Further Thoughts on Spider-Man: Far from Home

I still haven’t decided how I think Spider-Man: Far from Home stacks up compared to Homecoming. Both are terrifically-entertaining films with some really resonant scenes, but I can’t tell if I think Far from Home is a tiny bit better than or just a hair shy of its predecessor. What I do know is that I’m still thinking about it weeks later (major spoilers for Far from Home, which in turn means major spoilers for End Game. Consider yourself warned.)

Going into the film, knowing that Mysterio was in it, I expected the illusions to be incredible-looking, and they are. When Mysterio unleashes his first real assault on Peter, it’s 100% freaky and disorienting, and you feel for Peter as he attacks foes/monsters that aren’t there and falls through what aren’t really solid surfaces. That fully delivers.

In my review of Far from Home, I said I liked how Mysterio’s story was adapted for the MCU, and I stand by that. At this point, it’s a little “of course!” that we have yet another villain – backed, in fact, by a whole squad of baddies with similar motivations – who got into villainy due to resentment against Tony Stark, but I ultimately don’t mind it. I love that Mysterio has a whole team of engineers, writers, and costume designers behind him to help him craft this narrative whereby he can use these illusions and his trumped-up backstory to position himself as a new hero of Earth.

I also like how meta the film gets about the outrageousness of said backstory. Mysterio actually comments that ludicrous goings-on like a hero emerging out of the multiverse to battle elemental monsters from a parallel Earth is the sort of thing people just go with, because that’s the kind of crap that goes down these days. People in the MCU, especially post-Snap, are prepared to believe anything, and as Mysterio presents himself as something of a combination of Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, and Doctor Strange, the masses eat it up.

Where I think it gets really neat is the way the film uses Mysterio’s illusions and cons to draw parallels to the “post-fact” world that some actual politicians are trying to cultivate. In Mysterio’s mind, truth is irrelevant. He knows he can get people to believe anything, and once he does, it won’t matter what the facts say or what’s objective reality. His process of obfuscation creates a sense of sifting sands to make even the truth seem suspect.

This is most evident in the first credits scene, whereby J.K. frickin’ Simmons’s J. Jonah Jameson, reimagined in the MCU as an Alex Jones-esque figure, plays footage Mysterio made before his death to 1) blame the Elemental attack on Spider-Man and 2) out Peter’s secret identity. Even though one of those statements is a total lie (with the recording misleadingly cut to “prove” Spidey’s guilt) and the other is a weaponized truth, the effect with both is the same. It doesn’t matter if Spider-Man is somehow able to prove his innocence and/or SHIELD is able to help cover-up Peter’s identity and claim that Mysterio was lying about it. In both cases, the ideas are out there, and they can’t be stopped – no matter what they do, some people will always believe it, or at least suspect it, and that’s enough to erode whatever confidence they have in Spider-Man.

Of course, it’ll be a few years before we get the next Spider-Man movie, and I doubt other MCU franchises will deal with the fallout of this scene. So, when we next check in with Spidey, who knows what’ll be going on with him? Either way, I hope they deal with this properly. This scene basically lobbed a couple of live grenades into the Spider-Man franchise, and I need to see what happens to Peter as a result.

Finally, on a side note, how much of a reprehensible dick is Quentin Beck? Obviously, I was prepared from the start for it to turn out he was lying (‘cause Mysterio, duh,) and so when he feeds Peter the line about his dead family back on “his Earth” – while Peter is still reeling from watching Tony Stark die in front of him – I wanted to smack him so hard. You don’t do Peter Parker like that. Playing on that poor kid’s trauma and grief to make him empathize with you? Cold as ice. He was a great, engaging villain, but I’m so glad he’s dead.