Spider-Man: Far From Home

Rumor right now is

Spoiler

Peter / Spidey will face off with Chameleon in the next movie. This makes sense in a way, as Peter has been outed as Spidey and Chameleon steals identities.

They've really been focusing on a lot of the early Lee/Ditko Spider-Man villains for this series of films, and Chameleon is one of the few that has yet to have a starring turn as a villain in a movie yet. I would really like to see The Scorpion finally as well.

 

I wouldn't have a problem with that.

Spoiler

I'm glad the MCU incarnation is trying to keep with villains that haven't been done before. They're probably not gonna top Willem Dafoe or Alfred Molina, so go with something new. It's a good move.

 

Spoiler

Agreed. Their takes on Vulture, Shocker & Mysterio were great. I'd love to see what they'd do with Chameleon, who's a very underrated Spidey villain.

 

Note that Spiderman: Far from Home was mixed at Sony Pictures by Tony Lamberti and Kevin O'Connell, among several others. Disney had nothing to do with the mixes, Dolby Atmos or otherwise. "Good" or "Bad" are very subjective judgements, especially with sound.

 

Yep, nothing to do with Disney... Sony messed this one up on their own.

 

I know, I just wanted to pass that little tidbit along, since I think it is funny.

I haven't watched the 4K disc for Spider-Man Far From Home, but the reviews for the sound are pretty consistent as far as rating it disappointing.

 

I think Disney mixes are all over the map, because some are done at Skywalker, some were done at Sony, some were done at Fox, some were done at Warner Bros., some at Universal, some at Disney in Burbank, some overseas... there's no one uniform mix for Disney films. Disney itself has different sound mixers who work over there in Burbank, and they don't share one uniform style or philosophy. I do recall speaking to an Oscar-winning mixer at Universal some years ago, and he lamented to me how often he was overruled by directors -- particularly inexperienced ones -- who insisted on a bad or marginal mix, despite his experience and awards. (Take a look at the reviews on the sound of Christopher Nolan films, as an example: all mixed by different people, but widely criticized for major dialogue problems.)

They generally provide the exact same mix for the HD Blu-ray and the 4K Blu-ray -- it's just a digital file. I worry more about relative balance than overall level per se: if they're just complaining about low level, I'd say, well, maybe they're protecting against distorting really loud peaks and trying to avoid limiting and compression. Sound mixes are not a simple or easy process. The re-recording crew has to satisfy many masters: the director, the producers, the sound supervisor, and the studio post-production executives. Sound mixing & editing sessions can get very political, heated, and subjective, as can the processes of editing and color.

 

So... Am I alone in disliking Far From Home?

Seemed like an overstuffed film with too many stories happening at once. Superhero/action movie, Wacky comedic travelogue romp, and of course a bit of a rom-com. I didn’t find any of it satisfying, and I am huge Marvel/comic book nerd.

Also, for a “Spider-Man” movie it sure seemed to be more about Tony Stark. Peter inherits all of his tech and has Happy at his beck and call. The villains, once again, are motivated by a grudge with Tony (YAWN), and Tony’s face is constantly seen and his name constantly spoken. Tony/Downey was great. But it’s time to move on.

And can some explain to me Jake Gyllenhaal’s appeal? He seems to play the same mildly neurotic character in everything he does. Even if I weren’t a comics nerd and didn’t know Mysterio were the villain it was painfully obvious from the start. Except, he didn’t come off as villainous. More a petulant child, really.

His lengthy exposition explaining his motivation was so clumsy. Not sure if it was Gyllenhaal, or bad writing, or both His info dump, taking several minutes to point out each and every person in the bar and what their grudge against Tony was about reminded me of Oprah’s “YOU get a car, YOU get a car, and YOU...” Painful.

As for Mysterio’s M.O.? I really liked it... Back in 2004 when he was called Syndrome and the movie was called The Incredibles. Did they purposely crib that?

It wasn’t all bad. Tom Holland is great, as always, and I like Zendaya too. Really, the whole cast apart from the overrated Gyllenhaal was good (Although J.B. Smoove stood out like a sore thumb and was just playing J.B. Smoove again). Love Marissa Tomei’s modern-day Aunt May too. A very welcome change from the comics.

But, honestly, my favorite parts of the movie were the mid- and post-credits scenes. Thank goodness there was a reason that Fury and Hill were so dense throughout the movie. And I’m intrigued to see what happens with Peter being outed as Spidey (Jonah’s back! Why wasn’t J.K. Simmons wearing the wig?). I just wish the movie preceding those scenes had been as good.

Even the action scenes were a big, loud garish mess, and I was disappointed with how the 5 year gap was barely addressed. Surprised to see most reviews/fan reactions were so enthusiastic.

Looking forward to the Dr. Strange and Black Panther sequels. More Thor too. But if Far From Home is indicative of the next Phase of the MCU, I am worried that the wheels may finally be coming off.

Sorry, just felt like venting.

 

I'm with you. I really liked the first one but this one was a slog. Too hard to follow, too convoluted, too Tony Starky... I enjoyed the hallucination sequences but I just want a friendly neighborhood Spiderman, not Iron Man JR.

I'd rank this and Captain Marvel near the bottom of the MCU films. Might he the right time to bail, the storytelling is on decline....

 

Yeah, I really enjoyed Homecoming too. That villain had a grudge with Stark too, but it didn’t seem so played out then. Also, Tony made a good mentor for Peter in that one. But it was, at its heart, a fun little movie that didn’t try to do too much. I too would just like to see a Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man who occasionally gets called to help out now and then for bigger Avengers-style team ups. But keeping his own movies a bit more grounded seems better.

I’ll respectfully disagree with you on Captain Marvel. I did like that one quite a lot. But I do agree that Marvel may have peaked. We’ll see.

Not sure where they take things after Endgame and that time jump.

 

I wasn't as disappointed with Spider-Man:FFH but I did feel it was over-hyped, something I'm getting used to hearing, especially in the first few weeks of a release in regards to comic book movies in general. I did like the light-hearted but not overbearing humor and general handling of the secondary characters but I do agree with the above criticism of Mysterio and I'm still not on board with the current series' "young" Aunt May.

 

This was one extremely LOOOOONG ass movie. Or at least it felt that way.
I disliked all aspects of it except Mysterio looked right. Everything else was bad/dull/stupid. "The Blip", ugh.

 

There's already people calling today's current contagion "The Rona" so having a similarly glib nickname for a massive event is not unexpected in the slightest.

 

And in The Atlantic article that everyone’s re-teeeting, the author posits that kids born in this time will be called “Gen C”:

How the Pandemic Will End

 

Did you like "hallucination scene"? Most people at least like that one.

 

By far, one of the most forgettable of the Marvel movies. Almost FF bad!!

 

It had some interesting imagery.

 

Oh come on. That scene was worth the ticket price all by itself.

Also this was my seven year old’s first experience with psychedelic-cinema. Took him awhile to recover from zombie Iron Man

 

Also this seemed relevant

 

I watched this for a second time yesterday and I still find myself very disappointed in it, which surprises me considering how much I loved "Spider-man Homecoming".
I liked the hallucinogenic scenes but the rest of it fell flat for me. I thought it was too hard to follow and the reliance on Tony Stark tech is getting tiresome. Spider-man is an iconic character that should be able to stand on his own, not keep getting bailed out by Happy and Iron Man's ghost. Hopefully if they make another Spider-Man film we can get back to his roots of taking care of business in his neighborhood. Preferably in a friendly manner.

 

If they took out the Tony Stark parts it would be a lot better. It's a bit of a shame though since the movie does have some very, very good parts. Jake G's take on Mysterio was very good and I liked the different locations, gave it a sort of road trip vibe.
Actually, now that I think of it, I really like the villains (Vulture and Mysterio) a lot more than Spider-Man in these recent movies. They are acted very well and have interesting back stories. Spider-man himself kinda bores me on screen,

 

Wow! I loved it (several times!!)

FF bad??? In what universe????

(And people who claim dislike because of ‘hype’ need a special ignore button just for them!!)

 

The MCU Spider-Man villains (Vulture, Shocker & Mysterio) have been the best yet, with the caveat that they are all largely driven by their hatred for Tony Stark.

The Raimi-era villains were portrayed by great actors, but they largely looked cheesy onscreen like Green Goblin (Doc Ock and Sandman were great, though; Venom was passable).

The Mark Webb-era movie villains (Lizard, Rhino, Electro, Harry Osborn Green Goblin) were all terrible, just terrible.

I know quite a few fans who can't get over their hangups of this film series, and some hardc0re Spider-Man fans that refuse to even watch Far From Home! Their loss.

 

I actually mostly agree with you, except I would lift Spider-man 2's Doc Ock to top tier in your list. I loved his evolution,portrayal and he actually didn't look too unrealistic (except for his mechanical arms of course)
Dafoe played a great Norman Osbourne but it's such a shame how his Goblin costume turned out. Dafoe has such an expressive face. Hiding it behind a plastic mask did him no favours. Ideally, they should have taken a same approach as they did with Jim Carrey in the Mask; give him a mask but one that accents his expressiveness.

Sandman was great but underused. I actually like Spider-Man 3 and the hate for it way overblown. That being said, there are some obvious problems with it and the abundance of villains is the biggest one. SM3 could have been 2 very good films if they just kept all the symbiote/Venom stuff until the sequel. Regarding Venom himself, he was pretty much miscast. Either make Venom the hulking brute he needs to be or don't. This half way approach they took with Topher Grace was a disappointment. It's not that he was a bad villain per se but he was a bad Venom.

 

Far From Home hasn't warmed on me, despite a repeat viewing. It is probably my least favourite MCU movie of them all. The best part of it (for me) was the post-credit set-up for the next one!