First Take: Spider-Man: Far From Home- the end, or the beginning?

Spoiler free as usual. Because birthday marathon rules are in play.

SYNOPSIS: Following the events of Avengers: Endgame, Spider-Man must step up to take on new threats in a world that has changed forever.

In April, the world bid farewell to this generation of Avengers. It broke their hearts. But now, we’ve got the return of the webslinger. And surprisingly we’ve now had two awesome Spider-Man films within 8 months of each other.

Jon Watts returns to direct the sequel, and like he did on Homecoming, he directs this one incredibly well, creating 2 hours 9 minutes of pure joy that takes the character to places we haven’t seen since Spider-Man 2 back in 2004- there are moments lifted straight from the comics, and it is paced very well, something which is handled well in Chris McKenna and Erik Sommers’ script. It is shot incredibly well by Matthew J Lloyd, and as usual, Michael Giacchino provides another very pun-filled score (fans of his work will know the unique titles he comes up with).

As for the performances, Tom Holland and Zendaya really get to develop their characters in this film- at its core, this film has a cross-country romance, and these two make it work a lot- add to that Jake Gyllenhaal as Mysterio, a character who at times reminded me of the main character from Nightcrawler, and someone who absolutely nailed it, alongside the returning Homecoming crew of Marisa Tomei, Jon Favreau, Jacob Batalon, Angourie Rice, Tony Revolori, and of course, Samuel L Jackson and Cobie Smulders (who are in this film as a way to begin the transition into the new Phase)- all of this cast are good though.

THE VERDICT

Far From Home is a hell of a way to set up Marvel’s output for Phase 4- it’s not the strongest film of the set, but in terms of setting up the next generation of films, this one needs to be seen.

RATING: 4/5