Spider-Man’s web is an incy wincy bit... TANGLED
No sooner has the 22nd film in the so-called Marvel Cinematic Universe clanked noisily into the middle distance, dragging behind it a multitude of records (the highest-grossing superhero film of all time, taking less than three weeks to earn $2.5 billion at the global box-office) than the 23rd swings into town.
Avengers: endgame was of course never intended as an exclamation mark. The profit-making behemoth that is MCU rumbles on, and spider-Man: Far From Home picks up more or less where endgame left us.
Iron Man, Captain America and Black Widow are dead and schoolboy Peter Parker (Tom Holland, appealing and irritating in almost equal measure), gauche protégé of Iron Man’s alter ego Tony stark, has been thrust somewhat grudgingly into the vanguard of the fight against evil.
‘The whole world’s asking: “Who’s going to be the next Iron Man?”’ says Peter. Well, it’s him. not that you’d know it for most of the first half of the film, which unfolds like a standard U.s. high-school romcom.
or to be more precise, like a high-school romcom which has run out of ideas, and has to be shifted from the locker-lined corridors and softball pitches of America to the great cities of europe.
Yes, Peter’s year group is being taken on a whistle-stop european tour, which you can bet their bottom dollar is going to spell bad news for Venice’s st Mark’s square and the Tower of London.
For spider- Man traditionalists, who expect to see our superhero leaving his home in Queens only to ping between the skyscrapers of Manhattan, this is disconcerting. Who needs a worldwide web?
The director is Jon Watts, who made a cracking job of 2017’s spider-Man: Homecoming. Too cracking a job, in a way.
He and his screenwriters set an extremely high bar, and this film never comes close to reaching it. still, Chris McKenna and erik sommers, who were both part of the writing team last time, have as much fun as they can with the european adventure.
‘I may not know much but I know this . . . europeans love Americans,’ says Peter’s chubby pal ned (Jacob Batalon) before the trip gets underway.
At the screening I attended in London, that line was greeted with much chortling. I’d love to know how it goes down stateside. With solemn approval, I’d like to think. Irony? What irony? With a pair of comically hapless teachers (played by JB smoove and Martin starr) leading the trip, and Peter trying to deal with a seemingly unrequited crush on his aloof classmate MJ (nicely played by the pop star Zendaya), who is also being pursued by the school hunk Brad (remy Hii), the cast no less than the audience needs periodic reminders that this is not a remake of national Lampoon’s european Vacation, and that there’s proper superhero stuff going on.
There are a few half-hearted references to the ‘ Blip’, the somewhat understated word for the five- year period during which half of all humanity was obliterated, only to reappear at the same age as they were
before. But it is eye-patched superagent Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) who drags the show back into the super-sphere.
He sends Stark’s old buddy Happy Hogan (Jon Favreau), who in yet another romantic sub-plot is falling for Peter’s Aunt May (Marisa Tomei), to tell Peter his super-powers are required.
That’s a lot of supers, but unfortunately none of them apply to the plot, which is way too complex for its own good and involves an awful lot of trickery and illusion, including the illusion that this film is a worthy successor to SpiderMan: Homecoming. In short, a ‘cyclone with a face’ is rampaging around the world, and Spider-Man is needed to stop it.
Unhelpfully, Peter is reluctant to give up his school trip. He has a big romantic gesture planned for Paris, but Fury wants him in Prague where the monster is about to strike next.
In the nick of time, another superhero gets stuck in. This is Quentin Beck, also known as Mysterio ( Jake Gyllenhaal), who appears to have fashioned a helmet out of a Belisha Beacon.
He also appears to be just ally Peter needs in the battle against evil, but even more than usual in Marvel films, all appearances are deceptive.
That includes the end credits, because the most startling moment of the entire movie, perhaps the only startling moment, comes after them, as a TV newsflash sets us up — possibly in more ways than one — for yet another Spidey adventure. OF COURSE, it could be fake news, which brings us to The Queen’s Corgi, a Belgian animation which amid all its many misjudgements, at least raises a smile with its depiction of Donald Trump.
Brilliantly voiced by Jon Culshaw, he arrives at Buckingham Palace on a state visit with Melania, not to mention an over- sexed bitch called Mitzi who tries to get off with one of Her Majesty’s corgis.
This is Rex (voiced by Jack Whitehall), a desperately spoilt and feckless dog who nevertheless is the Queen’s favourite — a canine Prince Andrew, if you will.
But Rex learns the errors of his ways after being tricked by fellow corgi Charlie (Matt Lucas), who wants to be top dog himself.
Don’t be fooled. It might sound like fun, and a splendid voice cast also includes Julie Walters as the Queen, plus Sheridan Smith and Ray Winstone.
But there is infinitely more wit in even the feeblest Tom and Jerry cartoon.
Indeed, some of the humour in The Queen’s Corgi is crass beyond belief.
Children won’t understand it; parents will be bored by it.
It is the antithesis of a good family film.