Friday, January 10, 2020

Movie Review: Spider-Man: Far From Home (2019)

Spider-Man: Far From Home (2019) directed by Jon Watts


In the aftermath of Avengers: Endgame, Peter Parker (Tom Holland) returns to his normal life...or at least he tries to. His school science team goes on a trip to Europe, a welcome vacation. His only problem is Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson)  trying to get in touch. Peter's not ready to get his A-game (A as in Avengers) on and tries to dodge Fury. In Venice Fury catches up with him. Elemental beings from another dimension are threatening Earth and Fury wants Spider-man to work with Quentin Beck (Jake Gyllenhaal), a tech genius from another dimension where his Earth was destroyed by the elemental beings. Spider-man's sense of duty makes him enlist with Fury and Beck, which means lying to his friends and missing out on his chance to romance MJ (Zendaya).

The story starts out fairly strong and shows lots of potential. Unfortunately, most of that is wasted on some very conventional and obvious twists and turns. The villain is intriguing at first but his motivation becomes less and less believable. The filmmakers seem to want to make a profound statement about the state of media (or perhaps the public) today but the best they can muster is some obvious comments. The special effects are amazing and the actors do a good job with what they've got. Holland is believable as an overwhelmed kid with overwhelming responsibilities. Other little bits, like romances with secondary characters, are more entertaining than the main story line, though half of them end poorly. The movie winds up being a very average superhero movie, of which there are plenty these days.

Slightly recommended.


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