Spidey's European Vacation

The latest tent-pole blockbuster comic book superhero movie to hit megaplexes this year is ‘Spider-Man: Far from Home,’ the follow-up to 2017’s ‘Spider-Man: Homecoming’ starring Tom Holland as the third Spidey in the last 20 years and the first to be fully incorporated in the MCU.  Being part of the MCU is a big deal; Spider-Man likely would not be quite as commercially successful if it, like the X-Men until now, existed outside of Disney’s money-making machine.  Don’t believe me?  Just ask ‘Dark Phoenix’ and Andrew Garfield.

 

Although not nearly as “far from home” as he was in ‘Avengers: Infinity War’ when he was stranded light years away from earth with his mentor (RIP) Tony Stark before becoming part of the unfortunate 50 percent of Thanos' snap, this latest installment is so-named because our young and friendly neighborhood Spider-Man “ghosts” SHIELD head honcho Nick Fury and goes on a much needed whirlwind vacation through Europe with a few of his high school class mates, including Mary Jane Watson (Zendaya) whom he crushes on like the lovelorn schoolboy that he is (aww!).  Of course, trouble has a way of following Spidey wherever he goes, in this case his classic comic book nemesis Mysterio portrayed by Jake Gyllenhaal.

 

Technically, story-wise and artistically speaking, ‘Far from Home’ is yet another crowd-pleasing winner from Disney and Sony, as its 90 percent “fresh” score on Rotten Tomatoes and box office receipts would attest.  Tom Holland imparts his version of the web-slinger with a youthful exuberance and doe-eyed innocence that’s impossible not to like.  Alas, being the fourth Marvel superhero movie to come out this year (following ‘Captain Marvel,’ ‘Avengers: End Game’ and ‘X-Men: Dark Phoenix’) so far and the seventh if we throw ‘Shazam!’, ‘Hellboy’ and ‘Men in Black’ into the mix, I think I’m suffering from a mild case of comic book movie fatigue.

Grade: B+