Spider-Man: Far From Home Review

4/10. Lackluster and forgettable. Spider-Man: Far From Home does little to feel different compared to previous films apart from an interesting villain.

Let’s start with what we liked the most.

By far the choice to introduce Mysterio was a well-needed boost to the franchise that was becoming stale with supervillains that didn’t greatly differ with their abilities. We’ve had a Vulture, Rhino, Goblin and even a Lizard (Marvel sure does love its animals) but the closest thing to having supervillain abilities that weren’t just general strength was Electro.

That is until Mysterio, (slight spoiler ahead) who even though does not possess supernatural abilities, can actually replicate more superhero-like traits than any of those villains. We genuinely thought his talents were not only fantastic to watch from a visual standpoint, but they were also surprisingly (at least to an extent) realistic of what could happen with current technology or one day in the future.

Suffice to say, he could be one of the best supervillains in the Spider-Man franchise since Doctor Octopus (although we think Doc. Oc is still the more charismatic out of the two).

And that’s pretty much it.

Everything else is just filler scenes that have weak attempts at witty humour and are there simply to fill in time between the lackluster and somewhat illogical action sequences.

Apart from a few jokes, which gave at best a small chuckle, we couldn’t care less about any of these “funny” moments between the Peter Parker gang. The problem isn’t that we don’t like any of the characters, in fact, we think they’re great (or at least could be), it’s just that any attempts at witty dialogue were just laughable but not in a good way. For example, that whole sub-plot love affair between Peter Parker’s best friend could have easily been removed from the film and it would have been just as funny.

Of course, humour is subjective but we were laughing a little bit more with Spider-Man: Homecoming.

Even when the filler scenes did finish, what came next with the action sequences still felt lackluster. We really only enjoyed the final showdown which both looked great and was genuinely interesting to contemplate on how it could happen in reality. But the opening battle? Meh. The middle fight scene? Even worse.

These didn’t feel lackluster for lack of epic proportions, but rather there were no serious consequences involved. We knew that none of the main characters were going to die, people were going to be saved, and everything was going to work out for the best with absolutely no leftover ramifications.

It was like a Simpsons episode where a crazy adventure happens but at the end of the day, the family would still return back to their original point with little changed. We enjoyed the element of Spider-Man’s character arc in battling the idea of becoming the next Iron Man, but aside from that, there wasn’t much gravitas in what impacted the characters.

We should also briefly add that because of who Mysterio is and how his abilities work, there were also more than a few times we were questioning how exactly everything could occur from a practical standpoint. This isn’t to say it detracts from the experience altogether, but it did raise a few eyebrows enough to the point of taking us out of the movie to think “hey, wait a minute. How is this occurring if he’s using that to do that?”.

Perhaps this review might seem to intentionally go against the grain with current popular opinion on the film but we feel strong enough to believe that in a few months’ time, the excitement of seeing your friendly neighbourhood Spider-Man on the screen will die down again (as it has does before the next time he’s there).

Many of us enjoy watching this superhero because he’s always been one of the most relatable. But we shouldn’t let our predisposition bias blind our judgment when watching him on screen.

Just because he’s Spider-Man doesn’t necessarily mean he cannot make a less than average film.

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