After ‘Endgame,’ Spidey takes a European vacation
Spider-Man’s webs, spritzed all over the five boroughs of New York City and hanging from every other lamppost, are the perfect metaphor for the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The individual movies under the MCU banner need to be narratively sticky enough to ensnare a global audience, connecting the dots as interrelated narratives and keeping the whole ball of profitable goo rolling along. Like Ol’ Man River.
“Spider-Man: Far From Home” clocks in at number 23 in the official MCU count, begun with “Iron Man” in 2008. It’s Tom Holland’s fifth appearance as Peter Parker/SpiderMan and his second starring role, after “SpiderMan: Homecoming” in 2017.
He’s excellent: a charmer, a nimble, dancetrained physical presence and one of an apparently limitless supply of Brits who can play Americans with nearly every vowel sound perfectly placed.
How’s the new movie? It’s good. It’s fun. It goes out of its way to salute the visual effects armies that have made the MCU what it is today, for better or worse. I can’t say any more about that. It’d be a spoiler.
The movie goes on a bit, but then, most of them do. We’d feel ripped off if they didn’t.
This one is about a high school kid, Peter Parker, who goes on a European tour with his classmates, including the sullen, brainy, charismatic girl he rilly, rilly likes, MJ (played by Zendaya). But Peter must rewrite his itinerary and work through his insecurities, at the orders of Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson). Our boy joins forces with the newbie Avenger-level superhero, known as Mysterio (Jake Gyllenhaal), to save Earth from the Elementals — shape-shifting adversaries wreaking havoc as enormous cyclones, or water monsters, or fire beasts.
Venice, Prague and London take it in the shorts in this one, as Peter reckons with his uneasy responsibility as handpicked protege of the late Tony Stark. Jon Favreau’s Happy Hogan, always a pleasure, steps up to a larger-than-usual supporting role, and his romance with Peter’s Aunt May (Marisa Tomei, who clearly deserves her own franchise) gives Peter something to angst about in addition to his own romantic conundrums.
The director is Jon Watts, who handles job one nicely: “Far From Home” has a more pleasing swagger and a surer sense of humor than “Homecoming,” which he also directed. The screenwriters Chris McKenna and Erik Sommers worked on both, and on “Ant-Man and the Wasp.” I like how “Far From Home” refers to the “Infinity War” Thanossnap as a “blip,” a five-year hiccup that halved Earth’s population before restoring the blipped backed to normal, but putting them five years behind schedule.
The movie’s somewhat risky conception of its true adversary comes down to a trippy, large-scale illustration of “illusion tech.” The idea almost works. Then again, illusion tech is the whole point of the Marvel movies. For the record there’s a considerable qualitative difference in “Far From Home’s” action sequences: When Peter Parker pole-vaults and parkours his way around a fast-crumbling Venice, it’s a destructive tonic, whereas the London climax is three times the length and only 67 percent as diverting.
Also for the record: There’s a sweet cameo from a certain Oscar-winning actor, portraying one of journalism’s paragons of bluster, just blippin’ on over from the Tobey Maguire “Spider-Man” movies of the early 21st century.
Michael Phillips is a Tribune critic.