Spider-Man: Far From Home, more like Far From Necessary!

The final film in the Infinity Saga, can’t believe we’ve made it this far! Thank you to all that have been reading and coming along with me on this journey as we move ever closer towards Doomsday!

Since it’s a Spider-Man film, I’d say yes absolutely go and watch it! For those who read my post ranking the Spider-Man films, you’d know that I have this one in the lower bracket of the franchise, but that doesn’t mean I don’t like it! It just has a lot of stuff I like and a lot of stuff I don’t like.

Firstly, the stuff I like mainly revolves around Peter’s character arc and accepting his responsibility now that Tony is gone. Whilst a lot of people didn’t like Peter’s relationship to Tony, I thought it grounded him in this wider Marvel world very well, and in this film we really dig into the expectations on him now that Tony sacrificed himself in Endgame. Peter is clearly struggling with the fact that he’s lost another father figure (we assume he lost Ben prior to his debut) but this time, it comes with people expecting him to take up the mantle of “the next Iron Man”. He goes on a school trip to Europe to essentially run away from that responsibility and expectation, with people like Fury and now Mysterio putting more pressure on him to step up and take the lead. What I really like about this is the resolution, throughout the film we see Peter pushed and pushed to his breaking point by so many people around him, and his realisation that he doesn’t need to be the next Iron Man, but be the first Spider-Man, it really resonates with the core of the character and I thought they handled that really well.

I also really liked Jake Gyllenhaal’s Mysterio, he’s essentially acting within his acting and I thought he handled that with a lot of grace but also with a slightly unhinged psyche, which fits the core of the character quite well. I like him using Peter at his lowest in order to further his own ambition, and that building up to a genuine rivalry between the two of them. Honestly, with all the villains that this Peter has faced (excluding the multiversal ones), I feel that Mysterio might be the one that actually did the most damage to him. From the physical and mental toll that his illusions took on him to the revelation of his secret identity in the post-credits scene, Mysterio is actually the one who arguably won against Spidey, and that makes him one of the greats for me.

Speaking of his illusions, I feel that out of all of the “Home” trilogy, that this one is the one that just looks the best. The illusion sequences were top notch and thrilling, with some really mind-bending visuals, and the CGI was actually really well done in this one. Combine that with the rest of the action sequences like on Tower Bridge, you have a really good looking action/adventure film with some entertaining sequences. One thing that this film had which I wish the others did was cinematographer Matt Lloyd, some of the camera work in this film is leagues ahead of not only the rest of the trilogy but also the rest of the MCU. There are some great sequences of handheld close-ups during the action or the dynamic camera movement during the Mysterio illusion scenes, including the really triumphant oner at the end with Peter and his Spider-Sense (no, I’m never calling it the Peter-Tingle). Up until Brand New Day, this film stood far and above the rest of the Spidey outings in the MCU visually, something I’m glad they went back to earlier this year.

Now, some of the stuff I don’t like. First and foremost, the romance between Peter and MJ comes out of literally no where. It’s the driving force of this film and there was no setup for it in any prior media. Yeah, we got some hints that she liked him in Homecoming but there was no interest from Peter there or in any other appearance. I don’t know but it just really bothered me that we’re going down this route and we’re just suddenly expected to believe that Peter is obsessed with her now even though we have never seen it. It’s part of my wider issue with MJ in the MCU but that’s something to go over in the next two Spidey instalments when we get to them.

Secondly, taking Peter out of New York was a mistake. I respect the effort to do something different and explore settings that we haven’t seen him in before but New York is just such an iconic and vital part of Spider-Man’s identity, and the fact we don’t see any of that in this film until the last 5 minutes is ludicrous to me. Even without that in consideration, they didn’t really utilise the settings to their advantage. We didn’t get any notable web-swinging nor did Peter use their architecture at all, they were just there for a back drop and not an active part of Spidey’s traversal or story.

Finally, my biggest issue with this film is the doubling down on tech and slapstick comedy. I struggle to believe that Tony would leave a bunch of highly dangerous drones to a 16 year old kid, that’s such a terrible idea and it makes for some parts of the film that really rub me the wrong way. The whole sequence of Peter nearly killing Brad with the drones especially put me off, with it feeling out of character to even get into that situation. Speaking of Brad, that whole rivalry was just annoying, he wasn’t even a character, he felt more like an obstacle for him to overcome. The whole thing of him constantly trying to one-up Peter just got old really fast, and the ways he went about that just made him come off as unlikable and petty rather than a genuine romantic rival.

Look, Far From Home isn’t a perfect film, as you can probably tell from my ramblings, but it’s still a really fun epilogue to the Infinity Saga and it does set the stage for what’s to come in the Multiverse Saga. At the time, it made sense for the first movie post-Endgame to be something lowkey and fun but they put a lot of focus on the comedy and the legacy aspect of it when they should have put all the focus on Peter’s struggle and his confliction between his Spidey life and Peter’s life.

There’s really nothing here to link it to Avengers Doomsday, except maybe one thing. This film is the first time in the MCU that we really start to deal with multiverses and inter-dimensional travel, but even then that was part of Mysterio’s trick on everyone rather than being a genuine explanation for the events of the film.

If you want to watch this to ease yourself into the idea of a Multiverse than I supposed it has that going for it but other than that, this film really has no real connection to Doomsday other than setting up the sequel that will actually be important viewing for it.

1. Iron Man - Yes

2. The Incredible Hulk - No

3. Iron Man 2 - Yes

4. Thor - Yes

5. Captain America: The First Avenger - Yes

6. The Avengers - YES, PRIORITISE

7. Iron Man 3 - Yes

8. Thor: The Dark World - No

9. Captain America: The Winter Soldier - YES, PRIORITISE

10. Guardians of the Galaxy - No

11. Avengers: Age of Ultron - Yes

12. Ant-Man - Preference

13. Captain America: Civil War - YES, PRIORITISE

14. Doctor Strange - Yes

15. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol.2 - No

16. Spider-Man: Homecoming - Preference

17. Thor: Ragnarok - Yes

18. Black Panther - Yes

19. Avengers Infinity War - YES, PRIORITISE

20. Ant-Man and the Wasp - Preference

21. Captain Marvel - No

22. Avengers Endgame - MOST IMPORTANT, PRIORITISE

23. Spider-Man: Far From Home - No

That will be all from me today! Hope you enjoyed and I’ll see you again next week for a special post going over the importance (and mostly unimportance) of the MCU Disney+ Shows!

Don’t forget to like and subscribe if you enjoyed this! Let me know down below what you thought of Spider-Man: Far From Home!

Leave a comment