This morning gave us our first great look at the next solo Spider-Man movie: Far From Home. Peter’s wild European holiday might not have given us any Avengers: Endgame hints just yet, but there was still plenty to catch about Spider-Man’s next big adventure.
The trailer opens back in Queens, as Peter (Tom Holland), now flanked by his secret identity-knowing Aunt May (Marissa Tomei), opens a fundraiser supporting the homeless as Spider-Man. It would seem that at the very least, after the initial shock of discovering that her nephew is the Amazing Spider-Man at the end of Homecoming, May is now 100 per cent on board with Peter using his superheroic status for good.
Another thing she’s also maybe on board with? Flirting with Happy Hogan (Jon Favreau), who appears to be happily flustered in this chat with her. Please appreciate Peter’s baffled/horrified/embarrassed reaction to all of this.
Peter begins frantically sorting through the mess of his bedroom as, in voice over, he tells Mr Delmar (Hemky Madera), who appears to now have a new store after his old one got blown up in Homecoming, that he has a big school trip to Europe coming up.
As Pete checks his phone mid-webswing, note the background — it would appear that Avengers Tower is still undergoing serious renovation after Tony Stark sold it during the events of Homecoming. Who’s the new owner? We don’t know yet. Maybe Oscorp could do with a swanky new Manhattan address…
Peter goes to pick up his new passport, and if you were hoping an eagle-eyed glimpse at the validation years would give you an idea of when this movie is set well… you’re not getting it. The years are very noticeably absent! (We still have no idea if this film takes place after the events of Avengers: Endgame or not.) But at least you get to try and say “Peter Parker here to pick up a passport, please?” five times fast.
While May grills Peter about his packing, she also implores him to put his suit in his baggage, too… but Peter has some baggage over that himself. “Europe doesn’t really need a friendly neighbourhood Spider-Man,” he tells his aunt.
However, a brief snippet from the international trailer not included here shows that despite the fact Peter elects not to pack his Spider-Suit, May packs it for him:
Eliciting quite the surprise at the customs check in Venice.
Spider-Man goes worldwide! While a lot of the action for Peter and his friends on their trip in this trailer focuses on Venice and scenes in London, the newly-released poster for the film adds to that New York (duh), Prague, Berlin and the Swiss Alps. A lot of time for Pete to stare awkwardly at MJ (Zendaya).
And flirt awkwardly with her, too, as the duo attempt to compliment each other’s appearance on an evening out.
As the kids get settled into a decidedly run-down looking hotel, Peter admits to Ned (Jacob Batalon) that he wants to spend more time with MJ on the trip… only for Ned to find himself knocked-out by a sleep dart in comical fashion. Fired by none other than…
Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) himself!
“So nice to finally meet you, Spider-Man,” the former director of SHIELD adds as he sits in the most Bond-villain manner possible. Seems like Fury is going to play the mentor role Tony Stark had in Homecoming, and part of that involves him being a holiday party pooper.
“I think Nick Fury just hijacked our summer vacation,” Peter tells Ned — who, despite being sleep darted, is very excited by that prospect in a way that Peter isn’t. Beyond Venice, we see MJ and the other kids enjoying another leg of the trip with a sightseeing bus tour of London…
Which quickly becomes home to a big action sequence, as we cut to Peter swinging into action over a smokey, stormy Tower Bridge (that isn’t to be confused with London Bridge – that’s a totally different bridge!). Note here that Peter isn’t actually wearing his Homecoming suit, but a new version with darker blue coloration and a new white logo on the back — maybe he borrowed the idea from a video game?
This new suit was first spotted in on-location filming in New York, featuring scenes of Tom Holland and Zendaya being swung around, before Tom Holland debuted the suit on Jimmy Kimmel Live. Whether that was filming for shots meant to be London or if there’s another action scene after this back in the Big Apple remains to be seen.
So what’s the big threat in this movie? It first makes an appearance in neither of these locations, but instead with Nick Fury and Maria Hill (Cobie Smulders) opening fire at a giant rock/sand elemental in a desert-y location. Don’t get too excited about this potentially being Sandman or something; as the trailer shows later on, there’s more than one of these elementals showing up all over the place.
“You’ve got gifts, Parker,” Fury says, as we cut over more shots of Peter swinging into action as an unnatural-looking storm begins forming over Tower Bridge (not gonna make a Brexit joke, not gonna make a Brexit joke, not gonna make a Brexit joke…). “But you have a job to do. Are you going to step up or not?”
Between this and Peter longing for a simple holiday with friends, it feels as though a lot of this movie is gonna be about Peter really accepting that he can’t just put away the great responsibility that comes with his equally great power whenever he wants. Once a Spider-Man, always a Spider-Man, even on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean.
As Happy tells Peter that he’s on his own and his friends are in trouble — and we see MJ, Ned and Betty Brandt (Angourie Rice) fleeing from Tower Bridge, and a random shot of some mysterious goons opening fire in a building that seems entirely unrelated — we get another shot of one of these Elemental creatures forming. This time, it’s made of fire/lava, as we go down checking the list of your bog-standard elemental beings.
During this sequence though, we get a blink-and-you’ll miss it look at yet another new Spidey-suit. Paying homage to the look of Spider-Man Noir, this stealthy looking apparel comes complete with flip-up versions of Peter’s usual spider-goggles.
Maybe it’s something he throws together to avoid using his usual suit, but the body armour looks a little too slick for it to be something a teenager could cobble together on holiday, even one as smart as Pete.
Back in Venice as a third elemental forms — this time made of water, because, well, when in Rome/Venice, I guess! There were wild rumours after Tom Holland shared some footage of this scene being filmed that this is, in fact, Hydro-Man, an old school villain from the comics in 1981’s The Amazing Spider-Man #212, but the Hydro-Man of the comics is actually a human, Morris Bench, who gets transformed into man made out of water after an experiment gone wrong.
If this elemental is anything like the other two it appears more natural instead of being a person transforming, so even if this ends up actually being the film’s take on Hydro-Man, it’s going in a bit of a different direction. And if it is, it makes for some interesting speculation as to which comics villains inspired the other two. Could that lava monster be a nod to Molten Man?
The eagle-eyed Tomb Svalborg on Twitter has also spotted another hint at Hydro-Man. In the shot of the kids sailing through Venice earlier, a passing boat in the background had “Asm 212” written on it — presumably a nod to Hydro-Man’s debut issue!
Psst… *points at boat* pic.twitter.com/v5inhKjMLA
— Tomb Svalborg (@tombness) January 15, 2019
Just as things look very wet (and very bad) for Peter, another problem emerges. Or maybe it isn’t a problem yet as we’ll learn… who, or what is he? One of Spider-Man’s most fearsome foes, the marvellous Mysterio (Jake Gyllenhaal)!
First appearing in 1964, Amazing Spider-Man #13, Mysterio — AKA Quentin Beck — was a special effects maestro and stunt man who turned to crime after he found it hard to make a name for himself in Hollywood, using his SFX know-how to turn himself into a master of illusion.
Gyllenhaal’s Mysterio, however, seems like less of a VFX master and more like… well, a straight up magic user. We see him flying into battle in what appears to be both the location Fury and Hill fought the earth elemental in, and then against the water elemental in Venice, casting green-hued bolts of energy and pulling up defensive runes that look rather similar to the displays of magic offered by the Sorcerer Supreme himself, Doctor Strange.
So if this version of Quentin is a master of illusion, he’s pulling off some pretty wild stuff. But is he friend or foe? He seems to be helping out in the fight against the elementals, sure, but is it all a trick, or has one of Spider-Man’s most iconic villains been turned good?
Peter’s friends seem to think so, at least, as the trailer ends with the kids back in their hotel after the water elemental attack, pondering the mystery of Mysterio. “He’s like Iron Man and Thor rolled into one!” one of them notes, only for Flash Thompson (Tony Revolori) to step in and defend the honour of his beloved Spider-Man…
Even while he still mocks Peter. Poor Parker.
Our first major look at Far From Home has given us some cool stuff — new villains, new suits for Peter, a global adventure, and what appears to be a significant re-imagining of one of Spider-Man’s most famous and beloved villains.
But if you were hoping this snippet would allow you to start filling in the gaps between Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame, or get an idea of what the Marvel Cinematic Universe will be like after Thanos’ eventual defeat (and how Peter Parker comes back from a dusty death), then… well, you were never gonna get any answers here, but we didn’t really get any clues as to just when this film is even set, either.
We’ll have to wait and find out all that when Spider-Man: Far From Home thwips into cinemas July 4.