Spider-Man seems to have been handed the keys to the MCU. In Far from Home (2019) our friendly neighbourhood Adolescent-Spider-Man (Tom Holland) goes on a school holiday to Europe with friends and his unrequited love-interest MJ (Zendaya). Following the calamities of Avengers: Endgame (2019) the teenage super-hero must step into the jet powered boots of his mentor Iron Man, as surprise, surprise, the planet is facing another existential threat, this time from the world killing Elementals.
The eternally distracted, forever doubting, Parker is joined in his attempts to foil this new enemy, by multi-verse refugee Mysterio (Jake Gyllenhaal). As the plot unfolds it quickly becomes clear nothing and no one are what they seem in this post-truth reality. The set-pieces play to the strengths of our web-slinger hero. As do the comedy misdirections of a superhero juggling schoolboy crushes and world-changing events. At this point the MCU is some grand soap opera. Its stories have now been on the go, interconnecting, for more than a decade, and seem able to accommodate all manner of tangents. Far from Home (2019) is a well made addition to the canon that will no doubt, is definitely, the springboard for more stories in the MCU.
Darrin // Nightingale 