After making his Marvel Cinematic Universe debut in Captain America: Civil War (a movie that made over a billion dollars), Spider-Man starred in three MCU movies—his own Homecoming as well as the next two Avengers movies, Infinity War and Endgame—and also was the subject of a hugely successful non-MCU animated film, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse.
A second MCU film was inevitable, especially since it was a moneymaker for both Disney (who control the MCU) and Sony (who control the film rights to the web-head). The hype on the movie started late due to Marvel Studios wanting to avoid spoiling Endgame (recall that Spidey was one of the ones who turned to dust at the end of Infinity War).
Apparently releasing the movie in 2019 was at Sony’s insistence, which affected the marketing, and also the storyline, as this was now to be the first film after the chaos of Endgame. Planned as the coda to Phase 3 of the MCU, Far from Home was designed to look at the world in the wake of Thanos’s destruction. Returning from Homecoming were director Jon Watts and writers Chris McKenna and Erik Sommers.
After going to a great deal of trouble to establish that Peter Parker is a friendly neighborhood Spider-Man (a theme of both Homecoming and Infinity War), this movie sends Spidey to Europe on a school trip, putting him out of his element by sending him to Venice, Prague, Berlin, and London (as well as his home of New York, plus a small town in the Netherlands).
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Prior movies had already given us the Green Goblin, Dr. Octopus, Sandman, Venom, the Lizard, Electro, the Rhino, the Vulture, the Tinkerer, and the Shocker, but one of the great things about Spider-Man is that he’s got a huge rogues’ gallery to choose from. In Far from Home, we get Mysterio.
First appearing in 1964’s Amazing Spider-Man #13 by Stan Lee & Steve Ditko, Mysterio is Quentin Beck, a special effects artist and stuntman who grew frustrated with the lack of recognition for his work. So he decided to use his skills to frame Spider-Man for some crimes and then pose as a hero who would then bring Spidey in. He continued to be a thorn in Spider-Man’s side over the years, wanting revenge for his early defeats at Spidey’s hands, including joining various incarnations of the Sinister Six. He eventually committed suicide, and several other folks took on the mantle of Mysterio after him.
Back from Avengers: Endgame are Tom Holland as Peter Parker, Marisa Tomei as May Parker, Jacob Batalon as Ned, Jon Favreau as Happy Hogan, Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury, and Cobie Smulders as Maria Hill (kind of). Back from Spider-Man: Homecoming are Zendaya as MJ, Martin Starr as Mr. Harrington, Tony Revolori as Flash, and Angourie Rice as Betty. Back from Iron Man is Peter Billingsley as William Ginter Riva (he was the scientist Obadaiah Stane yelled at in the movie). Back from Captain Marvel are Ben Mendelsohn as Talos and Sharon Blynn as Soren in the post-credits scene. Back from Spider-Man 3 (ahem) is J.K. Simmons as J. Jonah Jameson (the first time a Marvel character from a non-MCU film has reprised the same role in the MCU, and if they want to do that again with Michael Chiklis in a Fantastic Four film, I’d be perfectly fine with that…).
Newly arrived in this film are Jake Gylenhaal as Mysterio, J.B. Smoove as Mr. Dell, Remy Hii as Brad, Zach Barack as Zach, Dawn Michelle King as the voice of E.D.I.T.H., and Numan Acar as Dmitri.
There was a brief moment when it seemed that Marvel Studios and Sony weren’t going to renew their agreement to coproduce Spidey films that were part of the MCU, but that didn’t last long—these movies make too much money, and the word of mouth on the Spidey films was generally awful between 2007 and 2014, thanks to three mediocre-to-awful movies. However, they kissed and made up, and the next Spidey movie with Holland is currently scheduled for a July 2021 release. Watts, McKenna, and Sommers are returning to direct and write, and Zendaya is confirmed to be starring alongside Holland. (Batalon and Simmons better be also…)
“Don’t ever apologize for being the smartest one in the room”
Spider-Man: Far from Home
Written by Chris McKenna & Erik Sommers
Directed by Jon Watts
Produced by Kevin Feige and Amy Pascal
Original release date: July 2, 2019
We open in a small town in Mexico that has been devastated by a tornado. Nick Fury and Maria Hill show up. Hill is skeptical as to what they’re doing there, but Fury says that several reports were that the tornado had a face. Then a creature materializes, and then a guy in a costume also materializes, and the latter faces off against the creature to destroy it.
Cut to Midtown Science High, where a student news program does an in memoriam clip with Tony Stark, Steve Rogers, Natasha Romanoff, and the Vision, and in which the newscasters complain about having to start the school year all over again after they were “blipped” back into existence. But the school year’s over now, and some of the kids are taking a science-filled trip to Europe, including the DaVinci Museum in Venice, and also Paris.
May Parker is doing community outreach and hosting a fundraiser to help those displaced by “The Blip.” Spider-Man is there as a guest, and Happy Hogan also arrives with a big check from Stark Industries. Hogan and May also flirt a bit, which weirds Peter Parker out a lot. Hogan also informs Peter that Fury wants to get in touch with him, but Peter doesn’t want to talk to him. Sure enough, Fury calls and Peter sends him to voicemail, which does not make Hogan happy. (“You do not ghost Nick Fury!”)
Peter talks with Ned about his plan for the Europe trip, which involves buying a blown glass flower for MJ in Venice (preferably of a black dahlia, which is her favorite flower because of the murder), and also sitting with her on the plane and watching a movie with her. Ned prefers his alternate plan of being two American bachelors in Europe.
The initial phase of the plan fails rather dismally. Ned tries to get Betty Brant (one of the student newscasters who is sitting next to MJ) to switch with Peter because of a perfume allergy, but Mr. Harrington overhears and immediately goes into seat-switching overdrive, leaving Peter stuck sitting between Harrington and the other chaperone, Mr. Dell, while MJ is now sitting next to Brad. (Brad is a student who was not blipped, so he’s five years older and now in class with them; he is also very charming and good-looking, which annoys Ned and Peter no end.) Peter has to listen to Harrington carry on about his miserable life, including his ex-wife, who pretended to be blipped so she could leave him. (He held a funeral and everything.)
Ned sits next to Betty, and the two of them hit it off and begin dating by the end of the nine-hour flight, much to Peter’s confusion.
They arrive in Venice at a hotel that could charitably be called a dump. (Apparently Harrington didn’t do much by way of research for this trip.) The kids are on their own for the afternoon before going to the DaVinci Museum later.
While some kids hang out in Piazza San Marco (including MJ making friends with a bunch of pigeons and Ned and Betty being adorable and Flash Thompson doing one of his “Flash Mob” livestreams), Peter goes to a glass store to buy a black dahlia in glass for MJ.
Suddenly, the water starts moving on its own, nearly capsizing the gondola Ned and Betty are riding in. The water forms into a humanoid figure, and Peter left his costume (which he hadn’t intended to bring, but May packed it for him) at the hotel. He tries to fight the creature and rescue people, and is only really successful at the latter. However, the costumed figure from Mexico shows up and dispatches the creature.
That night in the hotel, the kids are watching news footage of the attack, and the kids wonder if this is the new Iron Man. At one point he’s referred to as “il mysterio,” which the kids latch onto as a nickname for him.
When Ned and Peter return to their room, Ned is tranq’d by Fury, who is tired of Peter not answering his calls. Fury gives Peter a pair of glasses from Tony Stark, which link him to E.D.I.T.H., Stark’s latest AI. (It stands for “Even Dead, I’m The Hero.”)
Fury brings Peter to a headquarters for whatever proto-S.H.I.E.L.D. Fury and Hill are involved with now. (It’s never given a name.) Present is also “Mysterio,” whose real name is Quentin Beck. Beck says he’s from a parallel Earth (Peter immediately nerds out over the notion of multiverse theory being correct), and on his Earth, four elemental creatures destroyed it. They then came to this Earth. He stopped the earth and air elementals in Mexico, and they just took care of the water elemental. That just leaves the most powerful one: the fire elemental. If it follows the pattern, it’ll appear in Prague.
They want Spider-Man’s help, but Peter just wants to have his vacation. Besides, he’s a friendly neighborhood Spider-Man. This is a little big for him. Fury is not impressed. (“Bitch, please, you’ve been to space!” “That was an accident!”) But Peter really just wants to enjoy his vacation, and it’s not like he did much good against the water elemental, really—it was all Beck. Besides, if he disappears off to Prague while his classmates go to Paris, his secret will be out and it will ruin his and May’s lives.
Fury appears to agree, but then manipulates events so the school trip gets an “upgrade” to Prague, which they go to by a bus driven by one of Fury’s agents. At a bathroom break, Peter is given a new black costume, so he has plausible deniability when he’s seen fighting the fire elemental. (Brad also takes a picture of Peter while he’s changing clothes in a back room with a female agent. He plans to show that picture to MJ.)
When they’re back on the bus, Peter tries to use E.D.I.T.H. to erase the picture off Brad’s phone, but instead manages to call a drone strike down onto Brad. Peter manages to destroy the drone without anyone noticing.
They arrive in Prague, and Fury at least did right by them in the lodgings department, as they’re staying in a luxury hotel and they each get their own room. The fire elemental is likely to strike soon, and Peter wants to make sure everyone’s safe, so he has E.D.I.T.H. arrange for everyone in class to get free opera tickets, for an opera that’s four hours long. The other kids are not happy about this, as there’s also a big festival in town, though Ned helps Peter out by talking up the opera along with Harrington. (Dell just repeats that this wasn’t his idea.)
MJ wants to sit with Peter at the opera, and he’s devastated that he can’t take her up on it as he has to go fight the fire elemental.
Harrington and Dell both fall asleep within a few minutes of the opera’s commencement, and Betty, Flash, MJ, and several other kids decide to bag the opera and check out the festival. Ned’s protestations fall on deaf ears.
Spider-Man, now dressed in the all-black outfit Fury’s people made for him, is in position, as is Mysterio, waiting for the fire elemental to attack.
Ned and Betty enjoy the festival, though Ned is nervous, and they get on a ferris wheel. The fire elemental attacks right when they’re at the wheel’s apogee, and everyone runs away, leaving them trapped up there.
Spidey and Mysterio attack and try to minimize the damage. When Betty sees someone who looks like Spider-Man, Ned insists that it’s a European ripoff named Night Monkey. In the midst of the fight, a piece of debris lands alongside MJ, who is watching the fight. She snags it. This will probably be important later.
Mysterio decides to make a suicide run by diving right into the fire elemental, but manages to survive, destroying the creature.
Fury tries to recruit Spider-Man and Mysterio both, inviting them to return with him to their Berlin HQ. Beck says he’ll think about it. Peter just wants to go back to his vacation.
Beck invites Peter for a drink at a bar. They talk, and Peter decides that Beck is the person who should get E.D.I.T.H. The note Stark put with the glasses said it was for the new Iron Man, and Peter doesn’t think that’s him—he’s just a 16-year-old kid. Beck is a real hero, and it should be his. He instructs E.D.I.T.H. to add Beck as an administrator and hands them over. Beck acts very reluctant to take the glasses, and refuses several times, but finally takes them.
After Peter leaves, the illusion of the bar drops, and Beck smiles. “See? That wasn’t so hard.”
It turns out that the entire thing was faked by Beck and a team of disgruntled ex-Stark Industries employees. Beck raises a toast to himself and his fellows. Beck developed the holographic technology that Stark demonstrated at MIT in Captain America: Civil War and dubbed “Binarily Augmented Retro-Framing,” or B.A.R.F. Beck was fired shortly after Stark discontinued B.A.R.F. because Beck, he said, was “unstable.” (The rest of the movie will bear that diagnosis out.) But Beck isn’t the only one pissed over Stark giving his tech a comedy name and then dropping it. Also part of his gang are William Riva Gint (last seen failing to re-create the ARC reactor for Obadiah Stane), who built the drones used to do the damage done by the holographic elementals, Victoria Snow, who hacked Fury’s satellites to help confirm the “attacks,” Janice Lincoln, who learned that Stark was bequeathing E.D.I.T.H. to a teenager, and Gutes Guterman, who came up with Mysterio’s backstory.
And now he has E.D.I.T.H. The only way to get noticed these days is to wear a cape and have super-powers, and since they weren’t appreciated while working for a narcissistic man-child, now that he’s dead, they can be appreciated as “Mysterio.”
The school trip (which, to Dell’s frustration, has been very short on science) is cut short before going to Paris because the kids have been attacked twice now and all their parents want them home. They’re leaving on a flight to London first thing in the morning, and then home.
Peter doesn’t want the night to end, and he tells this to MJ, and they go out for a walk. While on the Charles Bridge, Peter says he has something to tell MJ, and she gobsmacks him by saying that he’s Spider-Man. Peter tries to deny it, and when she points out all the times he disappeared and Spider-Man showed, Peter says that that wasn’t even Spider-Man in Prague, it was Night Monkey. That’s when MJ whips out the debris she found, which has the exact same webbing on it that Spider-Man uses.
MJ drops the debris by mistake, and it activates, projecting a hologram of one of the elementals.
Both Peter and MJ realize quickly that the whole thing was fake. Peter admits that he is Spider-Man, and he needs to get to Berlin to warn Fury. Only then does MJ admit that she was only about 65% sure that she was right, and she’s thrilled. (Peter is less than thrilled when MJ says that the only reason she was even paying attention to him is because he’s a superhero.)
They go back to the hotel. Peter changes into his “Night Monkey” outfit. (MJ can’t help but admire how good Peter looks with his shirt off.) Ned comes in, and tries to pass off that Peter’s going to a costume party, but then finds out that MJ knows the truth. (Peter says he told her, but MJ corrects him that she figured it out.) Peter asks Ned to call May and have her call Harrington and Dell to tell them that he’s going to visit relatives in Berlin, in order to explain his absence from the flight the next morning.
Beck is going over footage of the battles, and rehearsing for the big event where a major elemental attacks and Mysterio saves everyone heroically. In the midst, one of the projections is wonky, and Riva says that one projector is missing. Beck has him track it, which he does to the Charles Bridge where Peter and MJ realized what it was. Beck is not happy (and at one point threatens Riva with drones).
Spider-Man hitches a train to Berlin and is picked up by someone he thinks is Fury. It turns out to be another of Beck’s illusions to try to find out what he knows and who else knows. Beck overwhelms him with illusion after illusion, showing MJ in danger, changing the appearance of his costume, having multiple Spider-Men pile atop him, attacking him with a zombie Iron Man that rises from Tony Stark’s grave, and so on. Then Fury shoots Beck, and asks Spidey who else he told, and only after Peter does so, does he reveal that he’s still Beck and it’s still an illusion. It wasn’t even Fury who picked him up, Beck had him the whole time.
As the coup de grâce, Beck maneuvers Spidey to be hit by a train. But Spider-Man is made of sterner stuff, and manages to board the train rather than be clobbered by it. However, once he settles into a seat, he passes out.
He awakens in a jail cell in Broek op Langedijk in the Netherlands, next to four drunk football hooligans (who very generously give him one of their Royal Dutch Football Association T-shirts, because he looked cold). They tell him he was passed out at the train terminal, and they assumed he was drunk. The guard is on a break (talking to his pregnant wife, according to the football fans), and so Peter just breaks the lock and walks out. (He passes the guard, who is indeed on the phone, and wearing Peter’s mask, telling his wife that he has arrested Night Monkey.)
Borrowing a phone from a fruit vendor, Peter calls Hogan, who flies a Stark jet to pick him up in a field of daisies. Hogan stitches up his wounds, and Peter, not for the first time, feels the weight of being “the new Iron Man.” Hogan points out that nobody could live up to being Tony—not even Tony. Stark was his best friend, and he was a mess, and he encourages Peter to not try to be Stark, but to be Peter. To that end, there’s a suit fabrication machine on the jet, and Peter goes to work at it. (As he manipulates the machine with verve and ease, Hogan looks at him with an avuncular smile, as the scientific enthusiasm is very familiar.) Hogan says Peter should do the costume, Hogan will provide the music, and he puts on “Back in Black,” prompting Peter to say, “I love Led Zeppelin!” and prompting all the old people watching to weep. (It’s an AC/DC song, just to be clear. Although Living Colour did a great cover of it…)
Hill detects another manifestation of an elemental, in London. Fury calls Beck, who pretends to be shocked, and says he’s on it.
In London, the kids arrive for their layover, and they get a bus tour of London until their flight home. However, Guterman is driving the bus, and he abandons the bus on the Tower Bridge, where the elemental is going to attack. It’s much bigger than the other ones (thanks to E.D.I.T.H.’s greater resources). To Beck’s relief, Fury says the Avengers aren’t available, so he can “stop” it on his own.
Hogan calls Fury and tells him in code that Beck is a bad guy. (Beck is tapping Fury’s phone, so the call just sounds like Fury telling Hogan to fuck off.) Peter watches the “Flash Mob” videos to find out where his classmates are, and finds out that they’re on the bridge. Before heading there, Peter gives Hogan the black dahlia flower and says to give it to MJ if something happens to him.
Spider-Man dives right into the elemental, where he finds himself in a sea of drones, which he then sabotages. Beck is livid, trying and failing to reassert control. The hologram dissolves, and now it’s obviously a bunch of drones attacking London.
Spidey asks Hogan to save his friends, and he lands the jet near where MJ, Flash, Betty, and Ned are. (“I work with Spider-Man,” Hogan says. Flash’s eyes go wide and says, “You work for Spider-Man?” “I don’t work for Spider-Man, I work with Spider-Man!”) Beck then blows up the jet, so Hogan instead leads them into the Tower of London, where they have to defend themselves against one of the drones. MJ has a mace and Hogan a shield, which he tries and fails to throw at the drone. (“How does Cap do that?”) Each of them wind up confessing something (Betty that she has a fake ID; Flash that he’s wasted his life with his stupid videos, though Hogan reassures him that Spidey found them because of those stupid videos; Hogan that he’s in love with Spider-Man’s aunt).
After fighting many many drones, Spider-Man tracks Beck down on a bridge and confronts him. Beck orders the safeties off the drones—they hold their fire on the bridge because of Beck’s own proximity—and they fire more wildly, which results in Beck himself being shot several times, eventually succumbing to his wounds. Peter retrieves the glasses from Beck and orders E.D.I.T.H. to stand down.
Riva, seeing the writing on the wall, runs off with a jump driving containing all the data on their little escapade.
MJ finds Peter, mace still in hand, but is relieved to see that the day is saved. Hogan gave MJ the flower, but it’s broken; however, MJ says she likes it better that way, and they kiss.
The kids fly home. Ned and Betty have ended their relationship amicably on the flight home, to Peter’s further confusion. May meets Peter at the terminal and later he sits down with May and Hogan to try to find out what’s going on between them—and it turns out that they’re not even sure, as they each have a very different idea of what their relationship is.
MJ and Peter go on a “date,” which involves her swinging around the city with him. She’s overwhelmed and, while she’s grateful, she also never needs to do that again.
A news story comes on over the jumbotron at Penn Station: Beck recorded a message before he died which, aided by footage doctored by Riva, makes it look like Spider-Man was responsible for the drone attacks on London and Mysterio’s death. Beck also reveals that Peter is Spider-Man. This scoop is presented by J. Jonah Jameson of TheDailyBugle.net.
Peter is, to say the least, devastated, especially since Jameson includes a picture of Peter’s face.
Meanwhile, we learn that the people we thought were Fury and Hill were actually the Skrulls Talos and Soren. Talos contacts Fury, who is apparently on a space ship or space station or some such. Talos explains that he did give the glasses to Parker like Fury told him to, but he had to bluff his way through a lot of it because he didn’t actually know where any of the Avengers are, and they kind of screwed up with Beck.
“I think Nick Fury just hijacked our summer vacation”
Far from Home is serving two purposes, and while it balances those purposes well, and is enjoyable as hell, it leaves me a bit disappointed in the end. Not overwhelmingly so, just wishing for more in both instances.
One purpose is the fallout from Endgame. Big-picture, we see the nightmare of people reappearing five years after they disappeared while the world moved forward without them, in particular with classmates and relatives who are all five years older while you haven’t changed. There are also the housing and job issues, which we see May in the midst of, working to help place people who’ve been so aggressively displaced.
The thing is, it’s not even close to enough. There are limits as to what can be done about this sort of thing in a series that only does two or three two-hour movies a year. This is where a TV series or, y’know, a monthly comic book is a better storytelling medium for superhero stories, because the deep consequences can be explored. It’s not a coincidence that the fallout from the Sokovia Accords was best shown, not in any of the MCU movies, but on Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.
Closer to home, we’ve got the more direct fallout of Tony Stark’s death, and his naming of Peter as his heroic heir. Throughout his comics history, Peter Parker has sometimes been at a low ebb and given up the mantle of Spider-Man, most famously in the historic “Spider-Man No More!” tale in Amazing Spider-Man #50 (which Sam Raimi did a version of in Spider-Man 2). Far from Home does a lovely job of riffing on that—Peter doesn’t actually give up being Spider-Man, but he does hand off Stark’s legacy, as those are jet-powered boots he doesn’t feel worthy to fill. He’s just a friendly neighborhood Spider-Man, not a guy who saves the world.
This is, of course, a total disaster, and it’s amusing in that it’s utterly predictable and still a well-played surprise, all at the same time. It’s predictable because Mysterio first showed up in 1964 as a villain, and he’s never been anything but that.
However, just a few months ago, we had Captain Marvel, where the Skrulls—who have never been anything but antagonistic since they showed up in Fantastic Four #2 in 1962—turned out to be sympathetic and victimized and (somewhat) friendly. So anyone who’s been keeping up with the MCU has already had those expectations upended. (The post-credits revelation about Fury and Hill is an amusing coda to that ambiguity about Beck; more on that in a bit.) On top of that, Beck is supposed to be from an alternate timeline, something that just played a big role in Endgame, so it’s possible that this is the equivalent of a Mirror Universe Mysterio, where in the other world he’s a hero.
Those doubts linger right up until that wonderful scene in the bar, where Beck toasts his team after having tricked Peter. Beck wants to be the next big celebrity hero, never mind that you become a famous superhero by saving people, not endangering them, certainly not by blowing up a bus full of high-school kids…
The best part of Beck’s long con is that his gaggle of disaffected Stark employees is rooted in the MCU’s history. The continuity hits from Iron Man and Civil War enhance the experience, and give much more texture to Beck’s campaign beyond “crazy guy wants to be famous.”
Having said all that—I felt like an important part of Spider-Man’s character was missing here. We all know that with great power comes great responsibility, and nobody feels that responsibility more than Spider-Man. It feels like he has to learn a lesson he’s already learned several times over in this movie—I just didn’t buy that the Spider-Man I’ve been reading in comic books and watching on various TV shows and movies since the 1970s would even hesitate to help out when Fury asks him, much less out-and-out refuse. Hell, forget that—I don’t buy that the Spider-Man who sat by his phone waiting for a call from the Avengers, and who stowed away on Ebony Maw’s ship, would refuse to help Fury, Hill, and Beck stop the elementals.
On the other hand, one of the things I like about this movie (and its predecessor) is that Peter and his fellow Midtown High students act like teenagers—not what grown-up screenwriters vaguely remember teenagers acting like, but actually like stupid, judgmental, petty, silly teenagers with overexaggerated senses of their own importance, an inability to think things through, and a certain simple (but not simplistic) view of the world. And there’s an argument to be made that Peter just wants one break, one vacation where he doesn’t have to save the city or the world or the universe.
The movie also takes Spidey out of his element, which is both appealing and not. The location shooting is gorgeous—I will never object to anything taking place in Venice, one of my favorite locales in the world—and it continues the MCU’s tendency toward more global thinking. (See also, Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk, Iron Man 2, Captain America: The First Avenger, Avengers, Thor: The Dark World, Avengers: Age of Ultron, Captain America: Civil War, Doctor Strange, Black Panther, and Avengers: Infinity War, all of which have significant chunks of story taking place in Earthly locales that are not the United States.)
But I also feel like we’re missing bits of what makes Spidey wonderful here. Probably the most quintessential Spider-Man scene written for this movie didn’t even make the final cut—it’s redone as a short film as a home video extra, “Spider-Man’s To-Do List,” and includes Peter going down a checklist of things he has to do before vacation, including getting a dual headphone adapter, picking up his passport (“Peter Parker here to pick up a passport, please,” and I wonder how many takes that took…), selling some action figures so he can buy MJ’s present, and stopping the Manfredi gang. The banter between Spidey and the cops is epic, and that whole sequence is magnificent from start to finish, and I hate that so perfect a Spider-Man bit was deemed too inconsequential to even be in the final movie. If you’re telling Spider-Man stories, you make room for scenes like that.
The movie does, at least, continue Homecoming’s excellent work in showing the real-world consequences of life in the MCU, whether it’s Peter offhandedly mentioning that Thor went from being a myth to being someone they study in physics class, or the menu of in-flight movies Peter has to choose from: The Snap (with a picture of the infinity gauntlet as the movie poster), Finding Wakanda, Hunting Hydra, an episode of Nova that features Dr. Eric Selvig, and a documentary about Stark’s life called Heart of Iron.
As is typical for the MCU, whatever plot problems there may or may not be, there is nary a bad performance. Tom Holland is just as stellar as he has been in his other four appearances, Zendaya is superlative, playing MJ as the Goth chick who is struggling with her own attraction to Peter as much as he is with his to her, and both of them are too buried in their own teenage angst to figure it out for most of the movie (though tellingly, MJ manages to break through it first). And just in general, MJ is a delight; her waxing rhapsodic over the word “bo” is epic. Jacob Batalon is back for more as Peter’s best friend Ned, and he remains the best, and Tony Revolori manages to make Flash Thompson even more annoying with his “Flash Mob” videos, and yet also makes him real with his love of Spider-Man and his disappointment that his mother couldn’t be bothered to meet him at the airport. Jake Gylenhaal continues the MCU tradition of the person who seems to be friendly and turns out to be evil that goes all the way back to Obadiah Stane in Iron Man. He also nicely plays the character’s instability and psychopathy, although you gotta wonder about the fact that this large group of disgruntled ex-Stark employees are all okay with blowing up a bus full of high school kids just because their dead boss was a douche. (Having said that, I love that Mysterio’s costume design is basically the character’s comics look, but also uses elements from the movie versions of Thor, Doctor Strange, and the Vision—it very much comes across as a test-marketed superhero outfit, which is perfect for what Beck is doing. I also really really really love that one of Beck’s gang is a writer who comes up with his outlandish superhero origin story.)
And then we get the mid- and post-credits scenes. These scenes tend to range from cute little Easter eggs to important plot points to self-indulgent nonsense. The two in Far from Home are both of critical import, as we get J. Jonah Jameson—played by J.K. Simmons, YAY!—doxxing Peter Parker and the revelation that the Fury and Hill we’ve seen for the whole movie—who have seemed rather off-kilter all throughout—aren’t actually Fury and Hill, but Talos and Soren. In a movie filled with great performances, I’m particularly impressed with Samuel L. Jackson and Cobie Smulders, as they play Fury and Hill as just a wee bit off. It’s beautifully done. There are even hints, from Hill calling Fury “Nick” (after it was a plot point that he hates being called that in Captain Marvel) to “Fury’s” reaction to Peter asking if Captain Marvel is available by saying, “Don’t invoke her name.” It’s subtle, but that’s not the way Fury would say it—however, it’s totally the way Talos would, and it’s the only time the Fury mask drops and Talos comes out. Which only makes sense, given how much Carol Danvers means to him.
For all that I’ve criticized the movie, it’s still tremendous fun, a perfectly balanced mix of adventure, heroism, angst, youth, and fun. Spider-Man has always been one of the younger of Marvel’s heroes, with all the amusement and baggage that comes with. It’s not perfect, but it’s fun and delightful and enjoyable, and I gotta say, I totally cheered when Peter and MJ kissed.
Next week, we’ll start our look at the non-MCU 2019 releases, starting with Shazam!
Keith R.A. DeCandido has a story in the new anthology Across the Universe: Tales of Alternate Beatles, edited by Michael A. Ventrella & Randee Dawn, and which features a bunch of stories showing alternate versions of the Fab Four. His story “Used To Be” has them as adventurers in an epic fantasy setting. Check it out!
As frequently happens, I don’t have a lot to add to your comments; I agree with everything you said, especially wanting to know more about how the Snap affected people’s lives. The only thing I’ll contribute is that even though I still believe that Batalon is playing Ganke Lee, not Ned Leeds, and this is a hill I will die on, it was a clever note that they put him together with Betty Brant, since Ned and Betty were a canonical couple in the comics, until Ned was killed in Berlin in the 80s, which gave me a momentary fear for the character here, but fortunately Ned didn’t go to Berlin.
I only hope future movies in this universe don’t forget that for all his bluster and bad traits Jonah’s supposed to be a layered, complex guy who actually believes he’s doing the right thing, stubborn as he can be about admitting his mistakes.Far too often, adaptations make him into a onedimensional, shallow zealot, and I don’t think this stinger made me think too highly of him in this regard.
I love that this move tackled Peter’s difficulty balancing his two lives, and how much it costs him, it’s such a central part of his character, and I think it did so far more convincingly that previous movies have. On the other hand, I agree that it’s really hard to believe that Spider Man would just flat-out refuse to help save the world from immanent destruction.
I didn’t entirely buy the “I don’t know where the avengers are” excuse that Talos/the writers gave us to justify Peter having to do this on his own, since I’m pretty sure some of them must own televisions…
I loved seeing J. K. Simmons again, there’s nobody else that could possibly play the role as well as he does, but it’s not entirely true that he’s the first non-MCU actor to reprise a role, since Sam Jackson as Nick Fury originated in the comics.
All in all, I felt this was one of the weaker MCU movies, and weaker than its predecessor. My blog review:
https://christopherlbennett.wordpress.com/2019/07/24/spider-man-far-from-home-thoughts-spoilers/
Excerpts:
I found most of the humor here clunky and mediocre, or a bit forced when it came to the antics of the teachers. And the romantic plot was pretty much totally devoid of tension or suspense, because it was pretty obvious that MJ was into Peter too and wasn’t into Brad, and it was less a question of “Can our hero overcome obstacles to win the girl of his dreams?” as “When will our hero catch on that she’s already chasing him?” — with the only obstacle being his own slowness on the uptake.
…
Unfortunately, the central MacGuffin around which the plot revolves is where the movie failed to earn my suspension of disbelief. The EDITH system is just far too powerful and destructive a thing for Tony Stark to leave to a high school kid, no matter how much he trusts him. Back in Homecoming, we saw that Tony equipped Spidey’s suit with a ton of “training wheels” limitations that wouldn’t unlock until he’d proved himself responsible enough to use them. The lack of any such precautions on EDITH is contradictory and out of character. Even granted that Peter’s earned Stark’s trust by now, you just do not build a highly lethal automated weapon system without putting in a ton of failsafes and redundant authentication checks. You don’t build it so completely devoid of safeguards that it almost kills a teenager because of a verbal misunderstanding. You don’t build a system that treats maximum lethality as its default setting in the absence of clarity. Tony Stark was famously irresponsible, sure, but not this irresponsible, not this reckless and cavalier about technology of this level of lethality. The whole EDITH concept was just bad plotting, a ludicrous and poorly thought out notion that pulled me out of the film.
Maybe it could’ve been better if EDITH hadn’t been so lethal. Drop the completely unfunny sequence where Peter almost kills his classmates with the first drone — that was just a horrible idea. The whole defining theme of Peter Parker’s narrative is responsibility, and having him so cavalierly make a mistake that almost murders his romantic rival undermines that deeply for the sake of an ill-conceived joke. Give EDITH more safeguards, and have it default to nonlethal options (Tony was supposed to be a hero, after all, not a mad scientist), requiring extra verification to escalate to more destructive methods. Have Beck’s tech people hack the system once he acquires it, breaking those safeguards. They’re ex-Stark employees, so some of them could’ve been involved in programming EDITH in the first place. Then have them modify the drones to be more lethal. Then you wouldn’t have the disturbing scenario of Tony Stark handing total control of a thousand kill-first drones to a 16-year-old kid.
For that matter, I just realized there’s an inconsistency in the premise. Beck’s team was able to fake the mass destruction of the Elementals before they had EDITH, so they already had some pretty darn powerful killer drones. So why the hell did they need EDITH? What did it really gain them that they didn’t already have, besides volume? Egad, so not only does the MacGuffin make no damn sense, but there’s no real reason for the villain to be so eager to obtain it.
Unfortunately, this is the movie we got, and we’re stuck with it. As flawed as the story is, the execution was good as far as the action went. Some of the character work was satisfying; Peter was pretty much in character, and MJ was more likeable this time now that we got to see her softer side. I particularly liked the close relationship that’s grown between Happy Hogan and Peter, a nice change from the icier relationship in Homecoming. They’ve both turned to each other to fill the void left by Tony. I think this may be Happy’s biggest role yet in an MCU film, and it’s ironic that it’s not in an Iron Man film.
But I do wish the film had given us more of Spidey’s life in New York. I read that several such scenes we glimpsed in the trailers, of Spidey catching thieves just like flies and bantering with the cops about doing their job for them, were cut because the director thought the film had too many beginnings. But seeing the film with that knowledge, I feel the opening was too abrupt and cursory, and those scenes should’ve been left in. Seeing Peter’s early cockiness would’ve made it more potent when we saw him start to be overwhelmed by the public’s demand that he fill Iron Man’s boots; without that groundwork being laid, it doesn’t have as much impact. Plus it would’ve given us a bit more of Spidey just being Spidey in New York before getting to the out-of-his-element stuff in Europe. I know they’re putting those scenes on the Blu-Ray as a short film, but the movie itself feels incomplete without them. If they thought the film had too many beginnings, they could’ve ditched the opening “school news broadcast” sequence, which was a mildly cute but (again) stilted way of conveying exposition that was given in dialogue elsewhere. (Also, why are they doing a retrospective of “the Blip” 8 months after it happened? Why 8 months?)
@1/Brian: No need to die on hills; he’s playing an MCU character who is an amalgam of Ned Leeds’s name and Ganke Lee’s personality. Much like how the DC Animated Universe Dick Grayson was an amalgam of Dick Grayson and Tim Drake, while the DCAU Tim Drake was essentially Jason Todd. And every live-action Barry Allen is basically Wally West. This has happened before and it will happen again.
Also, I found it slightly convenient that all 4 main characters from Peter’s class in Homecoming happened to get blipped out…
Sorry to be picky but doesn’t the finale take place on and around Tower Bridge and not London Bridge? Also, I think it was a Tulip field.
I really liked that little bit of Flash finding out his family can’t be bothered to pick him up. He is irritating but I do like him as a character and that bit really made me feel sorry for him.
I did mostly enjoy this one, although I think I preferred Homecoming.
My biggest problem is that I’m not often a fan of “illusionist” villains in movies, at least ones operating at this kind of tech level, because it feels like a bit of a cheat — a way to have really insane stuff happening onscreen but none of it is “real” so you don’t have to try to justify or explain it all that much; and as somebody sitting in the audience, you don’t necessarily have any indication that something is supposed to be unreal until the big revelation.
But maybe that’s just me.
I did love all of the Peter & MJ & Ned & Betty stuff; especially when Peter & Ned are discussing his plan to buy a black dahlia and they’re both matter-of-factly agreeing it’s because of the murders.
Great review as always, krad. I’m wondering how they will handle the third one. It would be great to see Peter and Ned go underground for a little bit and maybe find a friend in Harley from Iron Man 3 to fill in for the Tony relationship much how Happy was used in this film.
@@.-@ – I definitely agree with you about EDITH/the drone strike. I didn’t find that element (or really any of the ‘Brad’ tension) to be that entertaining at all. The tension (and chemistry) between Peter and MJ would have worked just fine without a ‘rival’ which seems to always have to be the case in romance plots. Plus I just am generally not a fan of ‘near-death’ (especially involving cars!) incidents.
Not much to add though – I didn’t like this one as much as Homecoming (which is probably in my top 3 favorite MCU movies), but I enjoyed it. I also can’t help but laugh at yet another Tony Stark created villain (although it does stretch believability that ALL of these people are literally willing to murder children because they hate their boss. I get it, Stark was flawed, but yeesh.)
Also, in the midst of all the humor/adventure, I find both Flash and Mr. Harrington to be some of the saddest characters on screen. I’d actually like to see Flash get a little more development as well. There was also a bit when Peter was looking at the text messages where it’s clear he’s trying to get in touch with his mom but nobody is replying back.
I may have squealed a bit when I saw JK Simmons.
This movie confirmed for me that Marvel should have gone for a hard reset in Endgame. The stuff about the blip was cute but didn’t really do the idea justice. Since they were going to just slide the aftermath under the carpet, they should have committed to undoing it completely.
I loved the subtlety of characterization in this movie. Nick Fury made me angry through the whole movie, until the credit scene. And then, like you, I was super impressed by Mr Jackson’s brilliant performance.
One of my very favorite things about this movie, that your article didn’t mention at all, was Peter finally finding his Spidey-sense. I have loved Tom Holland’s performance as Peter, but always found that his physicality as Spider man was a bit off. After the scene where he closes his eyes and trusts to his newly developing “Peter Tingle” (Teehee!), which was so incredibly good, you watch his physicality when he’s flying around the city with MJ, and it’s there. He’s Spiderman for real now. So subtle, so good.
I also loved how hard Peter tried to just be a kid for a week. Not a hero, not even the Friendly Neighborhood Spiderman. He just wanted to be Peter, and spend time with his friends and maybe tell the girl he likes that he likes her. I felt that, on a visceral level, and had no issue with him trying to stay away from Fury, and even turning him down. We never saw Holland’s Spidey Origin, with the death of his uncle and the lesson of “great power and responsibility”. We assume that’s how it happened…but what if this, with E.D.I.T.H., was the lesson, and he passed through this crucible, even after all the exceptional stuff he’s already gone through (srsly, a poor 16 year old kid dies on a dying planet, so very far from everything he’s ever known, and we expect him to stand right back up and be keen to step into the hero’s boots again? The first time Mysterio crushed Peter with his illusions, my heart broke for Peter and I ugly cried.) I also loved the talk with Happy Hogan, and how we finally start really seeing the science nerd, (not just the pop culture nerd who had a date with his best friend to put a Lego Millenium Falcon together. But a big brain in his own right.) Again, it was subtle, but so good.
I don’t have the history with the comics, I have read some, but the MCU is obviously it’s own universe, and I loved this movie, and I cannot wait to see what they do with the next one, now that we finally have a fully real Spiderman.
Yeah, I liked Homecoming more overall. And I agree they should’ve just done a hard reset of the Snap instead of keeping the 5-year time jump.
But if nothing else, it was worth it for the talk between Happy and Peter in the jet while they were in Holland. As with his final scene in Endgame, I liked the subtext there that it wasn’t so much Happy saying goodbye to Tony as it was Jon Favreau.
I’m definitely interested in seeing where Fury goes in Phase Four. If I’m right, the MCU may be running with the ‘Avengers World’ idea that was such a cornerstone of Jonathan Hickman’s Avengers run. It would make sense that Fury, Talos, and others would want to ensure that the cosmos isn’t caught unprepared for another Thanos-level crisis again.
@10 & 12: What would be the point of doing something as big as the Snap and then just erasing it with zero consequences? That would be worse than the cursory examination of consequences they did here. After all, they have a bunch more movies upcoming to let them explore the consequences further, and the Disney+ shows may delve into it too.
The worst thing you can do with time travel is use it as a cheat, an easy out from a story challenge. Stories are about consequences, or they should be. Events should have aftermath that can’t be easily erased with a convenient plot gimmick. Anything powerful like time travel or magic or alien technology or whatever should be used to create complications for the characters, not to spare the writer from having to deal with complications.
I also think Peter should be cut some slack on not wanting to get involved into any big heroic stuff still this soon after Endgame. Even in the comics the young Peter would, more or less regularly, want to stop being a hero and throw the towel, that’s a classic aspect of the character, the “Spider-Man no More!” thing. Granted, he always comes back just as quickly, but still.
Add to that this version of young Spider-Man has lost two parental figures in a row (Ben and Tony), has just gone through a cosmic war and was effectively killed and brought back. That’s even more stress than what Comics!Peter had gone through at that age. If anything he’s taken it all remarkably well, Ditko’s Peter would probably have snapped hard from something like this.
@@@@@ 4 / CLB: I agree with you that amalgam characters are common in adaptations, and Barry Allen is an excellent example. My objection in this particular case is that you have a character who looks and acts exactly like Ganke Lee…with a white guy’s name instead, with no qualities of Ned’s character at all. It’s entirely reasonable in 2019 for Peter Parker to be best friends with Ganke, so the only reasons I can come up with for the name change are: a) they want to “save” Ganke for a potential future movie with Miles Morales, but I don’t think that’s working, because any Ganke would be too similar to “Ned”; b) they wanted to stick entirely to characters from the 1963 run…in which case, don’t use Ganke, because Peter Parker didn’t have a best friend in 1963; or c) Executive Meddling based on fear that audiences wouldn’t click with a character named “Ganke Lee.”
I like Far From Home better than Homecoming, and I think it has to do with the teen movie aspect more than the super heroics. In Homecoming, Peter has a crush on Liz, but I don’t fully buy it. I can’t believe that she would go to the dance with him. The relationship with MJ feels far more real to me and I just plain like her more.
Also, I wish there was *less* time spend in this movie about the blip. Maybe there needed to be consequences for it shown (personally, I think Endgame was more than enough) but why pollute a Spider-man movie with that? Those kinds of reactions belong in something more core MCU, or cross movie, like the Avengers.
@13 / CLB: What I meant to say (and didn’t articulate well) was what Keith was saying in his review about how the future films could only do so much explore the societal rebuilding / logistics so much. The upcoming Disney+ shows at least potentially have a chance to ameliorate that somewhat in the same way, as Keith said, S.H.I.E.L.D. did with the Sokovia Accords.
(Speaking of Disney+, if Hawkeye goes the way I think it’s gonna go, then it potentially offers a chance to explore the Blip fallout from a criminal perspective. How many second-tier or middle management criminals who got Snapped and Blipped now have a shot at the big leagues because of the power vacuum Clint created during his rampage? How many traditional rivals who’ve died and come back are willing to put aside old grudges and unite if it means going after the Avenger who murdered their friends and loved ones?)
To 10/12/13 – I would add that a “hard reset” would mean asking our heroes to murder the trillions of children who’d been born around the universe in the intervening five years.
Brian: The MCU has done this before, with Bucky Barnes in Captain America: The First Avenger, who was actually Arnold Roth and bore no resemblance to the Bucky of the WW2-era comics that he was named after. But I like that Jon Watts and the gang have taken the names of Spidey white supporting characters and given them to multiethnic kids.
vinsentient: The Blip happened to the entire universe. To ignore it or downplay it in a movie series that has generally been very good about paying attention to its own continuity would have been storytelling malpractice of the highest order.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
But is “Zen-Dye-Ah” or “Zen-Day-Ah.”?
@6 Beat me to it. Keith, that is definitely Tower Bridge. London Bridge is considerably less iconic.
re: Ned/Ganke, I think they may also have wanted to avoid “officially” stealing elements from the Miles Morales Spider-Man. As long as the serial numbers are filed off it doesn’t raise too many questions about continuity and audience expectations. If Ned has been named Ganke there would have been a millions articles and media centered around if that meant Miles Morales and other characters could be anticipated.
Quoth Jade Phoenix: “but it’s not entirely true that he’s the first non-MCU actor to reprise a role, since Sam Jackson as Nick Fury originated in the comics.”
That isn’t what I said. What I said was that it was, “the first time a Marvel character from a non-MCU film has reprised the same role in the MCU.” (Emphasis added.) I’m talking about actors in movies, not the comics.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
I thought the idea of the ex-Stark employees turning rogue was brilliant, and I loved the way they inserted them into past movies, but Beck’s exposition in that scene was just so stiff. I kind of expected him to turn off all the people in the bar as another illusion, further showcasing his unbalanced nature, so when that didn’t happen, the scene kind of didn’t work well for me. Otherwise, the movie was fantastic, and the reference to Earth-616 made me laugh, especially since it was all bullshit Beck made up.
While the first film was great by being a full-on Spider-Man movie with the MCU as an added bonus, this was an MCU movie more interesting in rearranging the status of the franchise post-Iron Man’s death, that just happened to star Spider-Man.
Due to post-Endgame fatigue, I actually avoided this until a friend who missed out on the initial release really wanted to see the re-release with added scenes. Despite all my reservations, it was a fun summer blockbuster, but its’ focus on Marvel’s overarching universe instead of characters who inhabit it is something that leaves me cold and hopefully for a third film they recognize this and get back to using the New York City the way it should always be used in Spider-Man, as a way to perpetually annoy and frustrate the web-slinger.
I will note the scenes of Parker wanting to just be a “friendly neighbourhood” Spider-Man instead of the heir to Iron Man’s legacy is a bit of prescient meta-commentary considering the tiff Disney and Sony had shortly after it.
@@.-@:
EDITH is the only available countermeasure for the tech that Mysterio can muster, but far more importantly, EDITH is a symbol of victory for Mysterio and his team. When Mysterio has EDITH he has defeated and replaced Tony as the premiere hero of Earth – and that’s what Mysterio really wants.
The Post-Snap world is interesting – I see a lot of the behavior of the characters as desperate attempts by seriously damaged people to pretend that life is normal again. Hence, a class trip that the teachers are ignoring all difficulties with – they are trying to simulate the pre-Snap world, and anything that doesn’t fit is ignored or dismissed.
scimirad & grenadier: Thanks for that. I’ve corrected it to the Tower Bridge.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido, who is grateful for the edit function making him seem smarter than he actually is
@15/Bryan: The animated series The Spectacular Spider-Man made the standard Spidey supporting cast more ethnically diverse, including an Asian-American “Ned Lee” in place of Ned Leeds. Maybe Marvel/Sony should’ve used the same name for their Ned/Ganke amalgam.
@26/Andy: If the MacGuffin that the villain goes to such convoluted lengths to obtain is more a symbolic victory than a genuine threat, that makes the plot even more unsatisfying.
@5 / JadePhoenix:
Also, I found it slightly convenient that all 4 main characters from Peter’s class in Homecoming happened to get blipped out…
True, but, on the other hand, really, is it any less convenient compared to how all 6 of the founding Avengers survived Infinity War whilst their successors and recruits got dusted?
Alternately, heh, the Infinity Stones had a sick sense of humor and decided to try their hand at the ol’ Parker Luck.
CLB @13:
Hear, hear! There’s a four-book series by an author I really like, where the end of the series was basically “Reset time so that none of the events in the books actually happened.” Prior to that the series was fine (nothing great, but definitely readable), but I don’t think I’ve ever been so disgusted by a book in my entire life.
@28: Important to the villain symbolically, but important to the rest of the world as something that you don’t want a sociopath to have control of.
Lady Belaine: It’s zen-DAY-uh.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
@31/Andy: But that’s my point — they already had control of a bunch of really destructive drones that did the exact same thing the EDITH drones did, just on a slightly smaller scale. So that makes getting hold of EDITH pretty redundant. They were already nearly as dangerous before they had it.
@33: I see what you mean, but as I mentioned above, EDITH is a potential counter to what they already have. If an opponent of Mysterio has EDITH, Mysterio and his tools can be defeated in a straightforward manner (I think EDITH is more powerful than the stuff that Mysterio uses to produce localized destruction). When Mysterio has both EDITH and his tools, he’s deprived his opponents of the most potent means of defense (in addition to having symbolically defeated Tony).
By analogy – having two lightsabers doesn’t directly make a Jedi more dangerous – he can kill me easily enough with just one. But if he’s got the only two lightsabers in the vicinity, having the second one does indirectly make him more dangerous – because he’s got the only weapon I could have used against him
Far From Home has the same problem as Homecoming: the demand that Spider-Man be subordinated to Iron Man (even after his death!). Taking him away from his traditional stomping grounds is part of that, taken up another notch here.
Much of what Mysterio does makes zero sense, even under the lax grading for a superhero movie.
The cast is stellar, and I agree about the high school aspects, but this is a bottom half MCU movie.
My problem is that Marvel is trying to have its cake and eat it, too. It feels like they want credit for not using a hard reset without fully committing to the fallout. As it is, they’re still erasing the consequences of the Blip and dodging any consequences that might come from a hard reset. If they aren’t going to honor the consequences of the story they told, they should arrange the story to have consequences they can commit to.
If they take a closer look at the fallout in the TV shows that’d be one thing but I think the death and resurrection of a few billion people on Earth alone merits more than a joke about high school TV and then life goes on as normal.
@34/AndyLove: Explain it all you want, but the point remains that it’s a much smaller gain for the villains than the story wants us to think it is. Of course you can concoct arguments to excuse it if you want to, but the fact that it needs to be excused and rationalized in the first place is the problem. It’s a weak plot structure, and they should have structured the story better to begin with. If you want to tell a story predicated on the idea that the villains getting hold of something would be catastrophic, then don’t give them something almost equally bad beforehand.
@36/noblehunter: I don’t think Marvel is “erasing” the consequences just because a film actually made by Sony dealt with them only peripherally. After all, there are plenty of other films on the way. This is just the most immediate one.
Besides, the film is very much about the consequences. On a personal level, it’s about the consequences of losing Tony Stark, who’s been the linchpin of the MCU up to now. And on a plot level, it’s about Beck turning the consequences of the Blip to his advantage, by exploiting the people’s need for a new hero to protect them.
@37 I don’t expect the next movies to pay any more attention to the consequences than this one. Perhaps its more but not conclusive than Marvel should have made different choices.
Both of those consequences are about Tony’s death, not about the Blip. Assuming Tony died in the course of pushing the reset button, this movie could be almost the same except for the montage at the start of the movie.
@38/noblehunter: “Both of those consequences are about Tony’s death, not about the Blip.”
No, the second consequence is just as much about people being shell-shocked in the wake of the cataclysm and thus being so afraid that they’ll unthinkingly latch onto anyone who comes forth claiming to be a savior. Mysterio wouldn’t have had nearly as easy a time fooling the public — and “Fury” — if they weren’t hypersensitized to potential threats as a result of the Blip. Also, arguably the extreme nature of the EDITH system was Tony’s reaction to the Blip, which could explain why it was so pre-emptively violent and extreme. I said it was out of character given his actions in previous films, but the impact of his defeat by Thanos could’ve changed his character, making him more hyperdefensive.
Aside from that, though, of course exploring the consequences in a story is going to be done on a personal level, and the most personal impact on Peter and the audience is Tony’s loss. This just isn’t the right story to delve deeply into the impact on other people’s lives. Like I said, maybe that’s what some of the Disney+ series will do.
@@@@@ 37 / CLB:
On a personal level, it’s about the consequences of losing Tony Stark, who’s been the linchpin of the MCU up to now.
Yeah, and that actually reminds me of something I’ve liked about this particular iteration of Peter Parker.
The MCU Peter in a way is arguably an avatar for the Millennial and Generation Z audiences. Like them, this incarnation of Peter grew up in a world with Tony Stark and the MCU, was inspired by it, and is forced to mourn the passing of a childhood icon and hero.
It’ll be interesting to see if Ms. Marvel takes a similar approach since Kamala is in-universe one of Marvel’s uber-superhero dorks (though they’d have to keep with Carol Danvers inspiring her since that’s such a crucial part of her character foundation).
Am I the only one who wonders if Maria Hill was always secretly a Skrull?
A few things:
I may be misunderstanding what your sentence is trying to convey but it sounds like you are saying these (according to Mysterio’s fake story)are the elementals from his earth. My understanding is that only he was from that earth and the elementals were from the MCU main universe just slower to rise from wherever they were slumbering than on Mysterios earth.
Edith is essentially the realization of Toby’s “a suit of armor around the earth plan that he briefly laments about when he is arguing with Steve in Endgame.
There is a great clue that Fury and Hill aren’t what they seem in the first meeting with Spider-Man where they say to Spider-man that Mysterio “isn’t from your Earth” (rather than Mysterio isn’t from our Earth)
I always thought Agents of Shield season 6 would have been a good place to explore the consequences of the Snap and the Blip but unfortunately they decided to separate the show from the movies.
@42/John: It’s not about the concept of EDITH, it’s about the execution. Putting a suit of armor around the Earth? Fine, okay, that’s reasonable. Building it with no safeguards so that it defaults to kill mode from a simple verbal misunderstanding? That’s pathologically, criminally incompetent. Or it’s just bad writing.
I have to admit, I do not understand the point of revealing that Fury and Hill are Skrulls, or the point of that post-credits bit with the real Fury. Maybe it’ll make sense in a later movie, but as an element of this movie it’s just a confusing and random intrusion.
Christopher: The mid- and post-credits scenes are often meant as teases for later movies that may not have any significant meaning to the movie in question. That’s been true of many of them, going all the way back to Nick Fury’s out-of-nowhere appearance in Iron Man, and including the shot of Thanos smiling in Avengers (which was utterly meaningless to anyone in the audience who wasn’t familiar with the comics).
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
@45/krad: Yes, of course the post-credit scenes tease later movies as a rule, but the difference here is that the reveal of Fury and Hill as Skrulls was directly relevant to this movie, because it told us that they’d been Skrulls from the start of this movie. And aside from explaining why Beck was able to fool them, that reveal doesn’t really serve much purpose in this movie. It just feels like a needless complication in a movie whose storytelling is already flawed.
I thought this movie was well made and well acted. However, I had problems with its plotting. For me, the plot seemed all over the place, trying to do too much over the course of two hours.
Tony Stark: “Power needs to be accountable to responsible authorities, Steve.”
Also Tony Stark: “I’m comfortable handing over global mass assassination powers to a teenager I don’t know very well.”
(Further evidence, if any were needed, that even Tony wasn’t really on Tony’s side back in Civil War.)
I have to say, I really enjoyed this movie. I was setup to love it after that home-made video for the school broadcast at the very start though, it was too cute and sustained me through any and all criticisms (correct or not) that came throughout the rest of the movie.
I can’t wait for Spider-Man: Farther From Source Material when Norman Osborn shows up. I’m guessing he’ll be an old rival of Tony Stark who can’t get revenge on him now, so of course he goes after Peter.
@almuric
Given that misplaced anger and disproportionate responses have been a hallmark of Norman Osborn I could see that working surprisingly well.
Good review. I liked the movie for many of the same reasons you did, but you have some criticisms that didn’t occur to me. I’d like to comment on one thing:
Given your experience, wouldn’t you say that monthly comics don’t often explore the consequences of storylines, though? More often than not, things are either put back the way they were or they’re just glossed over and never mentioned again. It’s gotten a little better in the modern era, but that’s not saying much.
I remember when Endgame came out and people praised the group therapy session that Cap lead. I thought it was great, too—but I wouldn’t want two hours, or a TV series, of it. To me, consequences should be background detail in movies like these. The goal here was “fixing what Thanos did” not “accepting what Thanos did” – you know? We can see the consequences in the first instance, but we can only explore the consequences in the second, given the time constraints of a film.
Monthly superhero comics also mostly don’t explore those sorts of consequences. The genre tends to keep the civilian world more or less the same as hours give or take a general awareness of superheroes, rather than portraying what it would be like to be under repeated existential threat from supervillains, aliens, and cosmic dangers. Occasionally there’ll be a Marvels or Astro City that looks at things from a different angle, but even those are constrained by the fact that if the world changes too much it would leave the genre for a different one.
Watchmen and the very end of Miracleman go a short distance in that direction, but the focus there remains on the supers rather than on ordinary people. (Though Watchmen at least has its Greek chorus of people outside the life that we check in on periodically.)
@53 and @54 beat me to it. The comics almost never show regular peoples’ reactions to universe shaking “crises”. That’s one of the elements that makes Busiek work special. And even less so in a title that was only dragged into a crossover and not a central part of it.
But more than that, I don’t want that in a Spider-man movie specifically. I want to see some quippy web-slinging and teenage angst.
They already had to fit a bunch of mourning for Stark into this movie. If they had overtly included more blip content it would have wasted a bunch of the running time. That said, I wouldn’t have minded increased blip awaremess included as background or in an incidental way (which I actually think they already handled with Brad, Mr. Harrington’s domestic situation, and Betty Brant’s video).
@46 I think part of the reason was to try and give a better explanation about why none of the other avengers showed up to this supposedly world-ending crisis than the one Talos-Fury gave Peter. I don’t think it was very successful, since I assume some of the Avengers own TVs, but at least they tried?
I’m pretty sure that final post credit scene is telling us that Maria Hill has been a Skrull all along, though not one portrayed by Soren, obviously.
I keep seeing people’s issues with the EDITH problem(s) (no “training wheels” or limits when being given to Peter and why does Beck even want it based on what he already has), and I can’t help thinking that there’s another issue that hasn’t come up, one that may actually answer at least the problem with handing it over Peter without any constraints: When did Tony even build/setup this Edith?
He didn’t use EDITH during the initial attack by Thanos’ goons in Infinity War, or during the final fight with Thanos in End Game, and then he died. Why? It wasn’t finished is the answer I come up with other than “writers added it for plot reasons”. If it wasn’t ready and Fury/Talos just gave the unfinished product to Peter because they knew that was Tony’s end goal, then there was probably the intention of adding more limits before Tony handed it over that was trumped by Tony’s dying before he could do so.
This could also affect Beck’s goal in acquiring EDITH. If he didn’t realize EDITH wasn’t complete, he may have thought it was capable of more than it was.
Personally, I think Beck wanted EDITH because his original set of tech was just enough to create illusions and cause the cosmetic damage to convince Fury and Co. that he was legit, and then needed EDITH for future real encounters with actual enemies (such as the Avengers or other supervillains) in order to actually have some hardcore firepower.
With none of this spelled out (yet! It could be in future films), it’s left to us to figure out, which could be seen as a plot hole by some, but I think it’s important to keep in mind that as we aren’t on the MCU creative team, we don’t know what will happen or be explained in future films. The whole EDITH issue could be a part of what the next phase is about, or at least play a big part, and be explained then.
@58/jas195: Okay, maybe it’ll make sense later. But that’s bad writing. If the story you’re experiencing now doesn’t make sense now, it is badly put together. It’s the storytelling equivalent of “The deflector array will be installed on Tuesday.” Except that they had years to get the story put together in a coherent way, so there’s no excuse for it being incomplete without some hypothetical later work. Being part of a shared universe is not an excuse for slacking off on making each individual story as strong as it can be.
@59 I would say not always, depending on how it was dealt with in the next movie. An example of this would be GotG, with Quill’s parentage. Taken without the rest of the MCU in mind (including GotG2), it could seem like they were just trying to find an excuse for why Quill could hold the Infinity Stone on his own for even the few moments he did by saying “well, his dad is something we don’t know about, and we aren’t gonna touch on it in this movie to explain it.” Instead, it lays the background for the next movie. If you want to take it as bad writing and be dissatisfied with the film, that’s your decision, but it could actually be the setup for something good, kind of like your post 24 in the Black Widow Trailer seems to be saying – It makes no sense to jump to conclusions.
@60/jas: GotG makes perfect sense without Quill’s parentage being an issue. Heck, I figured the reason he could survive holding the Infinity Stone was because of the Power of Teamwork — the Guardians shared the load among them and thus survived what would have destroyed any single one of them. I thought that was the actual symbolic point of that moment, physically manifesting the theme of the film that they could achieve things together that they couldn’t apart. I was rather disappointed at the sequel’s retcon that it was just Quill’s magic space daddy — it robbed the scene of the meaning it had originally.
The difference here is that the insane way EDITH is designed to work is crucial to the story. It’s not a peripheral element like Quill’s parentage, but one the story directly revolves around. And as presented, it makes no damn sense. It’s a gigantic plot hole, and saying “Oh, we can fix it later” is a lazy excuse.
@58 – I’ve written an (as yet unpublished to the internet) blog post discussing how even worse than the fact that the timeline for building EDITH doesn’t make sense, the timeline for when Tony wrote a will naming Peter as his heir to EDITH is all but impossible.
As a trust and estates attorney, I would be disappointed by Tony’s failure to update his will to include his wife Pepper and his daughter Morgan – which would be impossible if the will was written before the Blip, the only time it makes sense to name Peter – if I weren’t utterly appalled by the near-criminal behavior of whoever is his executor. Let’s just say his executor better have a hell of a lot of monetary resources to handle the many, many civil suits that are going to be coming his way…
Keith– as I understand it, some of the consequences from the snap will be detailed in the upcoming Falcon and Winter Soldier mini-series on Disney plus. With six to eight hours to explore the story, they can get into more detail.
Just one thing I don’t understand… ifSpidey sense hasn’t even been named yet post-Blip, how come it was already well enough known for Jessica Jones to be making jokes about it back in Season 2?
It’s an okay coda to Phase 3 of the MCU. Not nearly as good as Homecoming, but an appropriate transitional chapter for the friendly neighborhood hero.
I like it that they’re not shying away from Endgame’s snap consequences. It could have gone deeper, but this film had a mandate of dialing back the tension, giving us a simpler adventure instead. It remains to be seen how will future MCU entries will deal with this.
I do give Watts, McKenna and Sommers credit for the way they established Mysterio. Piggybacking on the concept of the multiverse established in Endgame (as well as Spiderverse, in a great stroke of luck and fortunate timing), they were able to sincerely convey the idea that Mysterio was one of the good guys. It’s also a credit to Jake Gylenhaal for playing this con for as long as he did. He’s one of those actors totally capable of deceiving you through his performance.
By tying the vilains to the original Iron Man, it brings the stakes to a more manageable level, and it helps to bring some closure to the MCU, by going back to the idea of morally corrupt people misusing technology for their selfish needs.
Besides that, the film does a nice job giving the rest of the cast more to do. Though I still prefer the Dunst version of MJ, this one manages to establish a nice rapport and chemistry with Peter while still maintaining her wusecracking personality from Homecoming. And Holland manages to give us a more somber side of Peter while still keeping true to his happy-go-lucky personality. Also, Martin Starr is still criminally underused (having seen the Silicon Valley finale, I’d argue it’s past time someone built a show or a film around him).
One minor quibble I have with the travel plot. How on Earth is a badly funded public school able to afford an european trip for an entire class? Granted, the film does play on this by giving us the fact that they stayed on a ramshackle of a hotel in Venice, which is done in order to set up Fury’s booking of the 5 star hotel in Prague later on. But still, they shouldn’t have even been able to afford plane tickets.
@64/Makhno: I’m pretty sure season 2 of Jessica Jones was written well before Homecoming‘s 2017 release. And even so, by that point there was enough of a disconnect between Marvel Television and Marvel Studios, and any attempt at synergy between the two enterprises had long since been abandoned, especially when it came to their Netflix productions. Only Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. tried to keep playing up the connection between the TV and film worlds.
These shared universes often have such glitches, as real character appearances end up overwriting Easter-egg winks from earlier on. For instance, Superman: The Animated Series had an episode where Lois Lane said something like “I’m not Wonder Woman,” but Justice League, set later in the same continuity, showed Wonder Woman’s debut.
Eduardo: what makes you think Midtown is a “badly funded public school”? It’s the Midtown School of Science and Technology, and is patterned after the Bronx High School of Science. It’s not a public school, it’s a school specifically for smart kids, and there’s absolutely no indication that they’re underfunded.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
@68/Krad: My perception may be somewhat colored by the Raimi films. I’ve always pictured Peter Parker as a character defined by constant financial problems (a problem also shared by MJ in those films; Harry being the obvious exception). But I completely overlooked the fact that he could have gotten a full paid scholarship – I seriously doubt May could afford it otherwise.
But even so, if there’s a thread going between these two MCU films it’s that they like doing class trips. Homecoming had the spelling championship in D.C. This one had the European trip. But even if this is a school for smart kids, I still find it a stretch that it could afford full class trips this frequently (granted, there was a 5 year gap due to the snap, but still same class).
I still recall my school days (private school), and we’ve only had 3 class trips in 12 years, none of them going past state lines.
Part of me wishes they’d come up with a more normal school plot, one that takes place inside school grounds for a change.
@69/Eduardo: I’ve never understood the modern obsession with putting Spidey back in high school, given that he was only in high school for the first few years of his comic and has mostly been portrayed as college-age or beyond. But I would like to see a movie that keeps him in New York City.
How about Las Vegas? Just your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man in Fear and Loathing in the Casinos on the Strip
@70/Christopher: I’ve never fully understood that obsession either. And I’ve always credited the Raimi films for showing growth and change in that regard.
In an ideal world, we’d get to see the full growth of Spider-Man way past high school, college and going into adult life, all played by the same actor. I would welcome for Tom Holland to keep doing the character until middle age. Of course, that would only happen in an ideal world, and there’s no way even a hard working player like him would get strapped down by decades of contract like that.
It’s what I originally thought would happen with Maguire, had Spider 4 and onwards not fallen through.
But then again, studio executives are of a narrow mind, fearful of losing a potential young audience if their youthful superhero ages (despite Spiderverse‘s superb subversion of that expectation by giving us a weary Peter Parker). That’s why I think they try to keep it to high school (and Holland’s youthful face helps).
@69 I went to a perfectly normal public school in the Midwest, and I was on both Quiz Bowl and Science Olympiad and, especially for QB, there were pretty frequent trips and tournaments, including crossing state lines. SO also had regional and state tournaments (we never made it to nationals, lol). The trip in Homecoming was an academic decathalon championship, wasn’t it?
As for European trips, all of our language classes had an option in senior years to go ot Germany/Spain/France (I never went), and some of the various history classes had optional trips to DC, New England, etc. In fact, in our tenth grade government class, there was a class wide DC trip that pretty much everybody was expected to go in that was part of the ‘Close Up’ program (I don’t know if this is still a thing, but it was kind of a national high school government program that culminated in this trip where you got to meet people from around the country since you all went at once). Heck, even in middle school we had the 6th grade Chicago trip, and the 8th grade DC trip.
Yeah, i heard of that as far back as middle school. And study aboard is a pretty common feature of most colleges.
@72: I guess it’s a good way of illustrating how differently education can be handled depending on the nation and culture. I can see how the American method encourages this approach (which in turn influences a student’s decision to attend colleges far from home). Here in Rio, even the best funded schools around here tend to focus more on the curricular rather than the extra-curricular. A far more rigid structure.
And it helps when there’s even some slight public investment in education, as is the case where you’re from. Hence, opportunities such as the tournaments.
The use of Beck was interesting, but his plan made no sense: the drones are not believable at all as elementals. If there’s a menace from another dimension that is attacking the world, people are going to want to study the phenomenon and look closely at any trace of it. But nobody saw the bullet impacts? And how does the FX team adjust the special effects on the fly when there are so many people whose behaviour has not been planned for? Finally, what is the end goal? Once “Mysterio” has become an Avenger, what does it accomplish? What is Beck going to do against the next Thanos?
The other thing I really disliked was the trip to Europe as a framing device. It was at the same time obvious pandering and insulting to European audiences.
@11: Peter has always had the spider-sense along with his other powers. Cf. the scene when Ebony Max arrives on Earth and we see Peter’s hairs rising. So on the contrary, I found it too convenient that the spider sense breaks down just when it would be the most useful. As for the “with great power”, that’s basically how he explained to Stark why he was trying to be a hero as soon as he met him. The lesson might not have been hammered into him yet, but he’s already aware of his responsibilities, which is why it’s strange that he would blow them off so casually.
It’s weird…I kind never got the *feeling* they were filming in Italy. Didn’t have that local flavor to me… Maybe I’ve jus been to italy, I don’t know, but it felt a little too…Removed
Interesting. I’ve been to Venice three times, and the scenes there felt very much like what I remember that beautiful city being like.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
Oh, ok. I get that. It’s just been a while aince I’ve been back there… so I just went on memory.
BUT!
If the 4th Spiderman movie has him go out of New York again. I hope he hitches a ride to Japan.