English actor Tom Holland, who starting slinging webs back in 2017\u2019s <\/span>Spider-Man: Homecoming<\/span><\/i>, makes a welcome return as Peter Parker, the awkward but endearing Queens high school student who moonlights as your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man. Picking up right where <\/span>Avengers: Endgame<\/span><\/i><\/a> left off just a few months ago, the film positions Parker as a colossal overachiever (he does spend a lot of time saving New York from destruction, and the whole world is counting on him to take up the work of his <\/span>Homecoming<\/span><\/i><\/a> mentor, the late great Tony Stark) who really, really deserves a long vacation. He\u2019s looking forward to a chaperoned school trip to Europe, especially since it\u2019ll mean getting to spend more time with Mary Jane (Zendaya), the sweet little weirdo with a deadpan sense of humor he\u2019s got a major crush on. His goofy best friend, Ned (Jacob Batalon), one of the only people who knows his secret, is also along for the trip.<\/span><\/p>\n Of course, this being a Marvel movie, Peter\u2019s plan to get a little R&R are quickly waylaid. From the moment the students and their chaperones (J.B. Smoove and Martin Starr, both exhibiting excellent comedic timing) arrive in Venice, they spend less time sight-seeing and more time running from a giant water monster that\u2019s churning up waves along the canals. Luckily a mysterious guy named Quentin Beck \u2014 not-so-creatively dubbed Mysterio by the Italian press \u2014 comes along to help Spider-Man save the iconic city from certain destruction. Beck comes across as a bit bland and squeaky-clean as he also attempts to help Peter figure out whether or not he\u2019s ready for the great responsibility he\u2019s been handed. But given that he\u2019s played by Jake Gyllenhaal (who eventually gets to let loose and have a ball, very much in <\/span>Okja <\/span><\/i>mode), it\u2019s not surprising that there\u2019s more to Beck than meets the eye\u2026\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n As it turns out, Peter\u2019s class trip itinerary has been hijacked by Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson), who is tired of Peter dodging his calls and needs his assistance tackling a new group of villains called the Elementals. Water and earth have already been vanquished, but it\u2019s inevitable that wind and fire will pop up to cause more havoc as the group moves on to its stops in Prague and London. The changes in scenery are welcome ones for Peter Parker and his friends, and they\u2019re equally welcome for viewers: After spending so much time in NYC for these films, it\u2019s pretty refreshing to watch our heroes (Mysterio and Peter, who has been dubbed \u201cThe Night Monkey\u201d thanks to a new black costume meant to shield his identity) make some seriously creative saves in some of the world\u2019s most historic cities with some help from E.D.I.T.H.<\/span><\/p>\n The film is clever in its eventual reveal of the villain behind the Elementals, bringing a little Dick Cheney\u2013and-Halliburton kinda commentary into the storyline. Conspiracy theorists will certainly eat up this whole plotline, which culminates quite beautifully on London\u2019s Tower Bridge. The visuals here are undoubtedly cool, but as I said earlier, none of this would matter much without the emotional depth the filmmakers have afforded the teens at the center of the film. (Just look at what happened with <\/span>Dark Phoenix<\/span><\/i>\u2014enough said.) The joyful, lighthearted tone elevates the proceedings far above most of the dull, mostly humorless summer blockbusters we\u2019ve been assaulted with so far this summer, and should keep this franchise flying high for the foreseeable future. As a big fat blockbuster superhero movie opening July Fourth weekend, Spider-Man: Far from Home doesn\u2019t quite work. But perhaps […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":568,"featured_media":12084,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1381,340],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12083","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-movies","category-movie-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12083","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/568"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12083"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12083\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12084"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12083"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12083"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12083"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/crookedc-01.svg\")
<\/span><\/p>\nGrade: B+<\/span><\/h3>\n
2 hrs., 9 min.; rated PG-13 for sci-fi action violence, some language and brief suggestive comments<\/em><\/h5>\n
\nJoin our mailing list<\/a>! Follow us on Twitter<\/a>! Write<\/a>\u00a0for us!<\/em><\/h6>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"