Spider-Man: No Way Home
It’s been a year full of Marvel content, and when it comes to the last entry of 2021, I fear that it’s become way too much of what was once a good thing. Merry Christmas everyone– can’t wait to have some real enemies after this review.
Since his debut in the MCU, Tom Holland’s Spider-Man has been a lot of fun. I think his first solo film in the franchise, Spider-Man: Homecoming, was spectacular. We had some fun twists, Michael Keaton was an interesting villain, and the friendly neighborhood Spider-Man thing worked well.
In No Way Home, that magic is lost. The first thirty minutes of the film are a sloppy and cliché take on a coming-of-age-high-school-friends going to college movie. Holland, Zendaya (MJ), and Jacob Batalon (Ned) are really talented, but they have nothing to work with here.
Then, we have maybe the most avoidable supervillain problem ever– if Doctor Strange had asked Spider-Man to be specific about his spell, literally uttered one sentence or asked one question, then nothing would have gone wrong. Superhero films often contain plot holes, and I understand you have to overlook them to enjoy the action and the artistry. But come on now– I’m supposed to watch two hours of conflict and struggle because the world’s greatest sorcerer of all-time didn’t clarify the parameters of a spell that he’s done many times before?
What follows is another flashy cut-and-paste Marvel movie. We get eye-catching CGI and plenty of one-liners. None of them were too memorable so we’ll move on, because the “twists” of this film were the callbacks. Probably the worst-kept secret over the past year was the rumored reappearances of Andrew Garfield and Toby Maguire. And there they were.
Even though I haven’t seen Spider-Man 1, 2, 3, 1, or 2, I thought the re-introduction was great. Garfield in particular was my favorite part of the movie. Willem Dafoe and Alfred Molina made me want to go back and see the originals, too.
But that brings me back to this film, No Way Home. All of that flash and– yes, I’ll say it– fan service couldn’t hide what was ultimately a pretty questionable plot. How could they save the bad guys and send them back to the same multiverses? I thought the Loki TV show had shown us that it doesn’t work like that. Are we stuck with a new show about these villains re-adjusting to new lives now?
And then at the end, how does the memory spell work? Couldn’t Spider-Man just walk MJ home? When does she forget everything? Wait– does the forget-me spell solve the problem at all? Doctor Strange has a new movie coming out called The Multiverse of Madness! All this ending seemed to do was allow for Tom Holland to walk away and give Marvel an easy solution on re-casting!
This review is getting long– maybe my expectations were too high, but the movie is getting Oscar-buzz now! I’m fired up! We’ll end with this:
Despite an incredibly talented cast and all the hype in the world, this movie had absolutely no depth or substance. I’m not looking for Peter Parker to have an airtight character arc, or even for the logic of the MCU multiverse to make sense. I just wanted the emotional beats and drive of the movie to have any connected purpose other than relying on nostalgia to stimulate a reaction from the audience. A disappointing departure from an otherwise solid franchise.
