Film Far from a good movie
Right off the bat there is a superb idea to use: The earth is without heroes, and for now one of the most known is Spider-Man, doing charity work and working alongside Stark Enterprises, he shines as a bastion of hope for an earth that was ravaged by the 'blip', but no one knows that inside the suit, lies a kid that feels the burden of the legacy of a genius, billionaire, playboy philanthropist and expectations of a whole planet. All while the legacy of said hero also spawned vengeful people that will target Spider-Man.
Sadly, the idea is badly used. Awfully, even.
Most, if not all of the gripes with this movie come with how basically, literally every single person was riddled with an idiot ball bigger than Mysterios's fishbowl helmet. You may argue about if the attempts at romance were good, dorky and cute or bad, forced and awkward. Or how Mysterio's role was misplaced or was a nice subversion (since everyone watching the movie knows Mysterio is a bad guy, some argue and I agree that everything boiled down to 'waiting till he reveals himself' instead of a more interesting approach of making him antagonistic from start, as a competition to spider-man, and then work their relationship before Spider discovers and reveals that Mysterio is a fraud). But one can't argue that the whole movie seemed to be made expecting every single person to do stupid mistakes. Kinda like Last Jedi, but that's another landmine that won't be poked with a stick. Before going into spoilers territory, everything in the movie would have work far better if it was toned back to new york instead of a global threat, it will be explained why.
Heavy Spoilers ahead.
Alright, why did Tony Stark place an entire deadly system on a set of glasses, as Honest Trailers stated, one of the most displaced items? It was simple for Tony to engineer a dna scan, or give peter access from his suit, or give him a small base to work from. Tony, the guy who has always a suit ready, and another suit in case of the first suit fails, the guy who had THREE a.i.s ready in case his first one (Jarvis) had a problem?
Nick Fury, yeah, he could send a doppelganger in his stead, except that the canonically most paranoid person on the planet would not in any circumstances stay still in a -global- threat. And yeah, amazingly, sending spider-man against titans, without alerting the armies and countries where the incidents happen in order to not endanger whole populaces, was a really bad idea? You don't have captain marvel? What about Winter Soldier? Falcon? Ant-Man? This is a Global Threat, I'm sure even Hawkeye would get out of retirement for that one.
How the hell Quentin Beck wasn't identified as soon as Peter ACTIVATED THE GLASSES IN FRONT OF HIM WHILE WEARING THEM? "You can erase someone from the internet!" let's just pretend this is true, which isn't, so this also includes the other workers? A pair of glasses, made by Tony Stark, that has control over ALL his security and power, wouldn't come with something to identify potentially perilous people? And the drones behind him?
But this isn't a problem of the story in its major points, it also affects the 'smaller' narrative as well. Why would a shield agent ask Peter to strip without locking the door? Or securing the perimeter? Just so his colleague could walk in an embarrassing situation in order to force an awkward conflict. Why rely on the spider senses? You have Iron Man technology! Make a sonar, and spider drones, emp grenades and more!
And how the hell Shield, of all things, allowed JJ to sereverly endanger the "Last" avenger by revealing his name, and didn't cut the program on the spot?
And everything could be made better, fitting perfectly, if they toned down from 'global threat' to 'local threat', which is where Fishbowl is meant to be: He'd be too small to appear on Shield's radar, allowing Nick Fury his rest and ignorance, he'd be able to get closer to JJ and work his own fame as a hero, defaming Spider in order to replace him. Make him talk with Spider and realize he is just a kid, but that allure of merchandising and allowing goons to escape with money from bank heists he 'foiled' was too sweet to pass by. Sometimes, you just need to keep things at home.
Film Almost quintessential Spidey, but amped up. (Spoiler warning)
Spider-man has been one of the most popular Marvel character because he's the most relatable. Sure, he's got superpowers and fights supervillains, but he's still trying to get through high school and figure out how to ask a girl out on a date or get his homework finished while he does that other stuff.
And this movie is all about that, maybe even more so than Homecoming. Take everything about that and amp it up to eleven.
MAJOR SPOILERS BEGIN BELOW
So now, not only does Peter have to manage being Spider-man, he also has to manage basically becoming the heir to Iron Man's mantle. Those are some big shoes to fill. And all the while he's trying to ask MJ out.
Then there's the standard "oh no I'm a superhero and that might put my friends/family in danger." And in this movie they raise the bar even more. His classmates, especially his best friend and crush, are DIRECTLY brought into the line of fire in two ways - Nick Fury hijacks his school trip and redirects him into the cities where an attack is expected, because he didn't want his friends to notice that he'd "disappeared" from the trip if he helps out. Then when they find out Mysterio's secret, they are specifically put on the a kill list.
What results is, well, the relatable feelings of being a teenager who is under way too much pressure to perform up to all the expectations of all the adults around him. He makes some bad choices and mistakes, which again are understandable given the situation. One of his first instincts is to run away from his problems, leave them behind, or hand it off to someone else. But it never works. Which makes it all the more fulfilling to see him regain his confidence and decide to do what needs to be done, and fix his mistakes.
Mysterio is excellent. His backstory is explained sort of in an infodump, but it's integrated into the previous films so well that, while it's an obvious infodump, it was reasonably acceptable for how it happened in the film. The actual technology and use of Mysterio's powers works really well and leads to some amazing (though intentionally confusing) scenes in the movie.
As for the mid-credits scene - again, back to the beginning, classic spider-man problems have been amped up to 11. Not only is JJ Jameson back, he's got (fake) video evidence of Spider-man being evil, AND his secret identity is now out. Nice. I'm not sure where the MCU is going to from here but so far, I haven't been let down by Marvel Studio's writers when they make huge decisions like this.
9/10, just about everything I wanted out of a Spider-Man story. I just hope Mysterio makes a comeback, maybe as a quasi-hero. Because he was great in this movie, and the MCU needs another Loki-level villain/hero.
Film A great Spidey film
Right off the bat, let me say that to me Far From Home probably ranks second best amongst Spider-Man films- with the caveat that Spider-Man 2 and Into the Spider-Verse share first place. The movie takes the ongoing coming of age story of Peter to it's logical next step- by puting him in the driver's seat he should have been in all along and showing him the depth-and consequences- of his actions. Peter would rather not step up as a hero and leave it to a seemingly more qualified person? It puts thousands of people at risk, and HE is supposed to be the more competent guy. Peter is blindly uncaring with his secret identity? It gets shared with the world, screwing over any chance of a normal life he had!
Stepping out of Iron Man's shadow, this movie- it's action, character writing, and the chemistry between Peter and his love interest, are all major steps up from the already-okay Homecoming, all while having an interesting thing or two to say about modern news media and the way we perceive it. Subtly and not too heavily handed, but at just the right moment in just the right way. The plot does require you to have some Willing Suspension of Disbelief, but for anyone going in blind it makes for an interesting twist. It is by no means flawless, but Jake Gyllenhaal and Tom Holland manage to make sparks fly. Solid 8.5 out of ten.