While we were out and about during our extended July 4th weekend in New York, we made plans to watch the new Marvel-Sony Spider-Man: Far From Home (2019) film after hanging out in Greenwich Village. Since we knew it was going to be super hot that day and raining in the afternoon, we would hunker down inside where it should be cool and dry. We made our way to the East Side and 34th St, stopped to pick up some cookies to eat during the film, and went to the AMC Kips Bay theater. We soon settled in to eat some delicious cookies and watch the show.
The film is the last one of Marvel’s Phase 3. It takes place about eight months after everyone comes back in Avengers: Endgame. I still think it’s awkward that half of these kids are 5 years older than the others, and now they have to figure out how to handle it. It kinda gets glossed over in this film, but Aunt May mentions how when she came back, someone had moved into her apartment, so she had to move out. I don’t get how the whole thing works. Wouldn’t people who disappeared while flying on airplanes suddenly reappear in mid-air?
Moving on — Peter’s school organizes a two-week field summer trip to Europe, and Peter and his friends go. Peter clearly wants a vacation to forget about getting erased from existence, forget about fighting for his life against monsters and aliens, and to focus on unwinding and wooing MJ. Fury does try to get in touch with Peter before the trip, but he avoids it. Meanwhile, these ‘Elementals’ begin to show up in various locations and wreck destruction.
As you could tell from the trailers, the Elementals show up in Europe as well. Fury finds Peter and co-opts him into the battle. Peter joins with Quentin Beck, AKA Mysterio from the comics. Now, Mysterio had been a founding member of the Sinister Six, so long-time fans and readers are well aware of this. The writers can change lots of things, like whether Peter has mechanical or organic web-shooters. But Mysterio is a villain. It’s only a question of time before he reveals himself.
What did I think of the film? It was pretty good. They did a nice job of demonstrating that Peter is struggling whether he wants to be a teenager that occasionally fights crime, or he is a superhero battling to save the world. Lot more pressure in the case of the latter. I also thought they took an interesting take that Peter may eventually replace Tony Stark as the brains of the next version of the Avengers. He doesn’t officially inherit everything, but he’s clearly comfortable at the end using Tony’s technology.
I’ll also go out there and say I really liked how they demonstrated the dangers of Mysterio’s power of illusion. He can easily kill you.
Two post-credit scenes at the end – stick around and don’t miss either of them.
