Welcome back to Tokusatsu Gesundheit, where this week we are celebrating today’s release of Spider-Man: Far From Home by watching the first Spider-Man movie ever intended for theaters!
PLOT RUNDOWN
BRIEF BACKGROUND
This flick was produced for the Toei Manga Matsuri festival (much like the previously covered Metalder movie). As such, it is a glorified episode of the TV show. Agent Mamiya actually took part in a short arc on the TV series the week after the festival.
And unlike the Spider-Man TV movies that were released into overseas theaters around the same time as this one, it was 100% intended to be screened in a theater – meaning it is the 1st official theatrical Spider-Man movie.
HIGHLIGHTS
- The monster of the week is called Sea Devil (say, I thought they were DC characters…) And he is a humanoid shark that vomits torpedoes. Still not as silly as some comic book Spidey villains.
- Spider-Man’s acrobatics are largely accomplished via jump-cut, though what is actually physically accomplished is very impressive.
- Spider-Man one ups his title of “Emissary of Hell” with “Iron Cross Killer”. Japanese Spider-Man does not screw around.
- Not really directly something from the flick, but I just mentally change Amazoness’s name to Man-Killer to pretend there is a comics connection.
REVIEW
Like the Metalder movie, it’s basically just a glorified episode of the TV series (Marvel streamed it as Episode Zero, which is emphatically not where it fits in continuity). Unlike the Metalder movie, it tells a more complete story and even introduces a new ally for Spidey – making it feel more like a standalone tale than a glorified commercial.
