Spider-Man: No Way Home Review (SPOILERS)

The movie event of the year has arrived with “Spider-Man: No Way Home” and there’s only one way to talk about it.

SPOILERS!

No, this is not going to be a detailed plot summary. You can go to Wikipedia for that. And no, I’m not going to cover every last aspect of the movie. But when the main plot of the movie involves details that the filmmakers and the studio went to great lengths to try and hide from the audience, it’s hard to write a non-spoiler review. Even the critics I follow who have attempted that have awkwardly danced around every main plot point of the movie, resulting in a review that only makes sense for those who have seen the movie. And given that I’m not actually a professional critic writing for a site that demands a review ASAP, or a YouTube critic who needs to get a review out ASAP in order to compete for views, I can do what I want. Heck, I’ve spent most of this year writing short reviews on my Facebook page instead of writing them on this blog. And whether it be Facebook or this blog, I decided that I didn’t even want to attempt a non-spoiler review. I’m just going to wait for a few days and get my thoughts out properly via a spoiler review right. So that’s where we are.

If you haven’t seen the movie, you probably didn’t click on this link. But just in case you did, major spoilers coming in…

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CHARLIE COX HAS RETURNED AS MATT MURDOCK, AKA DAREDEVIL, MAKING HIS CINEMATIC MCU DEBUT!!!!

HOLY FREAKING COW!!!

That one I didn’t see coming. Apparently there were photo leaks that revealed this. I heard of said leaks, but managed to avoid them. I assumed they were of Andrew and Tobey, but didn’t care to check. I had no idea a Matt Murdock cameo was in the cards. Sure, it was only for a quick scene, but it was a scene that worked really well given that Peter and Happy Hogan both were in need of a really good lawyer to clear their names. And who better than to be that lawyer than the best lawyer in the MCU?

Sure, as inconsequential as it may have been, for me this was a huge moment because the MCU has completely ignored the existence of the Netflix Defenders shows up until now. There are even constant debates that happen on Twitter as to whether or not they are even part of the MCU. And the answer has always been that they are as MCU events are referenced in every show. But it was Kevin Feige or anyone in connection with Marvel Studios running those shows. It was ran by Marvel Television, which now ceases to exist as it folded into Marvel Studios in 2019. So it’s kinda like the Marvel property from Fox. Marvel Studios has ownership of all of the property and characters and can choose to do with it as they please, but up until now they have yet to do so. And I honestly didn’t think they ever would. But now that they have, there better be more. The best case scenario would be to do a revival of the shows on Hulu or Disney+. But at the very least, bring back the characters in some capacity. And I actually don’t care for “Iron Fist” or “Luke Cage,” but I really want more of “Daredevil,” “Jessica Jones” and “The Punisher.” So please, Marvel and Disney, make it happen!

OK, fine. The real spoilers here are that Andrew Garfield and Tobey Maguire are indeed in this movie, reprising their roles as the previous movie iterations of Peter Parker and Spider-Man. Yes, we have a movie with three different cinematic versions of Spider-Man are fighting five different cinematic Spider-Man villains. And we even has Jamie Foxx as Electro make reference to Miles Morales, or rather him wishing there was a black Spider-Man. Which you know is going to happen eventually. Yes, that did happen in “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse,” but I’m talking a live action Miles Morales. So yes, lots and lots of Spider-Men, although not as many as “Spider-Verse,” but that’s besides the point.

And all of this makes “No Way Home” the “Avengers: Endgame” of the Spider-Man universe. Which is what all of the fans wanted. And is exactly what they got.

Now I made a Facebook post a few weeks ago expressing my concerns that I wasn’t sure that this movie was going to be able to live up to all the hype the internet was giving it. I was fearing that many people were going to walk out disappointed in this movie because it wasn’t the movie that they had predetermined that they wanted. And I was ready with a potential argument that said take wasn’t fair. People shouldn’t judge a movie by what they thought it was going to be. They should judge a movie by what it is. And they shouldn’t call the movie a massive disappointment based on it not including things that Sony never promised were going to be there. That’s exactly why many hated “The Last Jedi.” All their fan theories that they’d spent the previous two years coming up with were wrong. Rian Johnson took them all and threw them out the window, creating a Star Wars movie that was very different than everyone was expecting and many people hated it because of that. They should’ve seen that coming based on Rian Johnson’s previous discography, but they didn’t.

But the thing that shocked me the most about “No Way Home” was that everyone’s fan theories were right. People had massive expectations. Unrealistic expectations, I thought. Yet not only did “No Way Home” do the impossible and meet those, in many cases the expectations were exceeded. I was completely dumbfounded at what I was witnessing on the screen. There was so much to take in and I’m not even sure my one viewing of it thus far was enough to absorb it all. This is a movie that demands to be seen many times and is one that I’m excited to see many times, even though I don’t know when that’s going to happen with all the other end-of-year content that I’m rushing to keep up with. But whenever I see it again, I am positive that I will enjoy it more and more.

Yet sitting here in retrospect after one viewing, the most interesting discussion point swirling around in my head is that of fan service. Because that’s what this movie is. Nothing but 100 percent pure fan service. Similar to that of nostalgia vomit. Although related, I think the two things are slightly different. But in both cases, there’s a right way and a wrong way to do it. I think sometimes the term fan service or nostalgia vomit can be seen as a negative thing, but I don’t think it inherently is. You can serve someone up a giant slice of their favorite pie and they can absolutely love it because it’s exactly what they want. Serving the fans. Giving them what they want. That’s not a bad thing.

But it can be if there’s no emotion or care taken in the process. And for the handful of people who read my comments on “Ghostbusters: Afterlife,” they might be mildly confused as to why I was so harsh on that movie and am praising “No Way Home” to the high heavens… for both doing, on paper, pretty much the exact same things.

Without retyping a review of “Afterlife,” the gist of my thoughts there are that it is that the movie lazily slapped together all the leftovers from Ghostbusters. They didn’t write any characters worth caring about. They didn’t come up with a plot to get invested in. They didn’t do anything unique with the property or have any sort of emotional core to the film. It was just an emotionless Ghostbusters highlight reel, even recycling pretty much the same exact ending as the original with the same exact villains. Doing all of this in a way that somehow completely missed the tone of Ghostbusters. The original movie is light, comedic, and self-aware. Almost borderline irreverent. “Afterlife” was dark, dramatic, overly serious, and treated the original content with a high amount of respect and reverence, almost as if it was a sacred movie not to be joked around with and taken lightly.

So yeah, the movie was a gross plate of nostalgia vomit that missed the point of the original movie. “No Way Home” might be recycling heroes and villains from previous Spider-Man movies without bringing in anything new, but every character had a specific purpose in being there. They weren’t brought in simply for the sake of you going on a two-hour long Easter egg hunt. They all played a role in helping shape Tom Holland’s Peter Parker, essentially completing his origin story in developing him into the Spider-Man that we all know and love.

I mean, who knew that the three movies were actually a three-part origin story for Peter Parker? We all assumed they skipped the origin story in “Homecoming,” just throwing us into the fire, assuming we all knew Spider-Man already. Sure, we jumped over the spider bite thing, but over the course of these three movies, we see him develop from an immature kid who wants to fight bad guys into a true hero that understand the traditional Spider-Man slogan of “with great power comes great responsibility.” And it took two previous Spider-Men coming in to help knock that into him, following his own “Uncle Ben” moment. Which, again, we assumed he already went through as there is no Uncle Ben in “Homecoming.” Turns out Aunt May is his Uncle Ben. She rather beautifully delivers the line and gets killed by Green Goblin, throwing him into an understandably state of dark turmoil, of which there are two people who know exactly what he is going through and are there to help him. Andrew and Tobey’s Spider-Men.

This movie could’ve brought in all the Spider-Men and simply had a lot of web-slinging fun with them fighting all the bad guys that the multiverse brought together. And that may have been a lot of fun if they took the proper approach. It would be like the “Crisis on Infinite Earths” crossover in the Arrowverse, which was an absolute blast. But no, this movie decided to be something more. They brought in Andrew Garfield, straight from a very dark place following the death of Gwen Stacy, and allowed him to relate to Tom Holland, helping him not go down the path that he has just been on. And they brought in Tobey Maguire, not de-aged from “Spider-Man 3,” but a version of his character who has aged 15 or so years. And they used this original Spider-Man who we all know and love as a mentor. And man is Tobey Maguire good as a mentor. He knows when to give Tom Holland some space and not immediately interfere. And he knows when he needs to speak and encourage him. He can allow Tom to vent and express his anger, but then perfectly come in and encourage. And yet he can jump in and block him from killing Green Goblin at the end without much hesitation.

These are the moments that I loved. Andrew and Tobey aren’t used as mere fan service. They don’t show up just to battle in an epic CGI fight at the end. They’re supporting characters in the movie with a specific role to build Tom Holland’s character arc.

Like with our heroes, the villains also have a specific purpose. The movie could’ve just brought them in, made them the evil, soulless bad guys that needed to be fought. And that could’ve been fun. But instead it reminded us that these five villains are all well-written, well-acted villains who have a reason behind what they’re doing. And instead of bringing them in as things to fight, their stories are continued. And in the case of Jamie Foxx’s Electro, they give him the opportunity to redeem himself and be a menacing Spider-Man villain with a wonderful arc, which wasn’t exactly the case in “The Amazing Spider-Man 2,” a movie that I’ll defend, but not a movie wherein Electro was the standout performance. In this movie he is. And I’m guessing that even haters of that movie will be impressed.

The major conflict with these villains, which was presented in the trailers, comes with the conundrum of what to do with them. Doctor Strange tells Peter that they all died at the hands of other Spider-Men and that was their fate, so they need to immediately be sent back and not be tampered with. But Tom Holland decides that he needs to at least make an attempt to redeem them all. Give them a second chance before sending them home. So he uses Geometry to trap Doctor Strange in the Mirrorverse and sets out to fix all of these villains, which he quickly realizes is a task where he’s in over his head, especially when it comes to Norman Osborn.

And man. Willem Dafoe was fantastic in the original movie. But I think he’s even better in this movie. And part of that is he’s given more time as Norman Osborn, reminding us that he’s a good person at heart who is just lost and confused. And he’s even more lost and confused in this movie as in another dimension from what he’s used to. He’s a very likable and relatable character. Until the Green Goblin personality takes over and becomes something beyond terrifying. They even quickly discarded that Power Rangers mask at the beginning and let Willem Dafoe act using his facial expressions, which is a lot more intimidating that than mask of his. Yeah, there’s five villains in the movie. But Green Goblin is the real villain here. Admittedly Lizard and Sandman are sidelined a bit, even though they both do good in separate. And Doc Ock and Electro are more complex characters than crazy villains. But Green Goblin is terrifying and I think this is perhaps Willem Dafoe’s best performance. One that I think deserves to represent this movie and get an Oscar nomination for best supporting actor. That’s never going to happen because the Oscars are allergic to big blockbusters, but it’s definitely deserving.

My only little qualm with this movie is that I’m a bit of a hopeless romantic. I wanted the movie to end with Tom Holland accepting the fact that everyone in the world knows him and being fine with that. I wanted it to end with him showing the world that he is a true hero and not a menace to be stopped like J. Jonah Jameson is claiming him to be. But instead we decided to write a whole plot point where the whole multiverse is about to explode with an endless number of villains and heroes coming to interact with this Peter and the only way to stop it is to cast a spell where everyone forgets who he is. For what they chose to set up, it’s a valiant act from Peter who willingly submits to this at the end of the movie, wherein he wasn’t even ready to accept that at the beginning of the movie. But come on, this is the multiverse. We can do what we want. And Doctor Strange is magic. We can choose to write spells for him that can solve this in better ways.

One, the hopeless romantic in me that I referenced doesn’t like the movie ending with him saying goodbye to Zendaya’s M.J., because the two of them are so adorably cute. And both have definitely grown as actors ever since “Homecoming” launched them into superstardom. But two, you KNOW this is an ending that’s like those season finales that get resolved within the first ten minutes of the next season premier. No way in Hades do they keep these two apart. Peter, M.J., and Ned are going to quickly go back to being best friends who know each other. The world loves them too much. So why end a nearly perfect movie by setting up a cliffhanger that we all know is going to get quickly resolved? A cliffhanger that is remarkably similar to Peter Quill and Gamora having to learn to re-fall in love, something I assume is going to happen in “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3” following where “Avengers: Endgame” left those two off. They weren’t going to keep Gamora dead and keep those two apart.

Anyways, that’s not really that big of a concern to me. Just something I wasn’t 100 percent pleased with. And when I was 100 percent pleased with the rest of the movie, that’s something worth bringing up. Ultimately, this movie handles itself much like “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse,” another multiverse adventure with multiple Spider-People that’s a lot more than just empty fan service. Both movies are fan service that have a purpose and work even better because of it. In fact, I may put this one slightly ahead of that movie due to its better use of the Spider-Man villains. It’s not better than “Spider-Man 2,” but is my favorite of the Tom Holland Spider-Man movies. Where is it in my MCU rankings? Well… to be determined. Not my top overall, but pretty high. The top movie of Phase 4 so far and one of my favorite overall movies of 2021. So yeah, pretty high praise from me. A potential all-time favorite that I’m going to enjoy coming back to many times in my future.

The number grade here is irrelevant, in my opinion. The thoughts are what matter most. But in regards to a grade, I think a strong 9/10 is what I’d give. I’m not quite ready to give it a perfect score. But if I did decimal grades, which I haven’t done in years, this is a 9.5 or a 9.8. But not quite a 10. “Spider-Man 2” would definitely be a 10/10, for context. So yeah, 9/10 is good.