Oh, Spider-Man. Your potential in the Marvel Cinematic Universe has been ripped apart by a mega corporation with more franchises than they can count (Disney), and another fairly large corporation with less franchises than they can count on one hand (Sony) (Also if that hand had contracted some sort of finger losing disease, resulting in the loss of a couple of fingers).

With the original ‘Lending Spider-Man to the MCU’ contract ending (Two solo films and two team-up films, which changed to three to accommodate Avengers 3 and 4), everyone assumed that the partnership would happily continue and that Tom Holland could further enjoy bouncing off of the established cinematic sandbox over at Marvel Studios. It came as a genuine shock and surprise to us all when the two profit driven businesses couldn’t decide on whether they should each get more money or keep the fans happy.

Both sides are compelling (not really, but it makes for passable conversation). While Sony is lending Disney Spider-Man (a hugely profitable character) to use in their films, Disney loans out Kevin Feige and the MCU (a hugely profitable combo) to use in Spidey films. But when negotiations began to take place for a new deal, Disney felt like they deserved more of the profit share (since Feige and his creative team lead the charge with these entries), while Sony immediately countered with a firm ‘Nah’, and decided that they could live without the MCU (since Venom was a commercial success while Into the Spider-Verse was a critical one).

Kevin Feige loses a character that he was setting up to be an integral part of the MCU, and now he has to pretend that Spider-Man is no longer around. Sony, meanwhile, loses all established connection to the MCU which will be quite difficult because of the aforementioned ‘setting up to be an integral part of the MCU’. However this is spun, it’s clear that audiences will suffer the most.

All I can give is my opinion. Now that I’ve seen Peter Parker in the same space as other heroes, I have no interest in the character going back to being on his own. Presumably, Sony is going to have Tom Holland’s Spider-Man and Tom Hardy’s Venom in a movie together. This prospect fills me with little joy because Venom was terrible, and because I don’t trust Sony Pictures to deliver a satisfying film on their own. If Sony manages to succeed with a Spider-Man/Venom combo, get ready for a slew of web based spin-off’s. I think there was an Aunt May movie mentioned by Sony at one point.

While Sony may feel like they hold all of the cards (since they hold the film rights to Spider-Man), losing the MCU (and more crucially, Kevin Feige) may prove to be a bigger casualty than they realise.

Joe Russo put it perfectly when he said, ‘It was a tenuous, fraught union throughout the whole process. But, I will say, stepping back and trying to be objective as possible, that I think it’s a tragic mistake on Sony’s part to think that they can replicate Kevin’s penchant for telling incredible stories and the amazing success he has had over the years. I think it’s a big mistake.’

So we’ll see how it goes. I’m sure Sony will be fine without the MCU.

Anyway, the film starts with the MCU’s Maria Hill and Nick Fury arriving in Ixtenco, Mexico. The place is in pretty terrible shape, and the two pull up in their car. We see a woman walking around and carrying her belongings in a shot that reminds me of a more depressing version of the man running around with his ice cream maker in Empire when Cloud City was being evacuated.

Mysterio shows up, an Elemental also shows up, and it’s a pretty dull introduction to these key players. It reminds me of Homecoming’s first scene with Michael Keaton cleaning up after the Avengers. No need to have it in the movie, just start the movie.

The movie does actually start, we get the Marvel Studios logo and a wonderful montage showing those MCU characters we’ve recently lost.

We get a little bit of info on the MCU post-snap, but the movie does the right thing and doesn’t dwell on it too much. It’s the year 2023, all of Spider-Man’s friends were conveniently snapped away so they weren’t five years older, but who cares. Let’s get back to the adventures.

What Homecoming did well, and the best part about having Peter believably be a high schooler (Andrew Garfield was in high school but looked like he should be in college, while Maguire was in high school and then college but looked in his mid-thirties) is that Marvel can spend whole movies in the teen sitcom drama that is Peter’s life. If this wasn’t a blockbuster movie, and if Mysterio didn’t ruin his summer, this would’ve just been a comedy about a boy trying to get the girl while on vacation in Europe. The movie works best when it’s just teens being awkward, and I would happily watch an entire season of that stuff.

Peter tells Ned of his plan to get MJ, and that night goes to a fundraiser with Aunt May. We learn that she was ‘blipped’ and was mistaken for a ghost on her return.

There is a shot in Avengers: Endgame where (in the final battle) Peter gets knocked down to the ground by a blast, and the Iron Spider’s retractable legs get blown to pieces. Now I wouldn’t know, but I have a feeling that shot is there to give whoever wrote this movie an excuse to put Peter back in his Homecoming suit. This film has a reason to go straight back to the iconic red and blue, but in a decision that I love even more, it just casually embraces the Iron Spider suit. Of course he’d wear the more advanced nano-suit most of the time, why wouldn’t he?

Happy being scared to talk to Nick Fury is a great touch, and giving Jon Favreau an extended role in these movies is a brilliant idea. I nearly said an extended role in these movies going forward, but I didn’t.

Peter packs, and decides not to take a suit with him. Aunt May puts one in anyway. The kids get on the plane, and it turns out that post-blip hunk and love rival Brad Davis is also there. Much to Peter’s dismay, post-blip hunk Brad Davis totally has a thing for MJ.

The students land in Venice with teachers Martin Starr and JB Smoove. While Far From Home once again proves that the teachers are a highlight, all but one of Smoove’s jokes fell flat for me (the joke when he tells Brad not to take photos of students in bathrooms nearly makes up for all of the others and it’s probably the hardest I laughed during the movie). Maybe I expected too much Leon from Curb Your Enthusiasm. Martin Starr however is a delight in each and every second he’s on screen.

The students see Venice, and while Peter is checking out MJ, a mysterious someone is keeping his eye on Peter.

While Quentin Beck is biding his time for some serious eyewear, Peter purchases some equally serious neckwear. By this time, Quentin and his team are ready, and Mysterio can be revealed to the world.

Far From Home rewards on a rewatch, and it’s cool to see all the set pieces already armed with the knowledge that it’s all done by drones.

The falsified water elemental shows itself, and the falsified Mysterio makes his brave entrance. The two have a falsified fight, and Spider-Man (real) asks to help. We get some cool web spinning as Peter mainly helps to prevent buildings from falling onto people, as he can’t really fight water. Mysterio wins the day, and becomes a new hero to the public.

Peter decides to let Mysterio handle the new threat, but Mysterio isn’t the only one set out to ruin Pete’s holiday. Enter Nick Fury. Apparently Sam Jackson knew that he was playing Talos, playing Nick Fury. Again, on a rewatch this is fun to see. Fury is a little different in this film, but the audience will either not pick up on it or just accept that he’s on the back foot after being gone for five years.

Far From Home sets up and raises some big questions on the Captain Marvel front. How long have Talos and Fury been doing this switcheroo act? Have they done it before? If so, when? Does it matter? (No) What has Fury been doing while Talos is pretending to be him? Does it matter? (Yes).

There are fun discrepancies in Sam Jackson’s performance. Would the real Nick Fury make a joke to Peter about attending another funeral? I don’t think so. His aggression is also a little more put on, as if Talos is doing his best at pretending to be the intimidating and tough Fury. There are more obvious clues in the dialogue (‘Mr. Beck is from earth, just not yours’/’Don’t invoke her name’). Making a performance like this effortless is a testament to Samuel L. Jackson’s ability, but we all take that for granted anyway.

Mysterio lays down the plot, and Fury/Talos wants Spider-Man to help. Peter turns down the offer, and returns to his holiday.

The kids hop on a bus to Prague, and Peter tries on Edith, the AI glasses left to him from Tony. I like that Spider-Man has access to the same level of intelligence that Iron Man had available. It would just make his job easier moving forward (I’m just fooling myself at this point) if he could read people’s texts and stuff. My rub mostly comes from the drones. In the next movie, people are just going to say, ‘why didn’t he call down the drones to deal with the problem?’ It makes Spider-Man a little bit too powerful and I hope that the drones are destroyed or permanently disabled by the next villain, even though the next film won’t be able to reference the glasses or drones in any way (Every cloud?).

Anyway, Peter nearly murders one of his classmates (post-blip hunk Brad Davis) after post-blip hunk Brad Davis takes a photo of Peter in a compromising position (his pants down with a woman who looks and acts like a dominatrix, though Peter was just trying on his new stealth suit). Post-blip hunk Brad Davis says he’s going to show the photo to MJ, which would make Peter look bad, and not at all be weird on post-blip hunk Brad Davis’ part.

The whole sequence is a little awkward, but Peter uses Edith to delete the photo, after a miscommunication that led to a strike drone trying to shoot post-blip hunk Brad Davis in the face. It’s fun, though I think this was a pretty reckless way to introduce the Stark drones. I don’t think Peter would be as dumb as he was here.

The class arrive in Prague, and Shield, Mysterio and Spider-Man work to stop the fire elemental from getting really, really big. This is where Peter inadvertently begins to ruin Quentin’s summer in return. Peter’s web accidentally attaches itself to one of Becks’ drones, and a ripped piece of it lands conveniently in front of MJ. Mysterio ‘nearly sacrifices’ himself, the fire elemental is destroyed, and Peter and Quentin go for a drink.

Quentin and Peter have a heart to heart, and Peter decides that Quentin should be the one to have the Edith glasses. Quentin begrudgingly accepts them. Peter leaves the bar, and it turns out that the bar and most of its patrons were holograms. I’ve not spoken about Jake Gyllenhaal yet, because I wanted to save it for this reveal scene. Gyllenhaal’s whole performance is amazing. If there’s one thing that the MCU Spider-Man movies have nailed, it’s their villains.

I just know in my heart that Marvel Studios were prepping a Sinister Six movie, laying the foundations over multiple Spidey films for it. We’ve had Vulture, a potential Scorpion and now Mysterio.

Kevin Feige knows that if you want to pull something like six villains in a movie off, you need to do it slowly, and you need to do it carefully. What he wouldn’t do is have the entire Sinister Six’s costumes on display in a post-credits scene. Sony is undoubtedly still reaching for that Sinister Six movie, so I expect it to happen relatively soon now, probably for the movie right after the Spider-Man/Venom team up film.

Back to the film, it turns out that Quentin Beck is a former employee of Tony Stark’s, and that Beck was the person that actually developed the B.A.R.F. system from Civil War. Beck’s team consists of other disgruntled, former Stark Industries employees, including a man named William who was in the first Iron Man. While it’s the greatest callback to the greatest scene in the MCU – TONY STARK WAS ABLE TO BUILD THIS IN A CAVE, WITH A BOX OF SCRAPS – It begs the question of why William has a grudge against Tony when Jeff Bridges was the one that yelled at him.

Peter and MJ go for a walk, and MJ reveals that she knows he is Spider-Man. Peter says that he is neither Spider-Man nor the Night Monkey, but before the couple can argue about it, the piece of drone that MJ grabbed lights up and shows us a section of the elemental scene from earlier. They figure out that Mysterio is fake, and that Quentin might not be who he says he is. Peter confesses that he is in fact Spider-Man, and the two go off to try and figure out a plan.

We cut to Mysterio and his team, who are practicing for their final boss fight. So Beck already had drones since he already faked battles earlier, but with Edith he now has more drones so he can create a bigger fake battle? Seems a bit pointless, he was doing pretty well so far. Quentin figures out that a drone is missing a piece, he figures out that Peter knows everything, and figures that he needs to kill him.

We see how unhinged Beck can get when he’s angry. I love crazy mocap suit Quentin Beck, and think he’s much more threatening than CG suited Mysterio.

In my own fantasy Sinister Six movie, I’d have one of the other team members ask why this guy in a mocap suit with a fishbowl is on the team, and have Quentin de-cloak drones that he has pointed at each of the other members heads. Could be a fun scene.

Peter goes off to talk to Fury, but finds Mysterio instead. This is one of the best villain fights in the MCU. Pretty one sided too. Favourite moments include the moon turning into Mysterio’s helmet, zombie Iron Man with Black Widow’s crawling out of his skull, and the Spider-Man in a snow globe shot. It’s a sequence that wouldn’t look out of place in a Doctor Strange movie.

It all ends with a double bluff, Peter endangering Ned/MJ/Betty, and Mysterio discarding our hero in one of the most brutal ways yet in the MCU.

Peter snoozes away, and lands in the Netherlands. He calls the MCU’s Happy Hogan to come and collect him.

Happy and Peter talk about Tony. It’ll be awkward having Peter Parker never mention Tony Stark again, since Tony’s main motivation to time travel and save half of the universe was to get the kid back. After the heart to heart comes a classic hero pep talk. Peter decides to make a new suit using the MCU’s Tony Stark’s technology, and Happy flies the jet to London.

When Peter puts his arm in the holographic arm while making his suit, and Happy plays ACDC’s Back in Black, I challenge anyone not to at least smile appreciatively at the reference.

Happy lets Fury/Talos know that something is up about Beck. MJ and Ned (with the rest of the class) are stuck on a bridge in the kill zone, and Peter arrives in London with his new suit.

The ultimate elemental shows up, and so does the hero of the moment. Mysterio chastises the ultimate elemental for killing his family, but Cabinet Minister Hugh Abbot knows that this is a bad idea.

Happy saves Peter’s class, and sticking Happy with more kids when we already know he kinda hates kids is a great idea. Peter deals with the drones. The action is a little hard to follow, but we get the general idea.

Peter fights his way to Beck, who has one final trick to pull. Spider-Man is having none of it, and catches the real Quentin just before he pops a bullet into Pete’s brain. One tiny note, when Peter gave Quentin the glasses he had to give a verbal confirmation. But when Peter put the glasses back on Edith was just like, ‘Hey Pete how ya been?’ Does this mean that Peter always has access to Edith? If so, why didn’t he just talk to Edith without the glasses? Do the glasses need to be on you to work? That seems a little strange. I’m nitpicking. Peter sends the drones away with some strange language choices.

‘All illusions are down, Peter,’ is also not what you want to hear when you ask a multi-billion AI if someone is really dead. But I’m glad. Jake Gyllenhaal deserves to come back and not be dead.

MJ finds Peter among the rubble, and they share several moments. Happy, Fury and Hill also share a moment (not like that).

Peter and his friends arrive home, and everyone is safe. Peter asks if Happy and May are dating, to which they are conflicted. It’s a scene that would have worked much better than the scene I chose above to meme the situation, but I can’t be bothered starting again.

We get a final swingin’ in New York scene, Peter takes MJ for a lovely date, and the movie ends. Far From Home is a decent entry into the MCU, and it deals well with the dilemma’s of a post-snap world. Mysterio was fantastic, and any nitpicks are largely swept under the big rug of fun that is this movie.

I was really looking forward to more entries in the MCU Spider-Man, but that’s over now. Goodbye Spider-Man, and thanks for the adventures.

7 Ho Yinsen’s out of 10

Mysterio makes Peter’s identity public. How will Spider-Man deal with this new cliffhanger?? Who the hell even cares!

I am glad that this post-credits scene will be paid off in the future (presumably in Captain Marvel 2 & 3). I love that Fury has seemingly moved beyond Earthly conflicts, and has his sights on something bigger. This scene is a huuuuuuge setup for the MCU.