Directed by: Jon Watts
Starring: Tom Holland, Jake Gyllenhaal, Zendaya, Samuel L. Jackson, Cobie Smulders, Martin Starr, JB Smoove, Jacob Batalon, Jon Favreau, Tony Revolori, Remy Hii, Angourie Rice, Marisa Tomei
For those who did not see Avengers: Endgame and have no clue of its outcome, go to another review because I will reveal information from it. Spider Man: Far from Home commences shortly after "The Blip", the five years after the people vaporized into nothingness from Thanos' finger snap. Those who disappeared have now returned, and the news announcements at Peter Parker's high school play an In Memoriam tribute to those Avengers who died during Endgame. The one who affects Spider Man and the events of Far from Home the most is his mentor Tony Stark/Iron Man.
Peter and the other students who vanished and returned are adjusting to the fact that they haven't aged a day, but their counterparts who didn't disappear have aged naturally. The school district is apparently unmoved by the plight of the Blippers (my term, not the movie's) and makes them take exams and classes all over again. With summer looming, Peter/Spider Man (Holland) just wants to take it easy and go on a summer trip to Europe with his classmates. Spider Man is all fought out, and plans to move out of the friend zone with MJ (Zendaya), who hides her feelings behind snark and intelligence. This is the type of behavior which may seem endearing at first, but if she's still acting that way in one year or so, Peter should find a new girlfriend.
Peter won't get much of a chance to relax, because trouble is brewing from another dimension and Nick Fury (Jackson) is of course on the case. A village in Mexico was destroyed by a cyclone which was actually an unworldly creature from another Earthly (or non-Earthly) dimension. While Fury and his partner Agent Hill (Smulders) are on the scene, the creature reappears as does a superhero who can battle the giant with apparent superpowers. Fury recruits this superhero, named Quentin Beck aka Mysterio (Gyllenhaal) to battle the mythical beasts who seemingly bled from one reality into this one.
Fury doesn't have as much luck recruiting Peter for the mission, because he really, really wants to tour Venice, but Fury doesn't take no for an answer, and soon a reluctant Peter joins Beck to battle the monsters before they destroy other European cities. Beck is like a supportive big brother towards Peter, and not what he seems. When Beck finally shows us his cards, it shifts the nature of what has gone before and the explanation more or less makes sense.
Like Spider Man: Homecoming, Far from Home is a lot of fun, although the CGI and blurring alternate realities set up by Beck to thwart Spider Man can be confusing. Gyllenhaal taps into his Louis Bloom character from Nightcrawler and ups the wattage, driven by personal revenge against Tony Stark and Avenger envy. Of the three actors who played Spidey in the last seventeen years, Holland is the most believable teenager and the most convincing as a gullible, likable kid who grows into his responsibility as an Avenger in the post-Iron Man era. Holland is 23, but seems more age appropriate than Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield, both fine actors in the their own right, but let's face it, they were long in the tooth to play a teenage Peter Parker.
Far from Home is a bit darker than Homecoming, and once you sit through the additional scenes following the credits, (as custom in Marvel movies), Far from Home takes on a slant similar to the one in The Dark Knight, in which the hero is made out to be the villain who has to hide in the shadows. This Spider Man series could indeed be the Dark Knight trilogy of the Spider Man sagas, and that is always a good thing.
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