I’m all caught up on Marvel movies, though it’s a bit until I’ll get to this movie in 10 Minute Marvel (now available here). But I got to see the movie in theaters last night. I’m going to keep this review spoiler free and try and lock it into what was seen in the trailers, but Endgame spoilers are fair game. You’ve been warned.

Spider-man: Far From Home takes place after the snap and after the second snap when everyone was brought back. Spider-Man is having a hard time with Tony’s death. And he just wants to be a normal kid, but that is going to be too much. He has grand plans for his schools trip to Europe, getting closer to MJ and just enjoying life without the responsibility of being Spider-Man. But a phone call from Nick Fury changes that all as he has to team with Quentin Beck to defeat elementals that are destroying cities. How can Peter Parker balance being Spider-Man, but also just live his own life and not feel like he has all the pressure int he world?

This movie reminds me of Iron Man 2 in a good way. While I think they nail the bad guys better than they do in Iron Man 2, this movie is more about Peter determining what type of hero he is going to be. And it’s about him feeling and failing to live up to what he thinks Tony Stark would want him to be. And I think that it does a good job of that, you feel so much for Peter because of what has happened in Endgame, him losing his father figure in Tony Stark. It comes across that Peter almost feels guilty for it having happened, though there was nothing he could have done about it. You really get how much he’s missing him, and how much being the friendly neighborhood Spider-Man reminds him of Tony. Obviously with the suit being Tony’s tech that’s a big thing. And you can feel him trying to escape that super hero pressure mantle and just be a teenager and tell MJ that he has a crush on her. And that is a fun theme to explore, the super hero who doesn’t want to be, or can’t be the hero that they need to be or the hero that they want to be.

The acting in this film really pulls it off. Tom Holland does a great job of being that nerdy teenager who is ready to make a quip to hide his emotions, but still have to confront them. We get to see a whole lot more of the nerdy side of Peter Parker in this movie, and it’s a lot of fun. And I’m not the biggest Jake Gyllenhaal fan, mainly because of his work when he was younger just wasn’t that interesting to me. But in the role of Quentin Beck, he does a very good job. You feel the emotions that he’s feeling and they all make sense. I wasn’t in love with the casting of him as Beck, but it turned out to be a really good choice. The rest of the cast is solid around them as well, but Gyllenhaal and Holland really shine in this movie.

Now, I’m not going to spoil anything, but this movie does tie into a lot of the other movies. Some of them you don’t get the payoff until the end credits, but it sets up a launching point going forward. Now, I don’t know how they are setting it up tot use them, but things change for Peter but also some other characters in unexpected ways. Homecoming definitely feels like an MCU movie, but that one doesn’t do much more than mess up the timeline for the movies, Far From Home, on the other hand is going to make differences going forward and they could be a big changes and stories for upcoming movies. So if you were thinking about putting this one off, I wouldn’t wait too long. Spoilers, I’m sure, already exist in abundance but they are only going to be become more common place, the further from the movie.

This movie isn’t perfect, and I need to think about where I rate it in Marvel movies, but it is really good. The main issues are that it sometimes is a bit heavy handed in it’s plot. The plot is well done, but sometimes it drives home a point a bit too long, or makes a point a bit too obvious. However, it does create one of the most complex villains in the MCU. I’d put the villain after Killmonger from Black Panther and Thanos from Infinity War/Endgame in terms of good villains in the MCU, which is awesome. I love a good villain to set off against a hero, and in this case, you get a good hero performance, something that I felt like we were lacking some in Black Panther.

Definitely check out this movie if you are a Spider-Man fan, if you are an MCU fan, you will most likely enjoy it. I don’t know that you need to have seen Endgame to know what is going on, but it would help make things a whole lot clearer. And I think what you’d miss does make the story stronger, but I think it would be possible to watch it without having seen the rest. I’m going to be figuring out where I rate it in the movies, coming up here soon, so that’ll be interesting to see, but for me, this is a definite top half Marvel film.

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