Year: 2019
Director: Jon Watts
Country: US
Language: English
Spider-Man Far From Home has put its director, Jon Watts, in a tough position due to its place in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Not only does this need to be a worthy successor to Homecoming (2017), but it also has to be a pallette cleanser from the heavy Avengers: Endgame, while also providing audiences a taste for things to come. This is quite a tough challenge and I don't envy the film-makers' position.
Peter Parker (Tom Holland) attempts to woo MJ (Zendaya) on his class field trip to Europe. Meanwhile "the elementals" are wrecking havok and a new "superhero", nicknamed Mysterio (Jack Gyllenhaal, is attemptinig to take down these creatures.
Coming off the time-travel multiverse Endgame, Far From Home feels like a much more grounded and light affair. The villain and their grandiose scheme often feels secondary to the romantic comedy unfolding between MJ and Peter. One could argue that the film's structure does not reveal itself around the action, but around the teen-romance.
Far From Home owes a lot of its story to the hit television series Scooby Doo Where are You? (1969) The villain's motivations, the nefarious trickery and even the big reveal are very reminiscent of that show. I half expected Mysterio to yell "and I would have gotten away with it too! If it weren't for you meddling kids!" We can only hope more films are inspired by Scooby Doo.
The film is a great building block for Phase Four, showing us a fraction of what we could expect and leaving us with a tremendous taste for more. Far From Home is as endearing as it is entertaining. It surpasses every Spiderman film before it.
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