Spider-Man: Far From Home (2019) - Official Trailer Reaction
Since watching the first trailer, I've actually re-watched 'Spider-Man: Homecoming' for the first time since seeing it at the cinema in 2017, and to be frank I found it very underwhelming. 'Homecoming' is very flat, lacking in ambition and frankly laughable in comparison to the incredible work put into the likes of 'Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse' and Sam Raimi's Spidey trilogy. Sadly though, the film made enough money and pleased enough people to justify bringing back the same creative team for 'Far From Home', and I honestly think that this could actually ruin the film - and the prospective series - in its entirety. Director Jon Watts has no style, no flair, and no interest in creating an engaging and exciting Spider-Man film, and instead uses flat camera angles designed to cover the scene as much as possible as opposed to really using the camera to tell the story, or involve the audience in the action. There's no ambition to the action in 'Homecoming', and from the looks of this new trailer, none in 'Far From Home' either. The Visual FX look like a definite improvement over 'Homecoming' though, which at least is something.
This new trailer opens with Peter Parker (Tom Holland) dealing with the loss of his mentor Tony Stark / Iron Man in 'Avengers: Endgame', and fighting crime in New York with his Iron Spider suit - presumably repaired after being destroyed in the previous film. "Are you the new Iron Man?" asks an NYPD officer, and suddenly it becomes clear what 'Far From Home' is about - Peter struggling under the shadow of Iron Man. It seems odd for Spider-Man - a more famous superhero than Iron Man - to be stuck under the shadow of another Avenger, and while I understand the idea behind this, I do worry that this is what this new Marvel version of the character is. He has an Iron Man-esque Spidey suit, complete with nanotech, a retractable helmet and an artificial intelligence fitted inside. All of these things are...fine, in a way, but I'd rather see a Spider-Man who doesn't have the money and technology of Tony Stark to fight his villains. Spidey's the hero who fights for the little guy because he is one, so giving him everything and anything (including Stark's assistant Happy Hogan, played by the ever-wonderful Jon Favreau) just seems...wrong, somehow.
Anyways, Peter decides to go on holiday with his friends for a trip across Europe - leaving New York potentially defenseless (so much for "with great power comes great responsibility", eh?) - and distracting himself from the reality of heroism. He just wants to spend some time with his best friend Ned and his crush MJ (an interesting reworking of classic Spidey love interest Mary Jane, played by Zendaya), when Nick Fury turns up with a mission. Allied with Quentin Becke / Mysterio (Jake Gyllenhall) and what appears to be a new aspect of S.H.I.E.L.D, Spidey must fight the Elementals and keep the world protected.
It's interesting including Mysterio - a new Spidey villain to the films - but the character who was once a slightly camp special effects technician and bank robber has been turned into a badass superhero from a parallel universe with cool Doctor Strange powers and a mechanical suit. I mean...at least he sort of looks like Mysterio...? Not only that, but Mysterio appears to be a new mentor figure for Peter, alongside Nick Fury and Happy Hogan - an idea that could potentially work if I had any faith that they'd develop an actual dynamic between the two. Say what you will about Peter and Tony Stark's relationship, but it never really developed. Peter never called out Tony on his B.S., and the two never seemed to have any kind of conflict (odd, given that Tony was responsible for the main villain of 'Homecoming', and pushed 15-year-old Peter into fighting Captain America), so why would his dynamic with Mysterio be of much interest? I don't mind Peter having surrogate father figures (in Raimi's trilogy alone he had Uncle Ben, Normon Osborne and Otto Octavius), but when you're missing the most important one - Uncle Ben himself - it just seems mishandled. Why is Peter even Spider-Man? There's no real reference to Uncle Ben after 'Captain America: Civil War's' vague allusion to the character, so is Peter Spider-Man because of Iron Man? Where does that fit into the whole moral of "with great power, comes great responsibility"? Have Marvel and Sony missed the entire point of Spider-Man?
And thus I feel like I've touched on some of my main issues going into 'Spider-Man: Far From Home' - a film I'd have a little more faith in with a new creative team. So far it looks perfectly serviceable, but given how many Spider-Man films there have been up to this point, shouldn't we expect more?
'Spider-Man: Far From Home' is released on 2nd July 2019 in the US and 3rd July 2019 in the UK.
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