Spider-Man: Far From Home Review
Hey Ya'll.
We went to see Spider-Man: Far From Home, and we had a decent time in the theater. Well more accurately, one of us had a decent time and the other was too emotionally engrossed in the film. For specifics, see our Instagram Story.
Anyways, we came away from the movie with mixed emotions, and some confusion from the plot discrepancies but overall we enjoyed it.
We're about to get into a spoiler movie review, so this is your SPOILER WARNING. This review will be split into two parts: plot analysis and character analysis. Yeah, we had to split it up because IB has destroyed our ability to keep our analysis short and cute.
The Plot
Ok, so... basically, the plot of the movie is that Peter Parker gets finessed by Mysterio while trying to shoot his shot with Mary-Jane (MJ) and have a nice vacation from crime fighting.
(If you have not seen Avenger's Infinity Wars or End Game, then there are elements of the plot that you will not understand but a quick YouTube search will get you up to speed. Video recommendations will be linked at the end of the review.)
The movie opened with a dramatic tribute to Iron Man and Captain America with Whitney Houston playing in the background. We almost felt some emotion rising up until we saw the Getty images stock footage of doves flying. That shut our tear ducts up real quick lol.
Then we move into the two student news anchors giving some explanatory exposition about the blip aka the Thanos snap. This is where we start to see some plot hole type activity. They try to explain that 5 years passed in-between the blip and the Tony reversal snap. The explanation tried to account for some of the characters aging while other's remained the same age. We find it convenient that all the main characters "blipped" and were able to stay together in the same grade. But we digress...
For the first hour of the movie, they play up Mysterio's goodness. Even giving him a tragic backstory to go along with his displays of heroism. Not gonna lie, when they defeated the elementals by the one hour mark of the movie we knew that Mysterio auditioning to be Joanne the Scammer Jr. By the way, if the elementals were real, Peter would have had his spidey stump handed to him. We love him and all, but the web shooters were not hitting like they were supposed to.
The second section of the movie focuses on MJ realizing that Peter is Spider-man and Peter realizing that Mysterio is not Tony Stark 2.0. MJ figuring out Peter's secret identity wasn't even that hard. He plays it so fast and loose with his secret identity all the time. He is constantly walking around in the suit with no damn mask on and his mask has no voice changer. Are we to believe that none of the people in his life can recognize his voice?
Yeah, we thought so.
But also there is a side plot about some butt hole named Brad trying to be Peter's romantic rival. He's pretty much yeeted into the "Irrelevant Character" Bin by the end of the movie. (More on Brad's character in Part 2)
Anyways, from here on out the movie gets pretty predictable. Mysterio is a bad guy with a team of bad guys. Apparently, they are a band of Tony Stark Industries' rejects with extensive training in drone building. He messes with Peter's mind using those special Harry Houdini drones and Peter has an existential crisis. He has decide if he can handle the responsibility of being a true Avenger or if he wants to continue being the "Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man" emphasis on the neighborhood.
Peter regains his "Peter Tingle", calls on Agent Smiley to save his friends and kicks Mysterio's butt. He kisses the girl, regains the tech (that he foolishly gave away in the first place.) I mean who even gives away the world's most powerful tech to some dude from another dimension that you've known for all of five minutes? Peter fixes his mistake and all is well in the world.
Except the ending is a fallacy and Mysterio is a big ol' snitch. He flips the situation to make it seem like Spider-Man murdered him for no good reason and he revealed Spider-Man's not so secret identity to the whole world. Now we don't know about you, but are you familiar with a little tune that goes "Knuck If You Buck" ? That song pretty sums up how we felt about Mysterio by the end of the film.
Analysis
The main theme in the film was identity. Peter struggles with the weight of the responsibility of being one of the last remaining superheroes. Everyone is expecting him to turn into Tony Stark Jr. and honestly it's an unfair request. Peter is only 16 and being a teenager comes with it's own identity struggles. To pour more responsibility on him while he is already having a hard time coming to terms with the death of his mentor (and father figure), is idiotic. We're looking at you, Nick Fury.
Mysterio pours salt in his wounds by playing up his weaknesses and for a second, Peter almost hits his breaking point. Thankfully, he remembers that he doesn't have to be Tony Stark Jr. because the real Tony Stark thought that regular Peter Parker was just fine. 😭 He regains confidence in his identity, illustrated by regaining his "Peter Tingle" aka his spidey sense.
Warms our hearts.
However, one aspect we did not care for was Mysterio's reasoning for becoming a fake superhero. Yes, yes it was mainly because Tony Stark had done him very dirty but they kept harboring on the fact that the news is a bunch of bs and that viewers cannot trust what they see on TV.
Is this an opinion we disagree with?
No, but Mysterio directly stating that fact during his "epic villainous monologue" drew us out of the film. Big themes like that should be shown and not told. For the most part, they did a good job of showing it. Peter Parker, Nick Fury and parts of the viewing audience were fooled into believing Mysterio was a good man based solely on what they were presented.
So, the big reveal that the drones were faking a vast majority of what they were seeing and believing, should have been enough to drive the point home. Even down to having Susan (or something), iron out the wrinkles in his cape illustrates a large amount of importance being placed on appearance. And as we know from the Wizard's of Waverly Place Theme song, appearances are not always as they seem.
Overall, this is your standard superhero saves the day film with a misdirect at the end to set up further films. We quite enjoyed it for what it was. The film understood it's genre and proved to be a solid entry in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
A/N:
We hope you enjoyed Part 1 of our Spider-Man review. Part 2 is on the way.
Did you enjoy this film? If, for some reason, you're reading this and you haven't seen it yet, go out and see Spider-man: Far From Home!
Be sure to connect with us on Instagram (@barelybrainiacs) and let us know your thoughts.
Avengers: Infinity Wars & Avengers: Endgame Recap Videos
For a quick recap
If you're interested in comic connections
