As I haven't been active for a good few months now, I decided to review the next instalment in the MCU. Before the third Spider-Man 2 film was released there was a little event called Avengers Endgame that ended the 'first half' of the MCU off, giving us closure for two of their biggest characters Tony Stark and Captain America. A lot of people where know wondering how Far From Home will play out after this event and if the MCU could still live up to its reputation after the release of their biggest film ever (at least at the time of writing this anyway).
However, after seeing Far From Home, I am now able to say that the MCU reputation is still in good hands. This film may not be one of the best Spider-Man movies ever made, but maybe the best standalone MCU movie for a good while. The film takes place a few months after the events of Endgame with Peter's school on a field trip around Europe, Peter (Tom Holland) has plans tell MJ (Zendaya) that he likes her on the trip but however there is a more pressing matter as Peter is called by Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) to stop these new threats from another universe known as the Elementals with the help of the lone survivor of that universe Quentin Beck/ Mysterio (Jake Gyllenhaal) making Peter's plans for the trip even harder to achieve.
SPOILER WARNING:
Now there is going to be some spoilers from here as there is a lot in the trailers don't show, in fact, the trailers show at least the first quarter of the movie. Anway on to the cast of this movie was great, they made us feel invested in their characters and hoped nothing bad was going to happen them and there are some returning characters from other films in the MCU as well but more on those later. Jake Gyllenhaal did a great performance as Mysterio making him a likeable character and a big influence on Peter as he understands what he is dealing with and how hard it can be at times, however, when the big twist, I say big but Mysterio is a Spider-Man villain so its not really comes that he is the main person behind the Elementals, it stings a little as he was such a likeable character and the reveal kind of makes you want to punch him in the face.
Anyway, I said about some returning MCU characters in the film. Mysterio's origin in this film is that he was an ex Stark Industries employee who helped to develop the technology that was used in the conference scene in Civil War which showed how Tony wanted his last time with his parents to be. Mysterio complained to Tony about the name and that he took the credit for his work so he was fired. However, this tech was used to help develop his illusions and making the Elementals. He has a team of ex Stark Industries employees who helped him develop the technology and the character of Mysterio. One member of the team has a scene in the first Iron Man where Obadiah Stane fires him as he couldn't deliver on an arc reactor for his Iron Monger suit. The last two Spider-Man movies have seemed to reflect on the consequences of Stark's actions, with Vulture and his crew in homecoming being fired from there cleaning up sight as it was being taken over by Tony's new Damage Control. Other returning characters include Nick Fury and Maria Hill (Cobie Smulders) and Happy Hogan (Jon Favreau) as well as the Skrull General Talos (played again by Ben Mendelsohn) and a surprise returning character J. Jonah Jameson (played once again by J.K. Simmons).
There are a lot of good scenes in the film with one of them being an illusion trick that Mysterio does on Peter reflecting his failures as Spider-Man such as giving him the technology that could be used to control Stark satellites and that Peter feels he has failed Tony by trusting Mysterio at all, this is shown through a corpse of Tony in an Iron Man suit. This is a good scene as it is visually amazing and it represents the power that Mysterio has over Peter.
There are two new suits in this movie, there is the stealth suit that Spider-Man wears for most of the movie to help conceal his identity a to his school mates as they might question why Spider-Man is in Europe and that Peter is not with them which would make them question is whereabouts. And the upgraded suit which is the Homecoming suit with a brighter shade of red and instead of blue it has black with a white spider logo on its back.
However, there are a few parts of the movie that I felt lacked a bit. Such the Peter and MJ scenes as although they could be sweet it could drag a bit making them slightly awkward to watch at points. And the end credits scene seemed a little bit pointless to include apart from hinting at what the future could look like.
Overall, Spider-Man Far From Home is a fun and entertaining Spider-Man movie that deals with the impact that Tony has on Peter which makes him want to become a better hero like Spider-Man.
I will give Spider-Man: Far From Home an 8/10- a fun film with some prolonged scenes.
