I'm an enormous Spider-Man fan. Have been since I was little, will be when I'm old. If there's Spider-Man content out there, I'm consuming it. So when the rumors started flying about what could possibly be included in the MCU's 3rd solo Spidey adventure, I was giddy. And I sat in that theater for 2.5 hours with a huge smile on my face. Spider-Man: No Way Home is awesome. It is absolutely an experience more than a movie.
Spider-Man: No Way Home does a great job of weaving together nostalgia and fan service with a surprisingly deep and dark storyline that pushes Tom Holland's Peter Parker further than he's ever been pushed. It's pretty impressive that they were able to pull that off without crossing the line into too much fan service. (Looking at you, Rise of Skywalker.) If Kevin Feige and Jon Watts had messed this up, the results could have been a disastrous, mess of a movie. Instead what we got is an absolute blast and the most fun I've had at the movies all year. If you haven't seen it yet, please stop reading this and go now. It's nearly impossible for me to talk about this without spoilers so the rest of this review will be filled to the brim with them.
FINAL WARNING - SPOILERS BELOW
There is no way this movie should have worked. The problem with the "bad" Spider-Man movies in the past is that they had too many characters. So brining them all in shouldn't have worked, but it did. Yes, I'm aware there are some real plot holes in No Way Home. Electro not knowing Peter Parker is Spider-Man looms large, but who cares, the movie ruled. Feige really is the greatest and Jon Watts has given me confidence in his Fantastic Four reboot. It was the worst kept secret in movie making, but Andrew Garfield and Tobey Maguire officially show up in No Way Home. And it was so freaking cool. Every scene with the three Spider-Men is electric. From them swinging around with each other to just chatting about their lives, it is awesome. When they all did a superhero landing on top of the Statue of Liberty... it brought a tear to my eye. This is Tom Holland's best performance as the web slinger and his trilogy is the best, but it was ABSOLUTELY Andrew Garfield who stole every scene he was in. He was so freaking good. And not just Marvel-good. He played Spider-Man like he was going for the Oscar good. He's the best actor of the three and proved it in a SUPERHERO movie. When he wasn't chumming it up with Peter 1 and Peter 2, he was breaking down crying. There's a reason "Amazing Spider-Man 3" was trending all weekend on Twitter. The people want it. The guy just loves being Spider-Man and you can tell how much joy it brings him to play the hero again. Tobey Maguire was basically Peter B. Parker from Into the Spider-Verse and that mentor type role was exactly what I envisioned for him in this and he nailed it. It's impressive that these two could just pick right back up as Spider-Man and become a more mature version at the same time.
Speaking of nailing it. Let's talk about the big bad. Willem Dafoe slipped into the role of Norman Osborn/Green Goblin like he never left. He was scarier this time around than he was in 2002. I'm glad they let him be unmasked for most of the movie because his facial expressions bring so much more evil to the character. The apartment fight scene between him and Peter Parker was the best part of the movie. Parker's spider-sense in this movie was impeccable. When Spidey was punching Goblin in the face and he kept on laughing was peak Green Goblin. And the final fight between Holland's Spidey and Goblin on Cap's shield was great too. It was raw and I love that the music was stripped down and you could tell that Spider-Man wasn't pulling his punches. He truly wanted to kill Goblin. The stakes rarely feel high in an MCU movie but Aunt May's death at the hands of the Green Goblin changed that in No Way Home. May fills the Uncle Ben role in the MCU - she even said the iconic "great power" line. Her death broke Peter and made the audience realize that this time around things were different for our hero. It wasn't all going to end happily ever after. And it didn't.
I thought most everyone in the movie was great, but Dafoe, Holland, Garfield, and Alfred Molina were the standouts. Just like Dafoe, Molina had no trouble brining Doc Ock back to life. I'm very glad he turned hero at the end and I'm hopeful we get the MCU versions of Green Goblin and Doc Ock someday. I think some villains were wasted a bit. Didn't really need Sandman or Lizard there. That time could have been used better on some other things. I don't think Thomas Haden Church was even in the movie. He was CGI sand the whole time, and when they cured him back into a man, that shot was pulled straight from Spider-Man 3. There are so many Easter eggs to discuss, but here are my favorites:
- Charlie Cox is back. He had about 30 seconds of screen time as Matt Murdock, but with Kingpin being brought into Hawkeye, we'll be seeing him again in the Daredevil suit soon.
- Betty says the "Go get 'em tiger" line made famous on Mary Jane's first panel in a Spider-Man comic.
- Osborn says the "I'm something of a scientist myself" line from his first appearance in Spider-Man.
- The three Spider-Men discuss Maguire's ability to shoot webs out of his wrists, his injured back that nearly got him replaced by Jake Gyllenhaal, and the strangest villains they've faced, including a diss on the Rhino.
- Jamie Foxx's Electro looked much better than he did before and his electricity resembled that of his comic mask. Goblin's costume resembled his original comic book paneling too.
- Electro also mentions that maybe there's a black Spider-Man somewhere. (Miles Morales is coming folks!)
- DITKO painted on the side of the FEAST van. A nice tribute to the artist and co-creator of Spider-Man.
- Tobey calls Andrew "amazing," a nod to his Amazing Spider-Man movies.
- Holland's Peter Parker pulls off a move from the Spider-Man PS4 game on Goblin.
- And every conversation between the Spider-Men and the villains about their histories just brought a smile to my face.
Tom Holland said that originally this movie was going to framed as a civil war between Spider-Man and Dr. Strange and that the multiverse part was intended to be a surprise. I can only imagine how insane the theater reactions would have been if the internet wasn't the way it was and there were so many leaks.
Aunt May dying wasn't the last heartbreaking moment for Tom Holland's Pete. At the end of the movie, the multiverse is beginning to crack and to stop it, Parker asks Dr. Strange to cast a spell making everyone forget Peter Parker. Not just that he is Spider-Man, to forget he ever existed. Strange does it, leaving Peter alone in the world. MJ, Ned, Happy Hogan, Strange, everyone that knows and loves Peter, no longer know he exists, so he sets out on his own. It's crushing to see after everything he's been through, but I absolutely love the direction this iteration of Spider-Man is headed. With his split from the Avengers, who no longer know him, and by ditching the Stark tech and Iron Man Jr. moniker, he is free to truly be a friendly neighborhood Spider-Man. I am so pumped to get a blue collar, broken Peter Parker, with a homemade suit and gadgets built from dumpster diving. That is what makes Spider-Man the best superhero. His life sucks. He always does the right thing and it always costs him. No matter how much he gets knocked down, he always gets back up. The MCU is free now to bring in their own version of Otto Octavious and Norman and Harry Osborn. (Timothee Chalamet for Harry please!) They could bring in Gwen Stacy, Black Cat, Miles Morales, Kraven the Hunter, or because Tom Hardy's Eddie Brock left some symbiote behind mid credits, Venom. (Although I can't think of anything I want less than Venom. I do not care one lick about Tom Hardy's Venom. He stinks.) Pete can start his work at the Daily Bugle for J Jonah Jameson. The possibilities for the college bound Peter Parker are endless. The suit he had on at the end of the movie was sick and already my favorite MCU suit. (I'm so sick of the Iron Spider. Good riddance.) As much as I loved No Way Home, the ending had me the most excited.
Spider-Man: No Way Home is the biggest movie event since Avengers: Endgame. No Spidey movie tops the experience you will have watching NWH. After the Hawkeye finale Wednesday, this is it for Marvel until Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness next year. That is going to be an all-time banger. We're creeping towards the end of the year and I have a lot of movies left on my watchlist before I can do a top 10. It really hasn't been a banner year for mainstream movies, so that list should be pretty interesting. My next review might be The Matrix Resurrections, which, I have a feeling, will stink. Until next time, webheads.
- BH
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