Spider-Man: Far From Home (a movie review post)

 

MCU #23

Looking back now, I think Marvel carrying Mysterio into the MCU is one of the bravest things they've done. Of Marvel characters, Mysterio is probably the most made fun of, at least among... I don't know how to differentiate this exactly. There are some legitimately ridiculous characters in the Marvel Universe, but you haven't heard of them. They don't get made fun of because they were so "what the fuck were you thinking" that they haven't been around enough to be made fun of. Mysterio is kind of "main stream," though. He goes back to 1964 and was one of the original Sinister Six. You have to suspend a lot of disbelief to take him as a legitimate threat. The comic book version, I mean. It's really rather impressive that they took this character and made him viable in the MCU.
Really impressive.
Why do it? I have no idea, but they did, and it really worked.

Total aside: As my family and I have been re-watching the MCU movies, we have been vaguely keeping track of how many of the villains in the MCU are a direct result of Tony Stark. Mysterio and his crew blew our count totally out of the water. Though I do have to say that at least a couple of these are not really Tony's fault but Stane's. Still, Tony is responsible for more than his fair share of super villain origins.

From a story perspective, the only real problem I have with Far From Home is the European school science trip. Sure, yeah, I suppose it's supposed to be a bunch of kids from rich families or something and Peter must be there on scholarship, but they never explicitly state that so the whole thing just feels kind of weird to me. When I was in middle school, we took an overnight trip to south Louisiana and that was a big deal, and that was in the same state. I can't imagine getting to go out of the country on a field trip. I suppose they wanted to destroy some other places other than New York. And DC. I get it. That's my personal point of disbelief suspension for this movie, though.

As I stated in my previous review, the real conflict in Far From Home is not man vs. man but man vs. himself as Peter struggles with the death of Tony and his new role as some kind of replacement. Which is not to take away from the threat that Mysterio poses, but Mysterio wouldn't quite have been the threat he was if Peter wasn't struggling with his perception that he was supposed to become the next Iron Man. All he really wants to do is pretend to be a normal teenager and woo the girl.

Speaking of, I really appreciated the brief romance between Ned and Betty. It was a nice acknowledgement to the fact that they were married in the comics.
I also appreciated everything to do with "Nick Fury" in this movie. After Captain Marvel, it's so good.
I love Martin Starr.

Spider-Man: Far From Home serves as the epilogue to phase 3 of the MCU and begins the shift to phase 4, in that it directly leads into the next Spider-Man movie which is part of what kicks off phase 4, at least as far as the movies go. I find it interesting that Marvel chose Spider-Man as their transition character. No, I can't tell you why; I just  do.

That said, this will be the last of my MCU reviews for a while. My family isn't ready to re-watch the latest few of the MCU movies since they feel that we just watched them. I suppose we did, but I haven't seen any of those more than once, at this point, and I'm really wanting to see No Way Home again. Oh, well...
However, it's quite possible that I will be reviewing some of the Disney+ phase 4 TV series. We're going to begin re-exploring those, especially since the first one, WandaVision, leads directly into the new Dr. Strange movie.
Which I suppose brings us to the last ranking, at least for a while. Yeah, I know, but you'll have to find another way to hate on Edward Norton for a little while, though I am looking forward to She-Hulk; there should be plenty of opportunity with that one!

The rankings!

1. Avengers: Endgame

2. Captain America: Civil War

3. The Avengers
4. Captain America: The First Avenger

5. Avengers: Infinity War

6. Spider-Man: Homecoming
7. Captain America: The Winter Soldier
8. Iron Man

9. Captain Marvel

10. Black Panther

11. Doctor Strange

12. Spider-Man: Far From Home

13. Ant-Man

14. Thor: Ragnarok
15. Thor: The Dark World
16. Thor

17. Guardians of the Galaxy

18. Ant-Man and the Wasp

19. Avengers: Age of Ultron

20. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2
21. Iron Man 3
22. Iron Man 2
23. Incredible Hulk (Edward Norton believes EDITH was meant for him, not because he's the next Iron Man but because he's always the hero.)

Spider-Man: Homecoming (a movie review post)

 

MCU #16

Should I mention again that Spider-Man is my favorite super hero of all time? Yeah, I probably should. I say that for this reason: My standards for any kind of Spider-Man adaptation are really high. I mean, I may think pretty much all of the Batman movies to date are pretty dumb, but I am also not invested in Batman so, you know, who cares? Don't get me wrong, Batman is... Well, he used to be fine as character: I don't know anymore. I have the feeling that Batman is no longer also "the detective," he's certainly not in the movies, which takes away a lot from the character. Look, what I'm saying is that they can screw Batman up as much as they want to (which they seem intent on doing), and it's no big deal. Spider-Man is a different story.

That said, so far, Spider-Man has been handled wonderfully.  Across the board, not just in the MCU.

But let's talk about Homecoming...

I think Marvel did a brilliant job with Homecoming. Spider-Man presented some problems considering that there had already been five Spider-Man movies, two of which were origin stories. Of course, none of those versions were MCU, so... what? Do you do another origin story, one specifically for the MCU?

Obviously, they chose not to. As I noted in my last review of Homecoming, summing it up with "I got bit by a radioactive spider" was a great way of bypassing the whole thing.

And so as not to rehash my previous review, the cast were all great. Holland is perfect, completely relatable as a nervous teenager. Which is the origin of Spidey's patter, by the way, nervous chatter.

I think the thing I would most say about Homecoming is that it is actually a different take on Spider-Man, not just from the previous movies but from the comics as well. It's a different take while actually remaining true to the character and to the personality of the character. Spider-Man as Iron Man's protégé is, actually, an interesting way to approach the story and fits well into the MCU. And it allows for it to be believable that Peter is still in high school. And high school Spider-Man is a very interesting Spider-Man and not one that has ever had much focus. Even in the comics, Peter moves on to college pretty quickly.

Plus there are all the ramifications of Tony Stark taking a high school student out of the country to help capture Captain America, putting him in incredible danger, that I have never bothered to talk about before.

And which I am going to continue to not talk about other than to say that this is part of what causes the tension in this movie. Tony dragged Peter off to... wherever... and Peter got hurt and it freaked Tony out, as it should have. So Tony clamps down on Peter, giving him "training wheels," and Peter bristles under what he feels like is being treated like a child. Which is valid. And it takes Ned to point out to Peter that he is, actually, just a kid. Not that either of them pay any attention to that in the end.

I suppose all I can really say is that I love this movie. It's not even mostly the Spider-Man bias. They really handled all of this so well. Giving Peter a father figure in Tony Stark was amazing (yeah, I did it), and it works. It works because Peter becomes the son Tony never had. There is a lot of emotion wrapped up in the relationship, and the scene at the ferry when Peter yells something like, "Well, if you were really here...!" at the Iron Man armor and, then, Tony steps out of it, are the kinds of things that make this movie not just work but rise to the top.
And now I want to watch it again! And I just watched it!

I just have one question... When is Donald Glover going to finally become The Prowler?!?!

Okay, let's get this stuff ranked:

1. Captain America: Civil War

2. The Avengers
3. Captain America: The First Avenger

3. Spider-Man: Homecoming
5. Captain America: The Winter Soldier
6. Iron Man

7. Doctor Strange

8. Ant-Man
9. Thor: The Dark World
10. Thor

11. Guardians of the Galaxy

12. Avengers: Age of Ultron

13. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2
14. Iron Man 3
15. Iron Man 2
16. Incredible Hulk (Spider-Man once knocked out the Hulk but not even Hulk could knock out Norton's ego)

Note: I'm listing this as a tie with Cap, but I may change my mind later. I'm stuck between which one I think is the better movie and which one I just like more. Because, you know, Spider-Man.

Spider-Man: No Way Home (a movie review post)

I'm not going to say that this is the best Spider-Man movie ever, but I can understand why people are saying it. If you're Spider-Man fan, No Way Home has it all. And it does it extremely well, pulling all these threads together and making a cohesive movie out of it. Well, that's a bit of an understatement. It was more than cohesive. It's a very excellent movie, and I would love to go see it again.

However, as an aside, I will probably not go back and see it again the theater. I'm still not really comfortable with movie theaters, especially with omicron out there doing its thing, and probably wouldn't actually have gone to see this except for my daughter is in town for Christmas and she really wanted to go to opening night. Spider-Man was actually pretty packed, much more so than Eternals.

It's really amazing to me that Marvel/Sony were able to get all of these actors back to reprise their roles from the earlier movies. And they seem to have stepped back into them so seamlessly. Even so, Alfred Molina really stood out to me in this one. He was perfectly sympathetic while still being completely villainous. And Willem Dafoe still crazy creepy/scary as the Green Goblin. And I'm not going to say more than that, at this point, because I don't want to be spoilery. I'll be spoilery when I get back to this movie on my MCU re-watch project.

More generally, it's even more clear that Doctor Strange and the multiverse are going to be big parts of what's coming up in the next big build up to... what? The next Avengers movie? The Avengers must be coming back as a team, but I haven't been hearing or seeing anything about a new Avengers movie. Maybe there won't be one this go around. What I have seen coming up (though very secretly) is Fantastic Four movie, and the multiverse has always been much more the playground of Reed Richards than it has been for the Avengers. I don't know... none of this has anything specifically to do with No Way Home other than the shenanigans of Doctor Strange. Speaking of whom, Cumberbatch was excellent. I become more and more impressed with him as an actor as time goes on. He's much more versatile than he seems that he would be, especially after his turn as Sherlock Holmes.

Okay, still trying to avoid being spoilery, but one of the things about Spider-Man in the comic books is that he has always been, pretty much, a solo act. Sure, he's participated in team things and done team-ups, but he's really a one-spider show. In the MCU, he was really brought in as part of the Avengers. I feel like the goal of this movie was extricate Spidey from his Avengers ties and return him to being just Spider-Man. There is a melancholy about the ending that also seems very appropriate for the character.

I suppose the thing that I can say most clearly about the movie is that there are no bad moments. There are no bumps. No "but why?s" Even for newcomers who may have little to no background in the MCU, I think this movie sets everything up well enough to be understandable. Sure, having a broader background is nice, but it's really unnecessary. Actually, almost no knowledge of the MCU is necessary other than that it might feel more comfortable to know who Doctor Strange is, but they cover that part pretty well in the movie, too.

Having said that, if you're Spider-Man fan and are familiar with all of the other Spider-Man movies (the non-MCU ones), the movie is so much richer. It was really a lot of fun. A lot. So, then, is it the best Spider-Man movie ever? I'm still going to go with Spider-Man. That's still one of the best origin stories for a super hero ever done, and it has a certain quality to it that I don't know can be replicated. Maybe one day. I mean, the Captain America movies did get better as they went despite having one of the other top origin stories ever. And maybe I'll change my mind. I haven't seen the original Raimi Spider-Man in ages; maybe I should go back and watch that again and see what I think of it now. But, for the moment, I'm going to say that No Way Home is... you got it, amazing but not the best. It is right up there, though.

Spider-Man: Far From Home (a movie review post)

I'm sure I've said it before, but Spider-Man is and always has been my favorite superhero. For as long as I've had a favorite superhero, that is, which is a long time, at least since I was four. I know I was four because I had this Spider-Man toy that I loved, and I remember playing with it at the house we lived in when I was four. It included a tube of stuff you could use to make spiderwebs, and I got in trouble pretty frequently for making webs between the spindles on the backs of our chairs.

Mysterio, on the other hand, has never been one of my favorite characters in the Spider-verse. And this bit may sound spoilery, but I'm not being spoilery because Marvel has done such an excellent job of setting up the MCU as its own place, and you can't take anything from the comics as being binding for the MCU. As far as villains go, Kraven was always my favorite when I was a kid then, later, it was Hobgoblin. Mysterio just wasn't that interesting but, man, has he been around for a long time, so it's cool to see Marvel pull him into the MCU in a way that makes much more sense than his comics origins. And Jake Gyllenhaal was great in the role. He really made it work.

He makes it work because the real crisis in the movie is Peter dealing with the death of Tony Stark. Both with his personal loss -- And, remember, for Peter, it hasn't actually been all that long since his Uncle Ben died. Tony is the second father figure for Peter to lose since he's been in high school. -- and the pressure from those around him to step up and be, basically, the Iron Spider. It's a lot to deal with and Quentin (Mysterio) is the only one around Peter offering him any support. Being fatherly.

And that's all I'll say about that.

The movie is a lot of fun, much of it dealing with Peter trying to work up the courage to tell MJ how he feels about her, something which is probably a "welcome" distraction for him rather than dealing with the pressure from all of the adults around him and the constant reminders that Start is dead. Yeah, I did say that the teenage romantic angst was something welcome for Peter, and he tries his best to avoid being Spider-Man just so that he can deal with what he sees as the romantic tension between the two of them.

I suppose the real question is, "Is it as good as Homecoming?" I'd have to say that it's not but, also, that it's not far off. It's definitely setting the stage for things that are to come, both for the next Spider-Man movie and the MCU in general, while dealing with Peter's personal issues and conflicts. If you're an MCU fan or a Spider-Man fan, it's certainly not to be missed.

Spider-Man: Homecoming (a movie review post)

I don't think I've made a secret of my longtime love of Spider-Man. Spider-Man goes back before Star Wars for me, back to at least when I was four. As such, I waited a long time for a Spider-Man movie. When that movie finally came in 2002 -- the Sam Raimi/Toby Maguire feature -- it was pretty perfect. Toby Maguire really captured Peter Parker, and I couldn't have been happier.

I was less happy when Sony decided to reboot the series. It's not that Andrew Garfield didn't do a fine job -- he wasn't as good as Maguire, but he was fine -- but a reboot just wasn't needed. Sure, change the actors, but keep the continuity of the series going.

Needless to say, I was a little unsure of how I felt about another reboot of the series. On the one hand, Marvel Studios was taking a hand in it, and Marvel has proven themselves a master at handling their own characters. [Unlike Warner Brothers, who continually show they don't know crap about how to make a super hero movie. For their one real success so far (Wonder Woman), they had to steal the plot of Captain America: The First Avenger to make it work.] On the other hand, it was going to be another reboot.

But Marvel, evidently, felt the same way I do about the idea of doing another reboot and went around it by not doing another origin story. It was pretty brilliant, actually. They summed it all up with one line, "I was bit by a spider." It was great.

And Tom Holland was... Okay, I'm going to skip the "amazing" joke. Tom Holland was incredible. Better than Toby Maguire, which I didn't think was actually possible. Of course, I thought that might be the case after Civil War, but I wasn't certain. Homecoming dismissed any doubt within the first few minutes. Seriously spectacular. [Sorry, I had to slip something in.] It's not that he's a wisecracking super hero; he's a nervous teenager. I'm looking forward to more from him.

All of the cast was great, though I wish Donald Glover had had a bigger part. I hope he becomes a recurring character. However, summing up everyone with "great" is probably devaluing Michael Keaton, and I wouldn't want to do that. Keaton was a better Adrian Toomes than Toomes ever was in the comics. Yeah, I was never much of a Vulture fan. But Keaton was wonderful and believable. And more than a little frightening. And I'm not going to say more than that because of spoilers (but my son was in full suspense mode as we watched, so I know it was working; he's a tough audience, even tougher than me).

I also really liked Bokeem Woodbine as The Shocker.

Oh, and Damage Control. That they introduced them was pretty great. I have the original limited series from 1989. Not that it seems it's done anything for the prices of the issues. It's still fun.

My daughter came out of the movie saying it's her favorite Marvel movie ever. I think Homecoming probably lands in my top three super hero movies. I'm not sure what that order is, actually. The top five, at this point, are all pretty great movies, and it's very difficult to tell which is better than another. It might be somewhat flexible depending upon how I'm feeling at the time. Right now, I just want to go see Homecoming again. Seriously great movie. And you don't really need to have seen any of the other Marvel movies to "get it," so don't let that get in the way if you haven't seen the other movies or aren't up to date on them. Just take the Tony Stark bits in stride and enjoy the movie.

Oh, and the Steve Rogers cameos are brilliant. Especially the one at the end.

A Study in Super Heroes: Part Two -- Civil War (review)

Captain America: Civil War is a complicated movie full of complicated issues, but the main conflict centers around individual freedom. How much of our personal liberty, our personal right to make choices, should we give up for the well-being of the whole, for society? Should that ever be compelled?

That's a tough question in these days of border walls and religious exclusions. There is something to be said for providing protection and safety for society, but how much of our freedom should we give up for that? How much should be required and how much should be by choice?

But the actual question is, "Is the movie good?" That's not a tough question, though it does have a complication. If you've been following the Marvel movies, this movie is great. Incredible. It has everything in it you could want and Spider-Man! (And Spider-Man was amazing (Pun totally intended).)

The complication is that if you haven't been following the Marvel movies (and why haven't you!?!?), this is not the place to jump in. It's not enough to have just seen the Captain America movies or just seen the Avengers movies, you need to have seen all four of those to really understand what's happening in this movie. And, so, while I can understand that being frustrating for someone coming into this without the background, it's so very satisfying to see a complex story come together like this, and, honestly, in a way that I'm pretty sure has never been done before.

I'm tempted to break the movie down and walk through it, but I don't want to spoil it for anyone, so I'm not going to do that. Also, there's no real reason to talk about the principal actors. All of them gave the kinds of performances you've come to expect. Chris Evans and Robert Downey, Jr. are incomparable. And I love Anthony Mackie as The Falcon. I think he's tremendous.

However, let's look at the new guys:

Chadwick Boseman: The Black Panther has never been a character I've followed all that closely. Wakanda is interesting, but it's never been sustainable as a setting for a comic book series much like the ocean has never been sustainable as a setting for a Namor series (or an Aquaman one, for that matter). Inevitably, they have to bring those characters into "our" world, and they have never, at least back in when I was reading comics, managed to successfully integrate those characters in a way that made them interesting as primary characters. I hope that changes, because Boseman was excellent as the Panther. He brought just the right amount of gravitas to the role.

Tom Holland: Spider-Man, on the other hand, is a character I've followed closely. Since I was, like, four or five. Maguire's Spider-Man has remained one of my top three super hero movies and portrayals. He really just nailed the role. Holland seems to have returned to that mold, the geeky high school student, something never quite believable from Garfield. To cut it short, Holland was perfect. I have been ambivalent about another Spider-Man re-boot, but I'm now quite looking forward to Spider-Man: Homecoming (and not just because of the ties to this movie).

Emily VanCamp: Okay, so, technically, she's not a new-comer, but she steps up her role in Civil War, so I'm going to treat her as one. She's good. She's good opposite Evans, at any rate. I'd say I need to reserve judgement to see what they do with the character, but it's not clear there will be any further development for the character. At any rate, I'm satisfied.

Daniel Bruhl: Ah, now, this one could be controversial, because the Zemo of the movie is certainly not the Zemo of the comic books. I'm okay with that. The movie universe is not congruent with the comic universe. I'm okay with that, too. And it's probably better that Zemo wasn't running around with a purple hood on his head. Bruhl does a great job in the role. He's convincing. And that's really all anyone can ask of an actor: Did he make you believe?

It's fair to say that I'm biased in favor of these movies, but I think it's safe to say that my bias has somewhat negated by how successful they've been. Marvel has not just made flashy super hero movies; Marvel has made good, even great, movies. They just happen to have super heroes in them.