Review: Spider-Man Far From Home (spoiler free)

Saw Spider-Man Far From Home today. I liked it, overall. It was good, and had a lot of well-done humor in it, and some cool action scenes. If you're a Spidey fan or an MCU fan, definitely go see it.

And I promised to keep this spoiler free, but if you haven't seen Avengers: Endgame, though, DO NOT go see this movie until you've seen Endgame. Certain events (well, one in particular) casts a long shadow over this movie.

So as you've likely seen from the trailer, Peter Parker and his class (those who were blipped out by Thanos) are taking a trip to Europe during summer vacation. He thinks he can leave Spider-Man behind for a few months, but of course not. Nick Fury needs his help against elementals that are attacking. And Mysterio has come from another Earth to battle them.

Oh, and for the parents - is there cursing in the movie? Just a little. In fact, I can't really remember any swears in it. There probably were one or two, I just don't remember them.

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I've been sitting here for about 5 minutes after typing the previous sentence trying to think how to best phrase this. I liked Far from Home. It was fun, it was funny, it was exciting.

But...

You knew that 'but' was coming, right?

But there was something just a little bit off about the movie. Maybe it was that the big mid-movie twist was not at all a surprise (although the callbacks to previous MCU movies involved was fun). Maybe it was just that ANYTHING that followed Infinity War/Endgame was going to have some weirdness to it, and lack that emotional resonance of Endgame. Maybe that was it? It was just the MCU returning to normal after this very big abnormal event.

I did really like how they handled Mysterio, and the special effects of his powers was really cool. Spidey having a hard time accepting his position as a big-time super hero was good. Nick Fury and Maria Hill...what exactly are they doing? They aren't S.H.I.E.L.D. anymore, so what's up with their new organization? It isn't explained (and a post-credit scene with them adds more questions than it answers).

Maybe what's bothering me was that the highlight of the film was J.K. Simmons' cameo/return to the role he was made to play, J. Jonah Jameson.

I did like it better than Spider-Man: Homecoming, but again (like Captain Marvel) it's not going to jump up to the top-tier of my ranking of favorite MCU movies.