts to oversee this "grown-up" version of Spider-Man. Watts didn't do a great job handling the more elaborate setpieces on Homecoming, and scaling back the humor only further exposes his deficiencies as a director. He treats all of the superhero plot points like a series of stale interludes that were mandated by the studio and while notably better than the "two flying objects repeatedly crashing into each other from afar" trash that dominated Homecoming, still struggles to construct memorable, coherent action scenes. When Parker questions his ability to handle the huge responsibilities of being a globetrotting superhero, it feels like a natural reaction. When the director responsible for bringing his story to life lacks the confidence and enthusiasm to embrace the new direction the series is heading in, it's a detriment that bogs down the effectiveness of the entire production.
Sadly, delving into a lot of the positives of Far from Home outside of the continued success of Holland as Spider-Man and Jacob Batalon as Parker's best friend Ned is damn near impossible to do without disclosing huge spoilers. What I can say is that Jake Gyllenhaal does an absolutely fantastic job as Mysterio, adding JB Smoove to the cast as a paranoid teacher that's chaperoning Parker's class trip to Europe was genius and the barrage of twists that emerge as the story unfolds are not only clever, but have some interesting long-term ramifications for the MCU. Even with those impressive performances and cool left turns, it's still hard for me to not view Far from Home as a solid yet somewhat bumpy start to the post-Endgame worldbuilding. There's a terrific primary cast here and a lot of the quieter character/more humorous moments work very well, these Spider-Man flicks just need a director that can combine the coming-of-age and superhero elements into a more cohesive package before Parker can turn into the clubhouse leader that both the real-and-fictional shot callers believe he can blossom into.
A raising of the stakes for the teenage webslinger was inevitable after the universe-altering events of the last two entries in the Avengers saga. Peter Parker has been involved in intergalactic missions where the fate of all living things were in jeopardy and now the person he turned to for guidance whenever he had a question about being a superhero has passed away, so making another relatively low-key movie about a bumbling teenager trying to thwart neighborhood crime wouldn't have made a lot of sense.
However, this transition to a bigger scale ends up feeling far too abrupt and the unnatural acceleration of Parker's maturation process as a hero doesn't mesh with how this iteration of Spider-Man has handled the character to-date. Is Parker still making boneheaded mistakes and dealing with trivial issues that his colleagues in The Avengers simply don't have to deal with in the present? Of course. The problem is that those signature awkward high school character dilemmas get overshadowed by a pretty routine "stop massive world domination plot"-which strips the series of its distinct, goofy identity and causes Far from Home to blend in with the merely good movies Marvel churned out with regularity from 2011-2016. Spider-Man's status as an eager, bumbling kid made him stand out and forcing the character to rapidly mature undermines some of the good the MCU has done with their take on the character.
Of course, this transition in tone also could've been smoother if Kevin Feige had tapped someone else other than Jon Watts to oversee this "grown-up" version of Spider-Man. Watts didn't do a great job handling the more elaborate setpieces on Homecoming, and scaling back the humor only further exposes his deficiencies as a director. He treats all of the superhero plot points like a series of stale interludes that were mandated by the studio and while notably better than the "two flying objects repeatedly crashing into each other from afar" trash that dominated Homecoming, still struggles to construct memorable, coherent action scenes. When Parker questions his ability to handle the huge responsibilities of being a globetrotting superhero, it feels like a natural reaction. When the director responsible for bringing his story to life lacks the confidence and enthusiasm to embrace the new direction the series is heading in, it's a detriment that bogs down the effectiveness of the entire production.
Sadly, delving into a lot of the positives of Far from Home outside of the continued success of Holland as Spider-Man and Jacob Batalon as Parker's best friend Ned is damn near impossible to do without disclosing huge spoilers. What I can say is that Jake Gyllenhaal does an absolutely fantastic job as Mysterio, adding JB Smoove to the cast as a paranoid teacher that's chaperoning Parker's class trip to Europe was genius and the barrage of twists that emerge as the story unfolds are not only clever, but have some interesting long-term ramifications for the MCU. Even with those impressive performances and cool left turns, it's still hard for me to not view Far from Home as a solid yet somewhat bumpy start to the post-Endgame worldbuilding. There's a terrific primary cast here and a lot of the quieter character/more humorous moments work very well, these Spider-Man flicks just need a director that can combine the coming-of-age and superhero elements into a more cohesive package before Parker can turn into the clubhouse leader that both the real-and-fictional shot callers believe he can blossom into.
Grade: B
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