By Brett Blake While it still doesn’t top director Sam Raimi’s SPIDER-MAN 2, I can pretty confidently say that SPIDER-MAN: FAR FROM HOME is the best Spider-Man movie to be released since that masterpiece back in 2004. It’s far from flawless, but a pair of very strong performances and a story that really “gets” Peter Parker are more than enough to pull it across the finish line. Following the events of AVENGERS: ENDGAME, Peter Parker (Tom Holland) is eager to relax with his high school classmates on a European field trip, and hopefully make his feelings known to his crush, M.J. (Zendaya). Fate has other plans, however, as Peter is soon recruited by Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) to help Quentin Beck AKA Mysterio (Jake Gyllenhaal) -- a superhero from another dimension! -- defeat a series of elemental monsters that are wreaking havoc in Europe and threaten the existence of the planet itself. FAR FROM HOME is really a tale of two halves, one of which is considerably more interesting than the other. One half, which focuses squarely on Peter Parker’s high school relationships, is charming and breezy enough, but it’s pretty slight stuff. Yes, it’s nice that the movie can accommodate some breathing room for Peter, and yes, it’s entertaining to see him bounce off his high school buddies, but it’s all - with really only one primary exception - rather inconsequential. Ample time is spent with Peter and his friends, and while it’s executed about as well as it probably could be, for most of this material I was just waiting patiently for the superheroic half of the story to kick back into gear. That superheroic half, which involves Peter becoming embroiled in the world-threatening plot involving Nick Fury and Mysterio is packed full of absolutely fantastic stuff... most of which I can’t talk about because the movie’s trailers did an excellent job of side-stepping much of what’s really going on with the story here. I will, however, just say this: Jake Gyllenhaal absolutely NAILS the character of Mysterio. As a big fan of Mysterio from the comics, I have been skeptical that he could translate well into live action, but FAR FROM HOME delivers a version that is both very faithful to the core of the character, while also making him work in a 2019 motion picture. And Gyllenhaal brings layers to the part that remind us that he’s one of the very best actors working today. His Mysterio is unquestionably the highlight of the movie. The movie also does a very good job of exploring the implications of what happened in AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR and AVENGERS: ENDGAME. Specifically, Tony Stark’s fate hangs heavy over the proceedings and Peter, especially, who can sense Iron Man’s legacy looming. This informs Peter’s character arc here, which - without getting too specific - sees him taking steps into a more adult and responsibility-laden role. In that sense, FAR FROM HOME is a pretty classic Spider-Man story, as the best of those often found Peter grappling with balancing his ordinary personal life with his extraordinary gifts, and the responsibility he places on himself to use those gifts to help others... often at the expense of his personal life. This is one of the elements that makes Peter Parker such an appealing hero, and FAR FROM HOME aces this. A good amount of why this aspect of the story works so well is because of Tom Holland’s performance. He is intensely likable as Peter, and he brings some wonderfully awkward charm to the table. But he’s also adept at conveying all of the conflicting feelings and desires in Peter’s heart; there are some moments in here of wordless acting from Holland that not only show off just how much he clearly understands the character intimately, but also how truly skilled he is at hitting the heart of a dramatic moment. Holland is the complete package, and the best Peter Parker/Spider-Man we have yet seen. The action scenes are all solid... if also a bit unremarkable. Spidey’s powers are used inventively and creatively, but much of the focus is on the character battling what are, essentially, giant monsters, and this places some limitations on the way the setpieces are constructed. There are other sequences, however, such one involving Mysterio... well, showing some things to another character... that are absolutely tremendous and seem ripped right out of comic book artwork. One area of slight disappointment is Michael Giacchino’s score. His returning main Spider-Man theme (from HOMECOMING) remains effective and terrific fun, and he introduces a key new theme for Mysterio that has some interesting versatility, but for the most part, FAR FROM HOME’s score is either very light comedy stuff or thundering action, neither of which showcase Giacchino at the top of his game. He can do great work in both of those modes, but here it sounds sort of pedestrian, like he had a very short window of time to write the thing and had to take a few creative shortcuts. The score is fine, but when somebody of the stature of Michael Giacchino (an Oscar-winner and personal favorite of mine) churns out something that’s just fine... it has to be seen as a missed opportunity. This is nitpick territory, of course. If only the “high school European vacation” section of the movie was a bit stronger, FAR FROM HOME might have challenged SPIDER-MAN 2 for the crown. But even so, as it stands, this is a quality Spider-Man adventure, which should never be taken for granted, and if its final moments are any indication, there are even more interesting stories yet to come for Tom Holland’s interpretation of this character.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Archives
January 2023
Categories
All
|