Baby Spider has a new adventure and, once again, Marvel needs us to know Spider-centric geography. This iteration, Spider-Man: Far from Home, makes it crystal clear that our hero has an away game scheduled as opposed to being Into the Spider-Verse or present for Homecoming. It’s important to know where your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man is at all times.
Peter Parker (Tom Holland) blipped. In case you missed it, this is now Marvel canon: half the planet “blipped” when Thanos had his way with the Avengers, but all who were lost came back five years later completely unharmed and not a day older. Luckily for Peter, his best friend Ned (Jacob Batalon) blipped as well. Unluckily for Peter, his Homecoming girlfriend seems not to have. Well, that relationship was gonna have a hiccup or two what with Peter killing her dad and all. Anyway, Pete is now into Zendaya, and no one can fault him for his tastes. And everybody is going to Europe, yaaaaaay!
What I can fault Peter for is his lame scheming. His seven point plan to make Zendaya his Spiderette is rooted in problematic assumptions and sit-com plotting. What isn’t rooted in sit-com plotting is Spider-Man’s adult life where he’s ducking Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson), receiving ghost gifts from the late Tony Stark, and battling elemental evil in some of Europe’s finest tourist traps. On the latter, there’s a new Avenger, it would seem, “Mysterio,” aka Quentin Beck (Jake Gyllenhaal), who comes from an alternate universe where the Earth has been destroyed. Hey, dude, where were you when this version was getting all destroyed and stuff, huh?
Of course, we just learned all about alternate realities in Spider-Verse, so we’re totally on top of this. When does it get animated?
Pete has several problems with having an away game, the smallest of which is not wanting to deal with Nick Fury. There are also the major issues of 1) Not wanting to … after all, “I’m on vacation” and 2) The dead giveaway that Spider-Man suddenly being in Venice is quite the coincidence for a hero who treasures anonymity. The plot gets around the latter by having Peter Parker dress as his shameful Eurotrash equivalent: Night Monkey. I think this is my favorite plotpoint. Anyhoo – the Night Monkey reluctance leads to a bigger problem — the film has “Spider-Man” in the title, and Spider-Man doesn’t seem to be the major playah in his own franchise. What’s up with that?
Don’t worry; this is a clever film – a tad too clever at times, and should remind folks of Megamind and The Incredibles. You get this, right? The film’s nearest comparisons: Spider-Verse, Megamind, and Incredibles are all animated. Feel free to supply your own conclusion.
Few films are more tailored for our unique world of 2019 than Spider-Man: Far from Home. The era of media manipulation has introduced many more villains than the world has proper time and space to acknowledge. The biggest problem with mass knowledge is when you introduce fake news to a population, counter it with genuine fact, and ask individuals to decide for themselves what’s right, they tend to choose the “truth” they agree with regardless of veracity. This is why Donald Trump is President. Hence, back to the film – Spider-Man: Far from Home presents a number of reality/perception based questions, especially with regards to propaganda v. genuine threat. Unfortunately, the only message people are likely to take from this film is that news can be faked, not the more subtle commentary on why news is faked, who are the kind of people who fake it, and what kind of people deliberately choose to see fiction as reality. So, Spider-Man, A+ on reflecting our current reality, C- on the targeting.
I liked Homecoming a little better. It’s not just about Spider-boy growing older and savvier, which –for me- takes much of the silk off the webbing, so-to-speak. Far from Home set itself up to be clever rather than asking us what we really wanted to see out of Spider-Man this time around. I’m happy with the result, but I’ll not laud beyond polite applause.
From Portugal to Kazakhstan
Crime is thwarted with fermented plan
In Europe, the idol
Is the one with the title
“Your friendly neighborhood Cidre-Man”
Rated PG-13, 129 Minutes
Director: Jon Watts
Writer: Chris McKenna
Genre: Marvel v. Trumpsters
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: The Tom Holland fan club
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: I’d say “Trumpsters,” but I doubt very much they’ll figure out this film is dumping on them
