'Spider-Man: No Way Home' Review
PG-13: Sequences of action/violence, some language, and brief suggestive comments
Runtime: 2 Hrs and 29 Minutes
Production Companies: Marvel Studios, Pascal Pictures
Distributor: Columbia Pictures
Director: Jon Watts
Writer: Chris McKenna, Erik Sommers
Cast: Tom Holland, Zendaya, Benedict Cumberbatch, Jacob Batalon, Jon Favreau, Marisa Tomei, Rhys Ifans, Thomas Haden Church, Jamie Foxx, Alfred Molina, Willem Dafoe
Release Date: December 17, 2021
In Theaters Only
For the first time in the cinematic history of Spider-Man, our friendly neighborhood hero's identity is revealed, bringing his Super Hero responsibilities into conflict with his normal life and putting those he cares about most at risk. When he enlists Doctor Strange’s help to restore his secret, the spell tears a hole in their world, releasing the most powerful villains who’ve ever fought a Spider-Man in any universe. Now, Peter will have to overcome his greatest challenge yet, which will not only forever alter his own future but the future of the Multiverse.
Picking up seconds after the events of Spider-Man: Far From Home – where the deceased Mysterio (Jake Gyllenhaal) told the world Peter Parker’s secret identity and framed him for his murder in the process – Peter becomes a controversial figure. The anxiety rush is at an all-time high when you see Peter react in real-time to his cover being blown and the consequences he, his family, and friends have to deal with. Being associated with Peter gets so bad that it prevents his girlfriend MJ (Zendaya) and best friend Ned (Jacob Batalon) from getting into their dream college, MIT. So Peter acts out in desperation, making irrational decisions before thinking things through, goes to Doctor Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) and asks him to make the world forget he’s Spider-Man so MJ and Ned can get into their dream college. From the first act, the screenplay by returning screenwriters of Homecoming and Far From Home, Erik Sommers and Chris McKenna, continues that same notion of being low stakes even with its strong and sweet setup.
Once Strange’s spell gets busted due to Peter’s inputs and the ghosts of Sony’s Spider-franchise past make their way into the forefront, the movie does several specific things that surprisingly sort of work for the best. For starters, it becomes a fun Bill and Ted-style romp where Peter, MJ, and Ned must work together and capture the antagonists of Sony’s multiverse, including The Lizard/Curt Connors (Rhys Ifans), Sandman/Flint Marko (Thomas Haden Church), Electro/Max Dillon (Jamie Foxx), Doctor Octopus/Otto Octavius (Alfred Molina), Green Goblin/Norman Osborn (Willem Dafoe), in a “Gotta Catch ‘Em All” style. As you see all these deceased villains from different worlds and different chronological timelines interact, you can’t help but squeal in glee. Seeing Norman and Otto actually meet and talk to each other, or other villains making meta jokes about the similarities of their silly origins, makes for such fun. Most of these characters seamlessly stay intact for who they are, even though the MCU’s sitcom brand of quip gets in the way of it at times. All the returning cast members shine in their roles and the power they evoke in their respective movies is still very much present here. Needless to say, the Sam Raimi boys–excluding Sandman–ate any moment they were on screen. Willem Dafoe and Alfred Molina ran the gamut of the movie as they bring back the same amount of slime, grit, and energy as they did back in the early 2000s. I don’t know what notes Raimi passed on to director Jon Watts, but from the action to the scenery and visual callbacks, Watts did the blueprint bad guys justice.
It’s been widely known that of all the Spider-Men we’ve received in the past 20 years (oh God, we’re old), Tom Holland’s Peter Parker has been the lightest cinematic iteration of the friendly neighborhood web-slinger to date. Since these baddies are vastly more sinister than Peter’s innocent, dignified heart can muster up to, the movie adheres to a vastly darker tone that’s welcomed and takes you instantly by surprise. The level of sacrifice and consequences that Peter faces here spears you in the heart and it’s reflected by even the action sequences that get so brutal. We didn’t even get this Peter in the symbiote suit and yet he does beatdowns on these grown-ass dudes that it might as well be considered elder abuse. No Way Home takes a much-needed mature approach that explores Peter Parker having to face the realities of the world itself. Yes, he’s faced larger-than-life threats before, but they scale this back to where everything inducing his motivations, actions, stakes, and losses are completely personalized to him. He’s at the center of everything; no Stark or father figure to babysit him or influence him. All of Peter’s actions are of his own doing. Tom Holland picks up his big boy pants and delivers honestly the best performance of his entire tenure in the MCU to date, and hell, the best dark role he had to commit to. I knew that the Dark Tom Holland trend Hollywood tried to do for us amounted to something – it was this performance right here.
Ned and MJ also play a much larger role here as they both hold the weight and responsibility of being associated with Peter and never leave his side. While the predecessors severely underuse Zendaya, her MJ this time around is given more character and agency. They really do a great job elaborating the romance she and Peter have. Plus, that chemistry between Zendaya and Tom Holland is just irresistible. Their relationship has a thoroughly well-developed arc–better than the other Spidey romances I’d say–to a point it at times leaves you on the verge of tears.
No Way Home does the valiant and ambitious effort of tackling nearly everybody and everything about the past Sony Spider-Man movies and embracing all of their imperfections with open arms. While some aspects of the villains get some good upgrades, i.e the redesign on Electro and good Sandman VFX, not everyone is well translated here. This movie did its damnedest to not make Max Dillon look like an electric Dr. Manhattan, meanwhile, Dr. Connors is literally the same as he was last time. In context, it’s explained why but honestly, it’s no excuse to not give better upgrades to just about everyone in desperate need of a redesign….well, I guess it’s only the Marc Webb foes.
To swing it right back to Max Dillon, if you thought he was woeful in TASM2, well, have fun watching history repeat itself here. You could hear Sommers and McKenna losing brain cells trying to course-correct his character’s personality by having him go from being a creepy neurotic loser to having the confident swagger of Jamie Foxx. It’s such a severe swerve that improves on what was not really present in the first place, but it's a huge leap that feels pretty out of place and in most cases, just doesn’t function as well as everything else.
Clearly, Sony and the MCU are out to reel your nostalgia out of you with the blatant fan service, and when it doubles down on its card, oh boy it gets cheesy. At times it’s good cheese, then at other times, it’s like a thinly veiled fan-fic that uses nostalgia to compensate for mediocre writing, and at times the filmmaking, due to really bad green screen. On one hand, it’s a beautiful love letter to Spider-Man in cinema, but on the other hand, it takes elements straight out of other Spidey sources and becomes a pale imitation of them. Several plot points presented here bear familiarity to the Insomniac video game that I feel handled them better than this. I swear, one major story beat was ripped right off Into the Spider-Verse with a live-action coat of paint to lesser effect. Since that similar plot point is being done to a Peter Parker who has always needed guidance from someone else that was not himself for three movies straight, the overall formula pretty much wears thin.
Recently after Ghostbusters: Afterlife, I felt completely numb to franchise IPs being over-reliant on nostalgia as a way of detracting the impact of a reboot. It’s no secret that No Way Home is the ultimate fan service movie. It blows everything out of the water to trigger your nostalgia. And while at times its egregious bloat gets in the way of Peter’s coming-of-age arc, it got me. I was hooked, line and sinker, to all of this fan service that made me nostalgic and emotional on a personal level. From the meta-humor that pokes silly fun at the flaws of the old Spidey films to the fact that it took multiverse men from the past to give this iteration some maturity and growth, it’s a prime example of doing nostalgia baiting in the best way possible. If you grew up with the Raimi Spider-Man movies and were even a fan of the Webb Spider-Man movies too, this is the four-course meal that will have you scarfing down everything that you’re given and then returning for seconds.
I was swept up by No Way Home. This third entry of Tom Holland’s iteration is a mature and outstanding conclusion of Spider-Man’s high school days. It gives him proper development, becoming both an adult and Spider-Man by nailing the primary definition of what the character is and represents. It takes a ton of fan service to bring it to fruition, but it’s a heart-tugging, closure-completing, and once in a lifetime cinematic experience that needs to be seen to be believed.
