Spider-Man: Far From Home Review (No Spider-Man spoilers, Endgame Spoilers)

So after the immense success of Avengers: Endgame (2019, Joe & Anthony Russo), becoming the 2nd highest grossing movie of all time. And now, Marvel hopes to continue their ongoing story with Season 2 Episode 1. Spider-Man: Far From Home (Jon Watts). The second movie in the MCU's new Spider-Man trilogy, which has proved incredibly popular with fans of both the MCU and Spider-Man in general. But with things like the events of Endgame to deal with, will this movie be weighed down by the weight of that movie? Or can it possibly hold its own? Marvel has had a pretty good run this year. Hopefully, it doesn't trip at the finish line.

Initial Thoughts

This is a damn good follow-up to Endgame. It's nowhere near as big in scope but it's definitely a good start to a new chapter in the MCU. Focusing more on the aftermath of Endgame and how Spider-Man is coping in a post-Iron Man world and trying to sort out his life as Peter Parker. 

Spider-Man/Peter Parker/Tom Holland

Tom Holland (The Impossible, In The Heart Of The Sea) still proves himself as Spider-man. In this movie Holland does a lot more with the role of Peter Parker, showing more of his bad luck and how being Spider-Man affects his social life. Something that seemed to be missing in Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017, Jon Watts). So it was good to see Peter's bad luck, one of the things that makes him so relatable as a character. As Spider-Man he has to deal with the aftermath of Endgame. Losing Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.) and wondering if he could live up to the legacy left behind. This was a pretty interesting storyline for Spider-Man, as it looks into how big Spider-Man's role is in the Marvel Universe, whether he can step up to be the next Big League hero. Especially with so many more powerful heroes around. However, I don't really like how Tony Stark has seemingly replaced Uncle Ben in this universe as the man Peter looks up to the most, a fundemental part of the Spider-Man story. But overall, I really liked what this movie did with Spider-Man and Peter Parker.

Mysterio/Jake Gyllenhaal

I was not expecting Mysterio to be so good! In the comics, cartoons and video games, he's always been something of a joke. But this movie makes him a pretty interesting character. I can't go into a lot due to spoilers, but I will say that Jake Gyllenhaal (Nightcrawler, Zodiac) does a great job in this role, his interactions with Spider-Man are really great, you sense that they have a strong connection. But yeah. Mysterio 

MJ/Zendaya

So in this movie, Zendaya has a lot more to do. In Homecoming she was basically a quirky side character. But here she's more interesting a character. Her chemistry with Tom Holland is very good to watch, as their characters are both quite awkward, and the film gets a lot of laughs out of that. But the two work very well together. You can definitely feel that they have a real friendship, possibly because the actors are very good friends in real life. The only problem I have with MJ in this movie is that she's stuck being the female love-interest. There's really not a whole lot going on for her outside of that. Which I hope they fix in future movies, especially after the ending which sets up Spider-Man's future rather interestingly and MJ could play a big role in that. 

Ned/Jacob Batalon

Ned continues to be a really bad best friend. He was already a bad friend in Homecoming and it seems that nothing has changed, so I'll give him points for consistency. But I was really hoping that Ned would step-up, like Peter, and be a pretty useful friend. But no, he's just someone who doesn't seem to care that much for Peter and puts himself first even though Peter is having a bit of a hard time. I will say that Ned does have some pretty funny moments. His relationship with Betty (Angourie Rice) was pretty good, and the two had some hilarious moments.

Action

Damn, the action is good in the movie! You could tell the filmmakers are a lot more confident in how to do Spider-Man action. While in Homecoming it was good but rather restrained, but now they go all out in this one! This is up there with the action in Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2012, Marc Webb), which I know wasn't a well-received movie but it did have the best action in a live-action Spider-Man movie. Highlights being the fight in Prague, the scene in Berlin and the finale on Tower Bridge in London.

VFX

The VFX in this are pretty good. In Endgame the VFX were incredible, and in this movie, they are just as good. The detail done on the Elementals is incredible, and the work done for Mysterio was just great. My only concern is that they go a little overboard with the VFX. For instance, Spider-Man's costumes, besides the Stealth one, are clearly digitally tweaked, which I don't think is very necessary. If you look at set photos the suits look pretty good! So they don't really need to be updated in post-production, except for the lenses for obvious reasons. 

New MCU

What I really liked about this movie was how low-key it was. It still had big and personal stakes for Spider-Man to face but it didn't try and match the scope of Endgame but instead decided to focus on the aftermath and how much the world has changed. Which makes me very interested to see where Marvel wants to go with these movies, particularly with Spider-Man as it's quite clear he's going to be very important to the franchise's future.

Conclusion

This is a good movie. Addressing the issues from Endgame and setting up Spider-Man to play a significant role in the future of the MCU. Tom Holland is great as the titular character, Jake Gyllenhaal is amazing as Mysterio and the action is downright incredible!

So that's my review for Spider-Man: Far From Home. What did you think of the movie? Do you agree or disagree with anything that I've said? Leave a comment down below. And, if you liked this review then you can follow this blog for more content. Thank you for reading!