Spiderman does what a spider can! Following the events of the universe-altering Endgame movie, Far From Home finds Peter Parker without Tony Stark to mentor him. With the weight of the world off his shoulders for a bit, Peter wants a break from wearing the spandex suit. Looking forward to a trip to you Europe with his classmates, he sees it as the perfect chance to take a vacation, be a kid, a tell MJ how he feels about her. But where ever a Spider goes, trouble seemingly follows.
Along with the amazing powers Peter has, Tony gives him another great responsibility: E.D.I.T.H. A networked supercomputer with a frightening amount of surveillance and weapons capability that’s accessed with voice commands via sunglasses that were built and obviously styled by Tony himself. While trying to juggle the everyday American teenager stuff, this is an overwhelming amount of pressure to put on a kid who is in the middle of identity and purpose-in-life crisis. Also, he really, really likes this girl and doesn’t know how to handle it.
Enter Quentin Beck aka Mysterio. He comes flying in like a new Tony Stark, blasting a large elemental monster with some kind of green energy from his hands. Sure he’s got what looks like a fishbowl on his head but his armor is really cool. Peter teams up with Mysterio to defend an attack on the first stop of his European trip. It goes well and Peter makes a new friend with a kindred spirit. Quentin is a good guy, a fellow hero who fights to help people. Peter quickly trusts him, thinking it’s what Tony would want and expect him to do. And that proves to be a big problem.
The coolest part of Spiderman is that his powers make him incredibly agile. He can move and this fight in ways no one else can, so that makes for some inventive and unique fight and action sequences. This movie is full of them and each one builds on the other. The visuals are all on point so there’s nothing really there that breaks the illusion of the insanity on screen.
The cast is all terrific, all the classmates return from Homecoming so there is an instant and fun familiarity to get back into. Jake Gyllenhall is perfectly cast as Mysterio, as is the modernization of his powers. Far From Home also stands well as a solo movie, you don’t have to have seen Homecoming and enough of the set up from what happened in Endgame is given to get newcomers up to speed.
There’s nothing for me to complain about here, the Tom Holland run of Spiderman continues to be a blast and a lot of universe progress is made with this movie. More, please!