After Spider-Man: Homecoming established Tom Holland’s Peter Parker as one of the most lovable heroes in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, its sequel, Spider-Man: Far From Home, was given the unenviable task of following up Avengers: Endgame, the highest grossing movie of all time and the breathtaking finale of the entire Infinity Saga.
The death of Tony Stark cast a huge shadow over Far From Home, as Peter spent the whole movie mourning the loss of his mentor, but that didn’t distract from a heck of a story with a heck of a villain. Like Homecoming, Far From Home had a ton of exciting action set pieces and hysterical gags.
Action Sequence: The Water Elemental Attacks
Peter is hoping to take a break from being Spider-Man when he travels to Europe, but he’s promptly attacked by a supervillain upon arrival in Venice, as the Water Elemental rises from the canals.
This all turns out to be an illusion created by Mysterio, and he can even be spotted in the background in an earlier scene, following Peter around the city.
Gag: Peter Tingle
Spider-Man’s Spidey sense is a lot like Batman’s detective skills in that the movie adaptations often ignore it in favor of the character’s more visually interesting abilities.
In Far From Home, Aunt May convinces Peter to tap into his Spidey-sense more — although she calls it his “Peter tingle,” a very unfortunate nickname whose double-entendre meaning seems to be lost on her — and he ends up using it to defeat Mysterio.
Action Sequence: Bringing Down The Fire Elemental
Nick Fury recruits Peter to help in the fight against the Elementals, even diverting his whole school trip to Prague just to make sure Peter can assist in battling the Fire Elemental.
Mysterio commits to the bit, offering to sacrifice himself at the end before triumphantly bringing down the Fire Elemental. He’s no superhero, but Quentin Beck is a great actor.
Gag: Night Monkey
When Spider-Man shows up to fight the Fire Elemental in his new all-black stealth suit, Betty asks Ned if it’s Spidey and, to cover for Peter, he says that it’s the European alternative to Spider-Man.
He quickly makes up the name “Night Monkey” and that becomes the nomenclature that the European news channels refer to him as.
Action Sequence: Contending With Mysterio’s Illusions
The VFX artists who worked on this sequence got a fine addition to their reels out of it. When Spidey is duped yet again by Mysterio and falls into a web of illusions, he has no idea what’s real and what’s fake.
Among other things, Peter sees a zombified Iron Man climbing out of a grave and attacking him, inspired by the Marvel Zombies series.
Gag: Aunt May Starts Dating Happy
Throughout Far From Home, it’s heavily insinuated that Aunt May and Happy Hogan have been flirting with each other, and in one of the final scenes, it’s confirmed that they’re dating.
At first, it seems like Peter is about to reveal his secret identity to the world, but he’s actually giving his aunt and his fallen mentor’s head of security “the talk.”
Action Sequence: Fighting Mysterio’s Drones On Tower Bridge
Before getting up to Quentin Beck to confront him for the final battle, Spidey has to contend with his drones on Tower Bridge. They’re creating the illusion of an Avengers-level threat that Beck is going to thwart.
As he soars into the melee from a Stark jet, Peter has to keep telling himself that it’s just an illusion before diving right into it and taking down the drones, one by one.
Gag: “How Does Cap Do That?”
Mysterio’s drones chase Happy and Peter’s friends to an antique weapons museum in the final battle of Far From Home. As they’re backed into a corner by one of them, Happy tries to throw a shield at it.
Unfortunately, he doesn’t have the strength or grace of Steve Rogers, so the shield barely takes flight. Defeated, Happy says, “How does Cap do that?”
Action Sequence: The Final Fight With Mysterio
Spidey finally confronts Quentin Beck after battling his way through legions of drones to get to the hallway where he’s hiding. Boiling the final battle down to a one-on-one fight kept the action focused on the hero and villain’s dynamic.
After being convinced to use his “Peter tingle” by Aunt May, Peter manages to detect the real Beck through his illusions, grabbing the gun out of his hand before he can shoot him in the head.
Gag: Swinging Through New York With MJ
At the end of Spider-Man: Far From Home, Peter dons his costume to take MJ on a unique kind of date: swinging through the streets of New York. Tobey Maguire’s Peter used to do this with Kirsten Dunst’s MJ all the time.
The fun twist this time is that MJ is petrified as she flies through the city and begs Peter to put her down. Watts took an old trope from the Raimi movies and put a realistic spin on it.
