What A Twist!: Spider-Man Far From Home Spoiler Discussion (SPOILERS)

Mysterio A.K.A. Quentin Beck being revealed as the ultimate bad guy of Spider-Man: Far From Home won't be a surprise to some viewers familiar with the fact that the character has always been a baddie in the comics but his backstory of being a jilted Stark Industries employee leading a group of his co-workers to procure Stark's technology to create their own hologram superhero, that's all entirely new. It's a revelation that's like the opposite of the Khan reveal in Star Trek Into Darkness, here's how you take an existing villain character and make them surprising for both new fans and die-hard devotees. It's also a role that Jake Gyllenhaal is clearly having a ball with, especially once he gets to become a prima donna supervillain fixated on making sure Mysterio's cape is properly ironed.

Just like with Enemy (of all darn movies), Far From Home offers Gyllenhaal the chance to show off just how good he is as an actor at creating two wholly different yet believable personalities in the same character. In the first half of Far From Home, Gyllenhaal is so heartwarming as a new cool mentor figure for Peter Parker to look towards after the death of Tony Stark, you totally buy that this version of Mysterio could be just a decent chap. But then when he goes full evil, Gyllenhaal is equally convincing as the actual malicious Quentin Beck whose just looking to use hologram technology to fool the public and make himself an influential icon.

Speaking of Mysterio, I appreciate that the final confrontation between him and Spider-Man is kept on a smaller-scale compared to some superhero movie climaxes. Instead of fighting through multiple buildings, Spidey and Mysterio eventually just have their big showdown in a glass hallway overlooking the city of London. This way, there's an intimate nature to these two former friends duking it out while spectacle is still delivered by way of Mysterio's powers of illusions which can generate larger environments for the two of them to duel in. Those deceitful abilities of Mysterio's lead to one of the films best moments, when Peter just trusts his Peter Tingle to help him fight off drones. In terms of cathartic Spider-Man movie scenes, it's no What's Up Danger for sure, but it's still a delightful pay-off moment for the character that feels like a great distillation of who the character of Spider-Man is.

As for what comes after the movie in the requisite post-credits scene, yay for J.K. Simmons coming back as a revamped version of J. Jonah Jameson, one who revealed that Spider-Man is Peter Parker! The one exception to the Marvel Cinematic Universe's aversion to secret identities is no more, now everybody knows who Spider-Man is! Meanwhile, the one scene after the credits contains the amusing revelation that extra-terrestrial Captian Marvel character Talos (Ben Mendelsohn) has been using his shape-shifting abilities to pose as Nick Fury. Any chance to see Mendelsohn play this delightful character is a good one in my book and the revelation that the real Nick Fury is chilling out in space with a whole horde of Skrulls reminds one again that the Marvel Cinematic Universe continues to stretch further and further outward into the vast cosmos.