True to its title, “Spider-Man: Far From Home” opens with that web-slinging wunderkind Peter Parker shivering in an arctic cave on a planet several light years from Earth. It is the year 2054, which may explain why Tom Holland has been replaced in the role of Peter by Tom Hollander. The decades haven’t been kind to Spidey, who retreated into his icy exile not long after MJ ran off with Thor and Aunt May turned out to be a back-from-the-dead Thanos in disguise.
And it is only natural that deception will beget more deception. The plot of “Spider-Man: Far From Home,” scripted by Chris McKenna and Erik Sommers, concerns a high school trip to Europe that is repeatedly interrupted and endangered by various crises that call Spider-Man into the line of duty, forcing him to make up all manner of lame excuses to keep his friends in the dark.Samuel L.
That comfort may elude Spider-Man, but “Far From Home” tries its best to provide the viewer with an equivalent level of reassurance. It doesn’t have quite the freshness and buoyancy of 2017’s “Spider-Man: Homecoming,” a redundant but successful franchise reboot whose director, Jon Watts, returns for duty here.