The newest installment in the Jon Watts Spider-Man films was released last week, shattering all weekend opening records excluding Avengers: Endgame and Avengers: Infinity War. Spider-Man: No Way Home has already overcome its hefty $200 million budget with a $253 million opening and expects to join the $1 billion club in the coming months.
No Way Home picks up right where 2019’s Far from Home left off, with J. Jonah Jameson (J. K. Simmons) revealing to the world that the identity of the menace known as Spider-Man is Peter Parker (Tom Holland). With this reveal comes all of the good and bad attention that follows along with being one of the most famous superheroes on the planet. Mysterio’s (Jake Gyllenhaal) last words were that Spider-Man was trying to kill people, so Peter has to maneuver around the legal and social ramifications of being Spider-Man.
To improve his and his loved ones’ lives, Peter visits Dr. Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch), hoping that a spell can be cast to make the world forget he’s Spider-Man. During Dr. Strange’s spell, Peter tries to make personal amendments and breaks the spell, causing a dimensional rift, and instead of people forgetting Peter is Spider-Man, villains from other dimensions who know he’s Spider-Man start to appear.
As seen in the trailer, this universe’s Spider-Man must now tussle with villains from previous Spider-Man franchises, including Green Goblin (Willem Dafoe), Doctor Octopus (Alfred Molina), and Sandman (Thomas Haden Church) from Sam Rami’s Spider-Man trilogy, as well as Lizard (Rhys Ifans) and Electro (Jamie Foxx) from Marc Webb’s The Amazing Spider-Man films.
Dafoe, who was exceptionally evil in No Way Home, stole the villain show. Not only was every line delivered with the same malicious intent as his iconic 2002 performance, but the 66-year-old actor only agreed to be in the film if he could do his own stunts. Each of the villains had their own great moments, with brilliantly choreographed battle scenes, but Spider-Man’s interactions with Goblin were particularly brutal, both physically and emotionally.
Speaking of emotions, No Way Home is by far the most emotional film of the Watts trilogy, which started on a more fun-loving and sillier note in Homecoming. There were some real tear-jerker moments in this one. This film is about as serious as they come, with a few great comedic moments peppered in. We also get to see the more quippy side of Peter Parker, which is a large part of his character in the comics.
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For those who were scared of the multi-universal theme and the plethora of villains pulling a Spider-Man 3, resulting in too big of a bite to chew, rest easy. The story is done masterfully and doesn’t feel jumbled at all. The villains have already been established in other films, so we don’t run into a Raimi Venom-style issue where one villain gets little to no backstory or development. Everything is spread out well and wrapped up nicely. No Way Home has done something no film has ever done before by linking a series of unrelated yet thematically similar films with one another to continue one huge universal story. The innovation is incredible.
The brilliant thing that Kevin Feige and the MCU have been able to do is simultaneously have these massive world-altering events like Avengers: Infinity War, The Eternals, and Loki while still keeping the audience from feeling like street-level heroics like the ones found in Spider-Man or Hawkeye are insignificant. With all his big-event involvement with Tony Stark and the Avengers, we tend to forget that Peter Parker is still a teenager and still going through all the emotional transitions from teenager to adult. No Way Home does a great job getting back to those transitions, as the film itself feels transitional to an entirely new era of Spider-Man.
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Without going into too much detail, I was a huge fan of all the big surprises and twists that No Way Home had to offer. On the surface, it felt like a film that should have had a ton of fan service, sacrificing direction and story, but it didn’t feel like it. Everything was done tastefully and planned perfectly. My only tiny issue was that there felt like a bit too much exposition from the villains, but it was understandable, as a lot of the younger audience may not be so familiar with films reaching back as far as 19 years.
Even without Spider-Man as my favorite Marvel character, Spider-Man: No Way Home easily makes it into my top-5 MCU films. I recommend the watch, and although the film left me wondering what’s to come, it also left me giddy and excited for the web-slinger’s next adventure.
