Spider-Man - Far From Home

Get Parker

Spider-Man - Far From Home
USA 2019 Directed by Jon Watts
UK cinema release print

Warning: Slight spoilers.

Well, Spider-Man - Far From Home is an okay follow up to the various Tom Holland starring Spider-Man movies of recent years. It’s not without its problems though and while various critics have claimed that this film is the first of what many people are calling ‘superhero fatigue’ at the box office... I think we have a while to go before that sets in yet. I think the somewhat muted response to this film is possibly because of the stealth approach to the title character but I’ll get onto that in a minute.

Of the superhero movies released by Marvel so far this year, I’d say this runs second place behind X-Men - Dark Phoenix (reviewed here) but way in front of the ‘so-so but not terrible’ Captain Marvel (reviewed here) and the terribly disappointing Avengers - Endgame (reviewed here)... so I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that, for this year at least, DC wins the best superhero movie prize with their inappropriately unfaithful (to the original comics) but immensely fun SHAZAM! movie (which I reviewed here).

So... the new Spider-Man has a lot of the stuff which worked from Spider-Man Homecoming (reviewed by me here) tossed in with some excellent performances from Tom Holland as Peter Parker, Jacob Batalon as Ned Leeds and the truly wonderful Zendaya as MJ. There are a lot of old Spider-Man character references in these movies but they’re so changed from the versions of them found in the original source material that, once again, characters are given the names of their comic counterparts only and have nothing of the look and feel of them. It’s a shame but it kinda works if you can forget these were comic book characters.

It looks spectacular but it kinda drags a lot, to be honest and I think the real problem with this for me is that you never really get to see Spider-Man in one of his regular costumes until near the end of the movie. He’s either winging it with a stolen half mask or wearing a ridiculous ‘Night Monkey’ costume and none of it really gives you that Spider-Man vibe that fans of the character may want. This is not to say there’s not a lot of action but it just doesn’t feel like anything great and I also think the lack of human, villanous henchmen during the fight scenes, instead of fighting big monsters which, anyone who knows who Mysterio is from the comics anyway, will know are just smoke and mirrors, just takes things away from having any stake in the characters.

Some good stuff though... Jake Gyllenhaal is great as Mysterio and when you see him finally from a different viewpoint, he switches into Spidey nemesis mode subtly and it’s very well played. Also, bringing back Happy played by Jon Favreau and having him dating Marisa Tomei’s Aunt May is great. Samuel L. Jackson and Cobie Smulders are back too and they do some nice stuff between them.

The main meat of the story though, for my money, is the blossoming relationship between Petey and MJ, which really is what this film is all about as far as I’m concerned, along with MJ ‘discovering’ Peter’s secret identity. Alas, once more this doesn’t happen in the same way as the comics, where it turns out that Mary Jane knew he was Spider-Man even before they’d first met... but they at least let MJ figure it out for herself here so, that’s kind of cool.

Now then, there are two post credits scenes here and, unusually for a Marvel Cinematic Universe film, they’re both kinda important in terms of story beats. The first one sees a famous Spider-Man character from a previous version of the franchise (the Sam Raimi series of films) return. Interestingly, since the person playing this character was so good doing it before, they’ve got the same actor back from that earlier franchise. Now, I did kinda thought this was going to happen with the same actor actually... but I thought they might take another couple of films to do it so everybody could forget this person was in it before. Nope, they’ve really gone for it here although, it has to be said, the revelations of this mid-credits cameo may mean that he really can’t be in it a lot in future movies (although he’ll have to be in the next one, for sure). Also, they cut out a nicely done scene which was shown in the trailer for this movie and, with the consequences implied by this first post-credits scene on the future direction of the franchise, it would have made a lot of sense to keep it.

The second and final post credits scene is also something of an eye opener although, it has to be said, I was a little disappointed in the direction Marvel chose to take this. All I’ll say about this one is... you really need to have seen Captain Marvel to really understand what’s going on here.

And... that’s me more or less done on Spider-Man - Far From Home, I think. It’s an okay movie with a nice score by Michael Giacchino which does ‘more of the same’ as the previous Spiderman - Homecoming although, sadly it doesn’t use the old cartoon series music this time around. There are some cleverly thought out, retrofitting link-ins with the various sub-villains here too, with flashbacks to previous MCU movies like Iron Man and Captain America - Civil War. Ultimately, though, this is not enough to elevate it to being a ‘great’ superhero movie... it’s just a nice addition which has its problems but I suspect it will still do some box office (although possibly not as much on repeat performance as the company might be expecting from it... I certainly have no desire to rush back and see it again). I do look forward to seeing how they go about dealing with the challenge they’ve set themselves here in any sequel, though but... I also feel like Marvel really need to raise their game to continue with the unprecedented box office dominance which they’ve managed to hold for over ten years now. Great writing would surely fix this issue. This movie feels like the franchise is getting a little lethargic and, while I had fun, I was certainly underwhelmed too. It’s still worth a watch though... especially if you’re not too hung up on the comic book versions of the characters who are, mostly, not in evidence here.

Life

Life Lesions

Life
USA 2017
Directed by Daniel Espinosa
UK cinema release print.

Warning: Mild spoiler allusions about the end of the movie at the end of this review.

Hmmmm.... okay. When I first saw the trailer for Life a few weeks ago at the cinema my first thoughts were... “How come I’ve not heard anything about this movie before now? Were they trying to keep it a secret?” Which is not good, really, I would have thought, when you’re trying to publicise a new Hollywood movie. My follow up thoughts were along the lines that the movie looked like a pretty close rip-off of ALIEN but with nods to the ‘reality’ of films like Gravity (reviewed here) and with a few famous people in it. Strangely enough, when I got to the cinema and saw the thing, I soon realised I was watching a fairly close rip-off of ALIEN but with nods to the ‘reality’ of films like Gravity and with a few famous people in it. Woah, deja vu.

I guess with a film like Life you can at least say that it does what it says on the tin in regards to the minimal amount of marketing I saw and, I’m quite happy to report that it’s really not a terrible movie. On the contrary, it’s quite suspenseful and intense in a few sequences and that’s just what a scary movie, or at least something trying to be a scary movie, should be, right? Alas, it also has some problems too but let me just concentrate on the good stuff first...

That good stuff would be the central performances of the actors and actresses - Ryan Reynolds, Jake Gyllenhaal, Rebecca Ferguson, Olga Dihovichnaya, Hiroyuki Sanada and Ariyon Bakare. They all do good work here and another plus sign for the movie is they are able to interact with an environment that looks pretty good on film. All the antigravity stuff works fine and looks credible.

The film’s alien ‘actor’ is also good. Named Calvin, it’s not the straight ‘homage’ to ALIEN that a lot of the movie ends up being and, although it basically looks like Flubber, it kinda works. Especially when it gets inside characters and causes damage from the inside... so the camera can linger on all that internal blood escaping through the mouth and floating around... which is kinda okay, although the first time it’s properly done it goes on forever and maybe outstays its welcome as an effect fairly promptly in the movie.

Jon Ekstrand’s score is equally good and appropriate to the action, helping the film create the tone it needs when it best needs it. I am awaiting a physical CD release which is not scheduled until May and I can only keep my fingers crossed that it doesn’t get cancelled due to critical or box office reaction to the film... which I believe has been fairly poor.

Okay... so that’s it for the good stuff.

My real problem with this was that the editing and sequence of events didn’t get enough coverage for me to be able to properly tell what was going on in certain scenes. For instance, I watched a character die and then 5 or 10 minutes later he was back without any kind of fanfare, just wounded. I had no clue but obviously the other characters did. Also, at one point, and I suspect this error may have occurred due to scenes getting chopped in the final edit (although I’ve no way of knowing so don’t quote me on that), I counted that there were, in fact, two aliens because there was no way the same alien could have been hiding where it does without being seen (or travelling through locked doors if I’m remembering correctly). So I assumed there were two of them to deal with after a certain point in the movie when, it turns out... no, there was just one. I think the way this was put together could have stood being made a lot clearer at certain points.

Thirdly... remember Star Trek - The Motion Picture (reviewed here)? Special effects like the ones seen in that film were still relatively new and the producers overcompensated for that by throwing in loads of ‘vanity shots’ of the effects, highlighted just to show them off in what are probably some of the more boring moments of any of the Star Trek movies. It was like the people behind the camera were saying “We spent a lot of money on these shots and you’re damn well going to enjoy them!”. Alas, I felt Life suffered from a similar, if not quite as extreme, propensity to linger on various effect shots which, frankly, I was not interested in and which slow down the movie... in this case, slowing it down in a negative way. The effects were great but I didn’t really need them shoved into my face at close range and that’s kind of how I felt certain things were being handled here, frankly.

Okay, lastly, the film has an ending which most people are going to see coming at least five minutes, if not more, before the film actually catches up to it. It was pretty obvious although, I have to say, it was a pretty nice ending and it almost makes the film suddenly feel like it’s been adapted from one of those old EC horror comics which got into so much trouble in the 1950s. It’s silly and schlocky but it’s also a kinda fun stab at an ending and... that’s almost a requiem description for the entire film, in some ways. A kinda fun stab at a movie which, maybe, is a bit obvious and doesn’t quite make it in some ways.

Life isn’t in danger of blowing anyone away, for sure, but it is a kinda entertaining horror movie, for the most part. It won’t make you think and it won’t haunt you afterwards and, like I said, it has some problems. However, if you are into sci-fi horror films it’s not that much worse than a lot of ‘straight-to-home-video’ releases of the 1980s and, as I’m sure you’re aware if you are into watching film, some of those can be a lot of fun. A not bad time at the cinema and I may even grab this one on Blu Ray once it’s done the rounds and drops below a fiver. There’s still plenty of room for ‘space horror’ in my life.