Spider-Man: Far From Home

RATING: C

I would've been totally fine with it if the Marvel Cinematic Universe had ended with Avengers: Endgame. But because there is money to be made, we're gonna keep going and milk this cash cow for all it's worth... until they inevitably screw up and make everyone hate them. Based on their success rate, that may not happen for a while, so we're still on this ride for the foreseeable future.

While there are some future MCU films that interest me--such as Thor traveling with the Guardians of the Galaxy--another Spider-Man film isn't really one of them. While some folks have already gotten Marvel fatigue, I seem to only have Spider-Man fatigue. But then again, that cycle's been going on a lot longer. Three separate castings, plus that Spider-Verse thing.

This new installment takes place some time after Endgame. And quite frankly, the film dealing with some of the ramifications of Endgame is arguably the most interesting part of this. They even manage to work a darkly hilarious moment into all of that. But we're not going to spend too much time there, because this is a Spider-Man movie.

Peter Parker is about to go on a summer field trip vacation with his class to Europe, and he's hoping to use some of that time to confess his feelings to MJ (or rather, the girl who shares MJ's name from the comics). Unfortunately, there's someone else who's interested to which quickly makes for some cliched embarrassing moments. And which makes me annoyed pretty early on. But hey, their trip just so happens to coincide with the attack of the Elementals--monsters made up of earth, water, fire, and air--and the appearance of Mysterio to fight them. Wait, they're trying to convince us Mysterio is a good guy in this? They know that the majority of the audience either read the comics or is semi-familiar with the lore enough to know about one of the members of the Sinister Six, right? 

So to recap that last paragraph... this movie's plot is mostly shockingly uninteresting. The big draw here is supposed to be Mysterio and the twist surrounding him, but it doesn't work. For one thing, most people already know who he actually is. (Though they do give him a different origin story this time, which does prove to be interesting.) Another problem is that much of his plan hinges on a shockingly dumb decision by Peter. But Mysterio is just not one of the better Spider-Man villains to begin with. His big thing is large elaborate illusions and trapping people in them. And one of the signature scenes is supposed to be when Spidey gets trapped in one of those illusions, but instead it's just tiring.

What does work about this movie, then? Well, it is still pretty amusing at times. A lot of the performances are good; despite the problems with Mysterio, Jake Gyllenhaal plays him well. Samuel L. Jackson is also good, per the usual. Both the character of MJ and Zendaya's performance seem better this time as well. And some of the action is good; the scene with the fire elemental is probably the standout. The final act is okay, if unremarkable.

Actually, that "unremarkable" word might apply to this whole movie. Aside from the issues with Mysterio, little about this movie is downright bad. But little about it particularly stands out either--aside from the two credits scenes, of all things. And it's just hard to get invested in this. Because as a Spider-Man movie, it's just another Spider-Man movie and a pretty forgettable one at that. As an MCU movie, it seems fairly pointless. On both counts, it doesn't really offer much new or interesting to justify its existence.

At the end of the day, this is the worst MCU movie thus far. It's an unfortunate way to kick off the post-Endgame era. But then again, Marvel doesn't seem to be in a huge hurry to kick off the next story arc; the next movie (Black Widow) is a prequel. So I guess until they get the new storyline going (probably with The Eternals), this MCU installment and the next one are just going to be riding the coattails of their predecessors.