Spider-Man: Far From Home

Spider-man has been a tricky character for me. I have not read the comics, so my take on him is purely from the movies that have been released. And THE Spider-man for awhile was the Tobey Maguire version released the end of my freshman year of college. It somehow found a way to make a universally-agreed-upon killer sequel, giving us Doc Ock and the classic Dashboard Confessional song "Vindicated" on a truly great soundtrack album (I have very strong memories of buying this album at the Walmart I worked on, and listening to it on incessant repeat as I drove around SLC in my silver Honda Civic). Sony then found a way to make a universally-agreed-upon abysmal third outing which most everyone would like to just forget.

The Andrew Garfield-led first outing was good, but the second one was truly awful.

Which then gave the world Tom Holland as Spider-man - truly inspired casting. Not that Tobey Maguire wasn't great, but finally Spider-man was being played by an actual teenager who really nailed the funny aspect of Spider-man. Tobey's version, while great at the time, now seems so very pedestrian.

When Sony decided to finally loan out Spider-man to Marvel, we were also blessed with not having to see another film with Spider-man's origin story. Instead he gets plopped right into the middle of an Avengers movie.

I didn't love Spidey's first outing. I was bored with a lot of it and actually fell asleep for a brief couple seconds during the fight on the Staten Island Ferry. But, much like with my evolving love for Captain America, Spidey really shone in his small roles in the Avengers movies. When he tells Tony he doesn't want to go at the end of Infinity War I started crying.

So, ALL OF THIS TO SAY, I was mildly excited to catch Spider-man: Far From Home on the Fourth last week. Tom Holland is just such a joy to watch. But you know who else was a joy to watch - Jake frickin' Gyllenhaal! He was very briefly rumored to replace Tobey Maguire as Spider-man back in the day, and he's somehow never been in a superhero movie. He looked like he was having so much FUN playing Mysterio. The twist was also really neat because I thought he kind of had a point....

For me, I think it also helped that Spider-man is now linked to the larger Avenger stories. I definitely recommend, even if you didn't see the first one.