Review: Spider-Man Far From Home [2019]; Kid Can’t Catch A Break! (Spoiler-Free!) 

— Cᴏɴᴛᴇɴᴛ Iɴᴅᴇx —

a review by the Azure-Winged Magpie.

Strap in girls and boys and birds and delicious fishies. It’s time to talk about our squeezy cheeked eight legged friend: Spider-Man! But before I do! Here’s a tiny team update! 

A lot of things are going to be changing here on The Corvid Review. For the last few months, we’ve both been starting and giving up on posts where we talk about what’s happening, but I’ve decided to drop the news about what’s going on next week. The Crow’s probably going to drop a post of his own around the same time, but for the handful of people who’ve been following us, I just wanted to give you a little bit of a heads-up before the hammer goes thump.

Anyway! Let’s get to the review! 

The Adventures of
Spider-Man & Fishbowl-Head!

^🕸🕸🕸╰(ಠ ◡ ಠ^✿)╯^🕸🕸🕸

SPOILER LEVELS at MINIMUM

So! This time around Peter Parker aka the Friendly Neighbourhood Eight Legged Nerd (Tom “still want to squeeze his cheekums” Holland) is off on a trip to our dominion of Europe! Now… this kid’s been travelling a lot. He’s been off on a trip on a bus (which was exciting) and then he went on a little jog over to space… and then Titan… and then got swirly-wirlyed back again to Earth. I mean… come on kid. Don’t you have school to get to? Homework to do?

Aaanyway… Aunt May’s got her own thing going on now and it makes little tingly Peter really blushy. Doesn’t matter though… cause Happy (Jon Favreau) is a total stud in this one (have you seen the dude’s cooking shows?!). So Peter gets tingled up a lot and he’s just happy to be off on his trip. He even leaves his suits behind to make sure that he gets some Spidey-time to himself. Top priority in his life right now? To ask that one girl (Zendaya) he likes out (and he’s terrible at it like kids always are). Just to point something out about that one girl… she’s not exactly Mary Jane like from the comics. This one’s called Michelle but also goes by MJ so… close enough! Anyway… what’s important is everyone’s off to Europe and everyone’s getting settled down in the post-snap world. 

But here’s the thing. Remember what happened in Endgame? That thing that happened at the end that we never mentioned? Yeah. That’s hanging over all of this. The whole film is having a serious case of no Iron Man PTSD. And that’s where some of the film started going a little wrong for me. A lot of the humour felt… off. It would’ve been fine as long as we weren’t constantly being bashed over the noggin with dedications and memorials to Iron Man. Don’t get me wrong. most of them still work. Some of them just feel a little off. 

Now let’s talk about Fishbowl-Head. So Quentin Beck (Jake Gyllenhaal) is the next coming of Iron Man and he’s got an upside-down fishbowl over his head. He’s from an alternate universe and he’s trying to stop these elementals who’re causing all sorts of chaos in Europe-land. These elementals have come in from his universe and he’s the only man who can stop them! But he needs help! 

So Nick “Director” Fury (Samuel Jackson) and Maria Hill (Cobie Smulders) want to build a new Avengers and that’s where tingly little Peter’s vacation starts going interrupted. All he wants to do is try and hit on MJ (who’s not dumb like the rest of everyone) and you know what? I thought the romantic story that Peter and MJ had was actually kinda sweet. The whole thing worked and I think it’s probably the best romancing I’ve seen out of all the Spider-Man films.

And now onto the best thing about the film (apart from Jake G bossing every scene he’s in)! The visuals! This one is probably the best looking single-character MCU film so far. I’d probably say that it’s as good looking as Thor: Ragnarok and does a few things even better than that win of a fun time. The Elementals look amazing and the effects are just plain awesome. Spidey thwips and swings around almost as smoothly as in the BEST Spider-Man film of all time. I always liked Fishbowlhead as a character in the comics (okay I didn’t read them but I’d seen the character before) and they nailed his look I think. If you’re into your big budget glossy cover summer blockbusters… this is going to be your jam (jam… yum).

Even though the film has its own story and wraps everything up with a neat little bow to finish things off… there’s a lot of set up going on over here. There’s a lot of material being put into place and lots of things being tied up for the future of the MCU (we’ve got a post about that now that I mention it). And a lot of it’s setting up exciting implications for where things could go from here. And on top of that… where Homecoming got Spidey ready to step in to the superhero world… this one puts him right into the big leagues. Good stuff. Good stuff 👌. 

And that’s all I can really say about the film without spoiling anything. It’s a great film, and a really solid summer flick. It’s not the BEST Spider-Man film out there (Verse still gets my vote) but its close to the top. And right at the end… the film drops some BIG surprises in. And one of these suprises is sure to make people go nuts with how much fan service shows up in one single shot.

It’s great. It’s a MCU film. The MCU’s hit full swing now and they’re just making one good film after the next. Whatever happens next, happens next. Far as things go right now, Phase 3’s been the peak era for the series and it doesn’t look like they’re slowing down any time soon. And on that note… this means we’ve finally done it! We’ve finally and officially finished all the films in the MCU! Woo!

Go watch it! This comes with all of the recommendations we can give it. It’s a solid film and worth the money you’ll spend on it at the theatre. My only real problem was some of the humour feeling off but the rest is just great. It really kicks the rear off the water. 

Spider-Man: Far From Home gets a big thumbs up from me and I’ll see you lovely lot in my announcement next time around! 

Azure-Winged Magpie up! Up! ^{And Awayyy! *BONK!*}

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Final Ratings

THE AZURE-WINGED MAGPIE: 8/10
THE CROW: NA/10
THE SPOTTED NUTCRACKER: NA/10

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Here’s a really cool alernate poster for the film:

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Next up! 

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