Spider-Man: No Way Home
Sony Pictures/MarvelThe following review contains spoilers.
Peter Parker’s (Tom Holland) life is in shambles! After Mysterio (Jake Gyllenhaal) leaked Parker’s identity to J. Jonah Jameson (J.K. Simmons) in the mid-credits scene of Spider-Man: Far From Home, Spider-Man has been declared Public Enemy No. 1. Spider-Man: No Way Home picks up immediately after this scene and sees Parker having to cope with this unintended infamy. Much of the public still believes that Mysterio was actually a hero and that Spider-Man killed him out of jealously.
Unable to cope with these stresses, Peter Parker starts panicking. The final straw comes when MIT rejects Parker, as well as his friends MJ (Zendaya) and Ned (Jacob Batalon). Instead of being mature and simply calling MIT admissions to plead their cases, Parker goes nuclear and asks Doctor Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) to cast a spell so the entire world will forget he’s Spider-Man. Doctor Strange, likely due to his hubris, goes along with this deranged idea and, of course, the spell totally backfires and villains from previous iterations of Spider-Man films get pulled into the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
The multiverse has been hinted at within the Marvel Cinematic Universe as far back as Doctor Strange, and has been laying groundwork within this year’s Disney+’s Marvel shows like What If...? and Loki. Following the defeat of Thanos in Avengers: Endgame, the MCU is left without a big bad villain, and naturally, the introduction of parallel universes opens up a wealth of possibilities. With Doctor Strange’s spell going terribly wrong, those who know Spider-Man’s true identity in every universe get dragged into the MCU. And because every hero needs their villain, past bad guys from the Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield helmed Spider-Man movies start appearing. The horde of baddies consists of Green Goblin (Willem Dafoe), Doc Ock (Alfred Molina), and Sandman (Thomas Haden Church), as well as The Lizard (Rhys Ifans) and Electro (Jamie Foxx).
Much of the plot points in Spider-Man: No Way Home are dedicated to fan service. With the heavy reliance on callbacks to the previous films, No Way Home can be chalked up to a theme park ride, but returning director Jon Watts and co-writers Chris McKenna and Erik Sommers manage to inject emotional depth into these returning villains, while also tying up loose ends to their stories. When Peter Parker learns that most of the villains will die at the hands of their own Spider-Man when they’re returned to their proper universes, Parker goes against the furious Doctor Strange’s wishes to simply send them home and instead seeks to cure the villains of their ailments so they can be good people again.
This iteration of Tom Holland’s Peter Parker is by far his most empathetic and fascinating. Out of Iron Man’s (Robert Downey Jr.) shadow, this Parker is finally developed into his own character, unique from previous iterations yet still remains true to the character. Holland truly gets to shine at his best within No Way Home: his Peter Parker is young, immature, naive, and facing an identity crisis, but he is certain of what he needs to do to fix his mess. Holland is also finally given the chance to show emotional complexity within his own Spider-Man films, something he has previously only briefly done in Infinity War with “Mr. Stark I don’t feel so good.” Holland also keeps the same chemistry with Zendaya and Jacob Batalon, but he truly shines when Andrew Garfield and Tobey Maguire enter the film. Months of speculations proved to be true, and it is truly surreal to see all three live-action iterations of Peter Parker interact together in one movie. It is incredible to watch the three Spider-Men work together to help the villains, and the three Peter Parkers bring about some of the best moments in the entire film. Tobey Maguire brings a much older and matured Peter Parker, while Andrew Garfield pokes fun at himself and his not quite so good Amazing Spider-Man films. There are points where the nostalgia and callbacks can be a little too much, but mostly the reunions are a treat to any comic book fan.
On the villain side of things, Willem Dafoe is perfect reprising his role of Norman Osborn/Green Goblin, in fact, he’s even better than in his first portrayal of the character twenty years ago in Spider-Man. He brings back the crazed side of Green Goblin with the psychotic facial expressions to match. He even gives us the memorable line, “You know, I’m something of a scientist myself.” While Alfred Molina also gives a stunning reprisal as Dr. Otto Octavius and has an incredible character arc as he goes from supervillain to friend. Jamie Foxx’s Electro is also given a better arc, as his character is much cooler and provides a ton of comic relief. Unfortunately, in all the chaos, Thomas Haden Church’s Sandman and Rhys Ifans’ Lizard become lost in the shuffle and they aren’t featured as heavily.
Despite clocking in at 2 hours and 30 minutes, Spider-Man: No Way Home flies by. It’s paced incredibly well and leaves the audience wanting much more. Most of the characters are given great story arcs and the film manages to beautifully tie together 20 years of Spider-Man. It perfectly sets up the multiverse and the next stage of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Instead of a traditional end-credits scene, we are instead shown a full-on trailer to Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness. After a definitively midtier year of Marvel entries, hopefully, the MCU can live up to this newfound hype. Spider-Man: No Way Home cements itself as one of the best entries into the Marvel Cinematic Universe.