Spider-Man Far From Home

Spider-Man: Far from Home is a fun road trip movie with raised stakes. Homecoming is still my preferred Spider-Man film (I mean, they got the Vulture right), but this is also pretty good.

Nick Fury does not seem to be his usual, in charge self. But all gets revealed. Partially due to being 5 years behind in intel. Partly.

The school trip aspect gets Peter to places attacked around the world while still keeping his classmates around. Who all just happened to be snapped away by Thanos, so they are still the same age.

For the plot, Elemental monsters appear and attack various spots around the globe. The Avengers do not appear to be around. Iron Man and Black Widow are dead. Thor is offworld. Cap is retired. Nick Fury turns to Spider-Man to help. We get introduced to a new hero, Mysterio. He claims the Elementals are monsters from his reality that destroyed his Earth and will do the same to the 616 Earth.

Spidey and Mysterio team up to fight the Elementals and save the Earth. Hopefully in time for Peter to confess his feelings to MJ.

Spoilers ahead.
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Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse

Sony did it. They made an amazing Spider-Man film!!!

We get the origin of Miles Morales. We get Spider-Gwen. We get Spider-Man Noir. We get Spider-Ham. Let me repeat that. We get Spider-frickin-Ham. Sounds crazy, right?

Get this. It works. The story weaves all these crazy characters together and hits some real emotional moments.

Starring: Shameik Moore, Jake Johnson, Hailee Steinfeld, Mahershala Ali, Brian Tyree Henry, Lily Tomlin, Luna Lauren Velez, Zoe Kravitz, John Mulaney, Kimiko Glenn, Nicholas Cage, Kathryn Hahn, Liev Schreiber, Chris Pine

Synopsis (from Google): Bitten by a radioactive spider in the subway, Brooklyn teenager Miles Morales suddenly develops mysterious powers that transform him into the one and only Spider-Man. When he meets Peter Parker, he soon realizes that there are many others who share his special, high-flying talents. Miles must now use his newfound skills to battle the evil Kingpin, a hulking madman who can open portals to other universes and pull different versions of Spider-Man into our world.

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Spider-Man: Homecoming

I love this third iteration of Spider-Man. It had the right amount of humor and action. We get to see the beginnings of the Parker Luck as Peter has to make choices about doing things with his friends or patrolling as Spider-Man. The Vulture is way more sympathetic than I thought he would be.

I tried to go into this with my expectations lowered, but recently re-watching Civil War took that notion away. Thankfully my high expectations were met and exceeded.

Plus – no origin story! We do not have to live through Uncle Ben dying and imparting the life lesson on Peter. At most, we get Peter telling someone that he was bit by a spider. That’s it.

Mid-Credits scene was good. But the after credits scene is a game changer for the MCU.

Starring: Tom Holland, Michael Keaton, Robert Downey Jr, Marisa Tomei, Jon Favreau, Zendaya, Donald Glover, Jacob Batalon, Laura Harrier, Bokeem Woodbine, Kenneth Choi

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Captain America: Civil War

Starring: Chris Evans, Robert Downey Jr, Scarlett Johansson, Sebastian Stan, Anthony Mackie, Don Cheadle, Jeremy Renner, Chadwick Boseman, Paul Bettany, Elizabeth Olsen, Paul Rudd, Tom Holland, Daniel Brühl

Blu-ray


DVD


After a terrible accident in Lagos with civilian casualties (on top of the events in Age of Ultron), Tony Stark and the UN come up with a charter for the Avengers. A charter that would make them answer to the UN and only be deployed where the UN deems necessary. Most of the members sign the form, except Cap, Falcon and Scarlet Witch. When there is a bombing at a UN meeting, the world begins a massive manhunt for the Winter Soldier. We get to see a bit of Winter Soldier’s 90s career with Hydra when he goes after a couple in a car and retrieves something that looks like the Super Soldier formula.

The military going after Bucky are given the orders to shoot to kill. Cap is most definitely against this and attempts to bring him in alive. Firmly putting him against the world governments, Tony Stark, and the other Avengers. Plus Black Panther. Unfortunately, T’Chala’s father was killed in the UN bombing. With this, we get Black Panther also going after Bucky.

We get a nice little chase sequence that ends with Bucky, Cap, Falcon and Black Panther being brought into custody. Zemo makes his way in and activates some Hydra programming left in Bucky. Zemo slips out and Bucky escapes after giving Zemo a debriefing. Cap and Falcon also make it out in pursuit of Bucky.

As a result of this, Iron Man and Cap begin recruiting among their friends for a showdown. Giving us the Marvel Cinematic Universe introduction of Spider-Man.

TL;DR Go see it. This is how you do a superhero movie with a lot of characters in it.

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Spider-Man 3

Overall, I give Spidey3 3.5 out of 5 Stars.

I managed to skip all the trailers and media coverage of the movie beforehand. I will admit, I was worried it was going the route of Batman with the multiple villains.

This was a good movie. It could have been a GREAT movie. I think it would have been better to focus on one of the three : Goblin Jr, Venom, or Sandman then cram all three in there.

I loved the venom storyline. Peter’s descent and eventual redemption. But this should have taken the whole movie. We should have seen Peter find the symbiote in the first 20 minutes and have him face random superpowered thugs as he begins to lose it. Then have him lose the suit and have Venom be created…around the midpoint. Then focus on Venom stalking Peter and Friends for the remainder with the climax. I loved the look of Venom and the actor playing Eddie Brock seemed a perfect fit for the role.

Alternately, they could have had an awesome Goblin story the way they started out with Harry being friendly towards Peter and have him fund lesser criminals before coming after Peter as the new and improved Goblin.

The Sandman story…meh…the retcon they used to add more of a connection to Peter did not sit too well with me. Thomas Haden Church played the part very well though. The effects were amazing. But I am not sure this storyline could be stretched to a full movie. The other two definitely.

Seeing the movie version of Gwen Stacy and Captain Stacy was interesting – but really did not need to be there. I am hoping they are setting up future storylines to be followed. I know Sony wants to do Spidey 4,5, and 6 whether Raimi and Tobey return or not.

Like I said before, This is a good movie! Don’t let my fanboy rant cover that up. I guess the Schumaker-era Batman movies really really burned me.