Spiderman: No Way Home
Ambitious and gargantuan, the spiritual closer to the Tom Holland Spiderman series is phenomenal.
After the events of the last film, Peter Parker’s (Tom Holland) life is in disarray. His identity has been revealed to the whole world, and it isn’t just impacting his life. MJ (Zendaya) and Ned (Jacob Batalon) both have their college admissions snatched away, as does Peter himself. Faced with the consequences of his real life being revealed to the world, Peter turns to a desperate solution; he enlists the help of Dr Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch). Strange agrees to weave a spell to help the world forget that Peter Parker is Spiderman, but Peter’s meddling at the last minute winds up fracturing the universe. Instead of causing everyone to forget Peter is Spiderman, it brings everyone who knows Peter is Spiderman, from every universe, to this one. Strange acts rapidly and shuts down the spell, but not before a few villains slip through. Now, Peter has to deal with Sandman (Thomas Haden Church), Electro (Jamie Foxx), the Crocodile (Rhys Ifans), Doc Ock (Alfred Molina) and the Green Goblin (Willem Dafoe) all at once.
No Way Home has been plagued by rumors and gossip throughout its development, and if you don’t have a few expectations going in, you’d be one of the few. Without doubt, we aren’t going to spoil the movie for you, but one thing can be said about it; it doesn’t disappoint.
The movie blends the villains from previous, non-MCU Spiderman movies with the MCU universe and tone with aplomb, and Dafoe and Molina are absolutely standout in the film. They both bring a level of performance that perhaps the MCU has been missing a little in recent films.
As a Spiderman movie, it’s also incredibly heartfelt, with real stakes and a myriad of chances for Holland to flash his acting chops. The movie is long, but never drags, particularly when the story gets going. Any issues really stem from the beginning, as the plot twists and turns over itself to set up a premise. In doing so, we get quite a bit of Cumberbatch’s Dr Strange, who, for better or worse, honestly feels a bit useless here. Like RDJ in Spiderman: Homecoming, Cumberbatch feels a little phoned in. Perhaps that is because his role is so small. Nevertheless, he is soon sidelined, and Peter and his two sidekicks/best friends step in to fill the gap, bringing much more enthusiasm and engagement.
The action is, at times, a little bit CGI heavy, and while we get some cool fights in the mirror dimension, some of the action of Spidey going up against a big electric sandstorm falls flat. But then, we are treated to a series of action setpieces that will have you cheering in the cinema. This is an ambitious film, and it has been well publicized how difficult it was to get actors from previous films non-MCU films back; many of the villains hadn’t even been confirmed when they started shooting. The logistical exercise of pulling all of these stories together into this one movie must have been huge, and you can tell that once they got it, they decided to go for broke. They push and pull the limits of what you would want to see in a movie like this, and seem to be operating on a philosophy of ‘fuck it, we’ve got ‘em, let’s do everything we can with ‘em’. When it comes to some of the jokes and some of the action, that does mean that not everything sticks. But when it comes to the concept, the realization of a truly incredibly ambitious picture (and indeed, when it comes to crafting a popcorn flick that will have you cheering in your seat), this movie absolutely delivers. Is it the best Spiderman? Maybe, maybe not. But it’s definitely the biggest, craziest Spidey spectacle you’ve ever seen.
