Spider-Man: Far From Home is a film which comes directed by Jon Watts who some may know as the director of Cop Car (2015) or Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017). The film stars Tom Holland, Zendaya, Angourie Rice, Jon Favreau, Jake Gyllenhaal, Cobie Smulders, Samuel L. Jackson and Marisa Tomei.
Spider-Man: Far From Home is the third film featuring the Tom Holland Spider-Man, but it is also what is meant to be, the last film in this phase of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. These two factors make this film quite important for people who are fans of all things Marvel, with fans having quite high expectations for this one. But I’m happy to say that in the end, considering all of this expectation, coming out of it, I thought it was rather good.
In this film, Peter Parker goes on a European adventure with his school and all his friends come along with him. Being Spider-Man though, brings with it a lot of responsibilities and there’s trouble abroad. For the most part, Peter just wants to be a regular school kid and do regular school kid stuff, but he soon finds that his responsibilities quickly interfere with this and it’s not long before things get chaotic, both for Spder-Man and for Peter. I do not want to go too much more into the actual storyline of the film because to be honest I believe it’s better to go into this one as fresh as you possibly can. But in general, the storyline is quite fast paced and the characterisation of Spider-man was done well.
The film is quite well written and at times it feels like you’re watching a comedy more than anything else, with tonnes of funny lines tossed in all throughout it. Like with previous Spider–Man films in this series and in line with the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the tone is kept quite light. The film’s story itself is filled with themes of trust and much of the story brings this concept into question, with Peter Parker and Spider-Man dealing with issues related to who they can actually trust in the world and it seems, that is not always clear and it’s a major struggle for the character.
As a Spider-Man movie, it did feel really different to see Spider-Man out of New York. Basically everything I’ve seen Spider-Man in has him in the city. There was a bit in this series when he was in Washington, but a european adventure was something I didn’t expect to ever see. It does work well though and due to all of the many locations, we actually do get to see this version of Spider-Man in a lot of different outfits. This is something that’s present in the comics and the recent video game, but hasn’t been seen too often in the film releases. The changing of the outfits does help to show how versatile the hero can be and I like that it was present in the film.
The actors were all very entertaining. I’ve always enjoyed Tom Holland’s Spider-Man performance, but this I think was the first of his films where I enjoyed what he was doing as Peter Parker. The actor has definitely improved as the years have gone by. Zendaya was great as MJ and I also enjoyed Marisa Tomei as May. But it was Jon Favreau who I thought really did bring a lot to this film. The actor was very funny and as a character he acted as a tie in between what were the Avengers films and what is to be the future of the MCU.
The special effects were also rather good, actually quite impressive. However, it wasn’t consistent. In certain scenes, I felt that Happy’s jet didn’t look that great. But in other scenes, we had some of the best cgi action sequences I’ve seen in a Marvel film. I can’t spoil anything, but if you’re reading this review after watching the film, I thought that the middle cgi sequence, which was the first encounter with the real villain was very well done. I would have loved to have seen the storyboards in the behind the scenes features for this film.
Overall Spider-Man: Far From Home is a must see film for anyone who enjoys the Marvel Cinematic Universe or is a Spider-Man fan. The film is quite funny and its light tone makes it a very entertaining night out. The actors are all excellent and the cgi is decent. I’m happy to recommend seeing this at the cinema this week and I am keen to watch it again myself some time soon.
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