Thursday, November 7, 2019

Spider-Man: Far From Home

Spider-Man: Far From Home; fantasy action, USA, 2019; D: Jon Watts, S: Tom Holland, Jake Gyllenhaal, Zendaya, J. B. Smoove, Jacob Batalon, Samuel L. Jackson, Cobie Smulders, Jon Favreau, Martin Starr, Marisa Tomei 

Peter Parker embarks on a high school summer-trip to Europe with his classmates, and intends to reveal his feeling for MJ, in whom he has a crush on. However, once in Venice, they witness a giant water-monster appearing and wrecking havoc, but it is defeated by Mysterio, a superhero whose name is Beck, and who claims to be from another dimension, battling these kinds of creatures which allegedly threaten the world. Parker, as Spider-Man, becomes his ally when he hears that even Nick Fury believes him. Another creature attacks in Prague. However, Beck is actually one of Tony Stark's ex-employees, who was fired and thus has a grudge against Stark. All the creatures were just his holographic illusions created by his drones. When Spider-Man finds out, he is able to stop and kill Beck. MJ also finds about Parker's superhero identity.

The 23rd film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, "Spider-Man: Far From Home" pretty much sums up the entire film series in one: it is fun, positive, carefree and amusing, just don't expect anything deeper or more than its light surface level. Restructured as a school road movie, with several teenage problems, this edition is also dynamic, with several well already established elements from the franchise. The movie works the best during its pure comedy moments: whether it is the "stolen" little moment of MJ (Zendaya) holding out her hands to carry pigeons in Venice; the sequence where MJ simply figures out that Peter Parker is Spider-Man all by herself, so he just has to reluctantly admit it or the quietly hilarious sequence where Parker is in his Spider-Man costume in front of MJ, so when his friend Ned suddenly enters the room, he immediately has a "cover-up" reaction ("Oh, so you are ready... for that costume party..."), almost all of humorous moments work, even when they are rather corny or too simplistic at times. The main plot involving a villain, Beck, who uses holograms to trick people, works as well, yet it could have been much more subversive in the long run. Marvel movies became somehow predictable and strangely routine by this time, and thus even though it is a good film, "Far From Home" does show some traces of fatigue or a lack of closure in the long storyline. A small gem here is the closing credit sequence featuring Go-Go's song "Vacation", which is a blast.

Grade:++

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