Another Marvel film as come and gone. Spidey’s latest outing sees the MCU round of phase 3 and the Infinity Saga. There are many, many questions about the direction of phase 4 but I’ll leave that for another time. Right now I want to talk about your friendly neighbourhood Spider-Man.
Its no secret that this film was to be set following the events of Endgame (review here: Avengers: Endgame – 2 Part Film Review). However, we were led to believe it was immediately after, its actually 8 months. This time frame gives the writers the freedom to plot a narrative that’s easy for the audience to understand and the fictional characters to adjust to the ‘snap’. From the trailer we understand the plot to be this; a new superhero arrives from another Earth (Mysterio) tracking 4 creatures called The Elementals. Mysterio needs Spider-Man’s help to defeat them or watch Earth be destroyed like his. This all takes place during Peter’s school trip to Europe. Venice, Paris and London. Nick Fury gets involved, obviously.
Without spoilers I can tell you this, Tom Holland is now without doubt the best Peter Parker/Spider we’ve had. Toby Maguire was decent, but wasn’t always convincing and Andrew Garfield was too old and made Peter far too cocky in the wrong situations. Tom seems to grab all the best parts and adds his own twist, which is a very believable innocence. I’ll be upfront with this now, I don’t like Zendaya, the actress who plays MJ. From the characters I’ve seen her play she seems to just be playing herself, a stereotypical outcast, who deems herself to be above high school life. Jake Gyllenhaal comes in as Mysterio/Quentin Blake and I must say it was a genius bit of casting. Acting as a new elder-male confident in place of Tony Stark, Peter feels he’s found a new ally and mentor. Samuel l. Jackson plays Fury as he as before, effortless. The rest of the cast all put in competent performances but don’t really effect much of what’s going on.
Aesthetics wise FFH is visually stunning. The Elementals look superb and apart from one scene the majority of the film is set during the day. This gives it a real open feel and helps to take in everything that’s going on, nothing is lost in the shadows. Footage of Spider-Man in action has been of a very high standard since he was introduced during the airport scene in Captain America: Civil War. Here, its been taken up a notch, live footage and CGI seam effortlessly together. Some of the scenes with Spidey and Mysterio are truly mind blowing.
We’re also treated to a tight little soundtrack. The Jam’s ‘A Town Call Alice’ is joined by The Ramones ‘I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend’, The Go-Go’s ‘Vacation’ and AC/DC’s ‘Back in Black’. We also get some vey thematic compositions in the score from Michael Giacchino.
You like spider suits? Well you’re in for a treat. We get a full range of costumes, some old, some new, including the stealth suit.
Clocking in at 2 hours 9 minutes we are treated to the 2nd best Spider-Man film. The first is Raimi’s Spider-Man 2. After a couple more viewings I feel Far From Home will topple it, just because of the wider implications this film throws up. It really is a fantastic film, it fits in with the MCU’s narrative for the older audience but also keeps the kids entertained. Only the powers that be at Disney/Marvel know what’s coming next but I honestly believe Spider-Man will have many appearances in the future.
If you want spoilers and easter eggs then keep on scrolling.
for those jumping off here, see you next time. Hopefully you get to see Far From Home soon and you can come back and see if you agree with my ramblings down below.
Well hello there my fellow Marvelites. How awesome was this film? I mean we knew all knew Mysterio was a bad guy and there was gonna be a twist somewhere right? I did, but I didn’t think it would come at the end of act 1. And what a way to do it, using technology we’ve already seen in the MCU; the B.A.R.F tech from Civil War. Its very clever on two counts. 1. Having Myserio use holographic projections and drones really pulled the character into the 21st century. Being a failed actor and special effects artists wouldn’t have cut it in this universe. 2. It ties Mysterio to the MCU prior to this film and gives real credence for his motives having invented B.AR.F and being fired from Stark Industries.
But it’s not just Blake, all of his cohorts were former Stark Employers, most notably William Ginter Riva. William was famously screamed at by Obediah Stains in Iron Man when he said he couldn’t replicate the Arc technology. They’ve all got a reason to follow Blake……some good old fashioned revenge.
I mentioned earlier that one of the scenes was mind blowing. Well it’s the scene in which Peter first encounters Mysterio after he finds out the truth. The zombie Iron Man sequence was superb as was trapping Spidey in his helmet and turning it into a snow globe. There was so much going on that its easy to miss stuff. I’m sure there’s a heap load of easter eggs that nobody has found yet.
Onto the easter eggs then, of which there are many.
- There are many references to important issues of the comic scattered throughout. These can be found car and boat registrations. for example in Venice there is boat registered with ASM212, this stands for Amazing Spider-Man 212. This was the issue number of Hydro-Man’s first appearance.
- When Happy is speaking to Peter after the charity event there is a poster advertising a wrestling event with Crusher Hogan. Peter fought Hogan in the original Spider-Man film. He was played by Macho Man Randy Savage.
- Final scene of the film as Spidey swings down past Grand Central we see a statue in rememberence of the ‘Battle of New York’. More importantly we see a billboard that reads ‘what comes next…?’ followed by colourful circles in numerical order 1, 2, 3 and the blue circle with a ? in the middle. This is quite clearly a nod to the impending introduction of the Fantastic Four. Whoop.
- The shortlived romance of Betty Brant and Ned Leeds is derived straight from the comics. However, in the books they’re a lot older and eventually get in engaged. **Its also worth noting that Betty was Peter’s first crush in the comics and he can’t keep promises just like he does with MJ and Gwen and so she falls for Ned who is a journalist at the Daily Bugle where they both work. We have seen Betty on the big screen, she indeed works at the Bugle and interacts with Peter when she says she can’t cash his pay-cheque as it doesn’t cover the advance from the previous month**
- Brad Davis is also a comic character and first appeared in issue 188 and like the film he has affections for MJ.
- Back in Black is a callback to the very first scene in the MCU. Tony in the armoured vehicles travelling back from his weapons demo in Afghanistan.
- Peter’s suitcase has his Dad’s initials on it ‘BFP’
- Quentin Blake can be seen spying on Peter in Venice before the water elemental attack begins.
There are probably many, many more that I didn’t notice. So onto the mid and post credit scenes.
Mid credit scene shows us Peter watching a breaking news segment on a big screen. The scene shows us Mysterio using one last illusion and placing the blame on Peter before telling the world that Peter is in fact Spider-Man and picture of Peter appears on the screen. That was a great way of having people turn on Spider-Man, in the MCU he’s seen as a hero with no problems in that respect. He’s in for a world of pain now. But that scene isn’t done, we then cut to the Bugle.net video stream and J. Jonah Jameson appears, played by none other that J.K Simmons, the original J.J.J from Raimi’s trilogy. Yes.
Post credits we see Nick Fury and Maria Hill driving through New York. Fury answers a call and starts talking about how the mission went. As this happens Fury and Hill morph in to two Skrulls, Talos and his wife Soren from Captain Marvel. This reveal was hidden in plain site throughout. Talos tells Peter not to Invoke Captain Marvel’s name as if she is a higher being and he pronounces Maria’s name wrong by calling her Mariah. The real Fury we see sitting on a beach, very reminiscent of Tahiti (were Agent Coulson was brought back to life). Infact, its just a projection. We then see Fury stand up wearing beachware. As the camera pans out we see that he is on a rather large Skrull vessel. What does it mean? I believe he’s using the Skrulls to help set up the galactic version of S.H.E.I.L.D called S.W.O.R.D – Sentient World Observation and Response Department. This makes sense as Fury knows he can’t effect Earth any more, he doesn’t have that much intel. He can only effect Earth from a difference.
See you soon.
Ben
Bens Nerd Words 