Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021)
directed by Jon Watts
★★★★☆*
In an unusual move for an MCU film, No Way Home picks up from the moment Far From Home left off. (Why the “Home” theme in the MCU Spider-Man subtitles, anyway? I can only imagine it’s some sort of jab at Sony for “allowing” the characters to appear in Marvel-produced movies, but I digress.) Spider-Man’s identity has been publicly revealed and Peter Parker needs to face the consequences of his actions. Worse than that, it’s affecting the lives of his friends and family.
(If you were able to read the previous statement without having anything spoiled, you may proceed safely. I won’t be detailing anything that wasn’t revealed in promotional material.)
No Way Home has a look, feel, and tone similar to Spider-Man’s previous MCU appearances, particularly the other two films by Jon Watts. The tone in particular is important here, as it purposely contrasts with the previous two iterations of the characters on film.
As revealed in the trailers, Parker goes to Doctor Strange and asks him to make everyone forget who he really is. When he realizes the spell would cause everyone he loves to also forget, he forces Strange to abandon the spell mid-cast, causing a rip in spacetime that allows villains from previous iterations of the Spider-Man movie franchise to cross over into the MCU. (The less you try to make sense of it, the happier you’ll be.)
The concept results in the whole thing being pretty heavyhandedly fanservicey, though unfortunately, even that falls short at times. For example, only one villain from each movie is included, and no duplicates. It feels like there was a real missed opportunity to have a team-up of two or more Green Goblins, but we only end up getting Willem Defoe’s. Also, no Venom (save for an inconsequential post-credits stinger with Tom Hardy). The movie runs almost 2½ hours, longer than any other Spider-Man movie, which makes sense because it has a lot of characters and stories going on, but it doesn’t rob the movie of some emotional impact, especially when Toby MacGuire and Andrew Garfield join the fray.
*If you’re okay with the nonsensical plot, and you’ve seen enough of the other 7 Spider-Man movies (as well as Civil War, Infinity War, and Endgame) to follow all the references and characters, you’ll probably get a full 4 stars of enjoyment out of this… but that’s a pretty steep prerequisite, so be wary that if you’re unprepared or not fully invested, you might not like it nearly as much.
