Let’s not beat around the bush. The MCU has had a checkered year in 2021 with Black Widow and Eternals being underachievers, but they’re back on the right track with the latest Spider-Man movie, No Way Home. It brings a lot of the elements fans have loved from the previous installments: Lots of action, sly humor and a great amount of emotional heft that resonates and helps advance the plot.
Tom Holland returns as Peter Parker and his alter ego and this time, he’s on the run after his identity has been exposed to the world in Far From Home.
He’s not the only one who suffers the consequences. His girlfriend MJ (Zendaya); his best friend Ned (Jacob Batalon); and his Aunt May (Marisa Tomei) are all in trouble due to their association with Spider-Man.
Desperate for his fortune to change, he turns to Doctor Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) to use his bag of magic tricks to create a mystic spell that will make the world forget who Spider-Man is.
Strange’s actions have some consequences of their own as when after the spell is cast, it unleashes different villains from multiverses who confront Peter or should I say, who they think is Peter.
Peter has to contend with the likes of the returning Green Goblin (Willem Dafoe); Doc Ock (Alfred Molina); the Sandman (Thomas Haden Church); the Lizard (Rhys Ifans); and Electro (Jamie Foxx). You would think that a movie with this many villains would lead to chronic overload, but the screenplay makes coherent, sufficient work out of this plot thread and they each get a fair amount of screen time.
At times, it may feel like the movie is a smorgasbord of fan service and I wouldn’t blame anyone for thinking that. It seems hypocritical of me to say that after I blasted Ghostbusters: Afterlife for doing the same thing. The biggest difference is that No Way Home is not making any attempt to recycle what’s been done before.
Holland and the rest of the cast bring their A-game in a number of trenchant, vigorous scenes that do add up and the special effects sequences are remarkably ingenious because they’re a seamless combination of CGI and interactions with the actors themselves and never once do they look jerky or artificial.
There are also several other moments that may or may not be hugely unexpected but will, nevertheless, generate tremendous applause in theaters.
Overall, this is a rich, complex, visually spectacular superhero epic. This may be the best Spider-Man movie I’ve ever seen.
Grade: A
(Rated PG-13 for sequences of action/violence, some language and brief suggestive comments.)
