Spider-Man: No Way Home - Movie Review (8/10)

(Be warned, I will be taking about light spoilers that discusses many of the films scenes. I will not spoil any of the major plot points, but reader discretion is advised).

This. This is what Scorsese meant when he said, “superhero movies are like theme park rides”. And that’s fucking awesome. Listen, before I go on, I know this movie has flaws. Tons of it. The character motivation sometimes flips. The pace is too much. Most of the characters have little to no characterisation. If you do not care for Spider-man, you may find yourself sorely disappointed here. But man, when I say this movie HITS for any Spider-man fan, it HITS. I’ll talk about heavy spoiler stuff at the end but man, never have I ever been so satisfied with an MCU as I did walking out yesterday after this.

Continuing right after the ending of Far from home, with Peter’s identity revealed to the world, we are launched with break-neck speed into the plot. Peter has charges against him – his friends get interrogated – they are trying to get into MIT – Dr. Strange shows up – the villains show up. You barely have room to breathe in the first 2/3 of the movie. Sometimes plot points that could have used more attention are glossed over. But what this pace affords this film was the inability for me to get bored. So many of these 2-to-2.5-hour movies are long just for the sake of being long. They are just padding its run time. But here, the 2 hour and 28-minute runtime FLEW by before I even knew it ended because I was having so much fun seeing all these old characters again (near the end, however, some scenes did start to stretch to their limits and I felt myself saying, “move along!” because I had gotten so used to the pace). So yes. The movie is too fast. But its honestly something I appreciate after the atrocious lengths of Shang-Chi and Eternals.

Something I want to touch on next is the acting performances, and especially Tom Holland and Willem Dafoe. Tom is at his career best here – his emotions are raw and visceral and he out acts almost everyone he shares the screen with. There was never any moment where I didn’t feel what he was putting out. But man, oh man, does Dafoe keep proving himself as one of the best actors working in all of Hollywood. He carries on his performance from the first spider-man like it was nothing and even improves on it in some respects. Just the way he can switch between Norman and the Green Goblin at the drop of a hat is mind blowing. And the way he eggs on those around him as the ultimate bringer of chaos is so satisfying to watch. The rest do great jobs as well, with Alfred Molina also standing out, but most don’t have enough emotional weigh to make anything notable (until I get to spoiler talk).

Something I had begun to notice in Far From Home and especially realized here is how much I love Watts’ creativity behind the camera. Some of the action sequences here are some of the best I have seen in all of the MCU. The Dr. Strange vs Peter fights stands out particularly well here as Strange’s magic is used to its full capacity. Buildings fold onto themselves, Peter is sent flying through dimensions, and we have MATH being used to end fights. My jaw was almost hitting the floor when this fight was going on. The same can be said for the apartment fight – seeing Norman just suplex Peter through floors was just, RAW. Aside from the action, I really, really loved his editing and visual design choices. The way Electro just zaps into introduction gave me a chill. So did the scene when he gets transported away, the style switching almost to a horror flick with the lizard’s creepy design being used to full effect. The Spidey Sense is also in full effect here – the apartment scene just absolutely blew me away as we were isolated in with Peter for a while, trying to figure out what’s wrong along with him. The CGI here is not at its best a lot of times, but the movie is also visually great. Watts has my full support if he is to helm the next era of Spider-man movies.

In some stuff that doesn’t work – the humor here again is really weak at a lot of times. It feels thoroughly misplaced in so many moments in something this serious where it worked in the teen-comedy setting of Homecoming. The pace I mentioned is really fast for the first 2/3 and really slow for the last 1/3, and though I found both to not be too aggravating, there are moments in each that tested my patience. Jamie Foxx, though I love him as an actor, was just not doing it for me in his performance. Maybe its because he needs to have it connect to his earlier work, but I did not care for his portrayal.

Stick around to the next page for major spoiler talk, but I want to end with stating just my absolute love for this thing. Its not a great Spider-man FILM, but one of the damn best SPIDER-MAN films. Its up there with Homecoming and Spider-verse as my top three. Its just one that fully respects the five movies that come before it and gave me some of the greatest audience reactions in a theatre. And the ending opens the door to stories that harken back to Spidey’s roots and I want to see the next trilogy as soon as possible. I give Spider-man: No way home a 8/10.

Spoiler Talk:

Though I had heard all of the leaks before the movie came out, MAN WAS IT EXCITING TO SEE TOBEY MAGUIRE AND ANDREW GARFIELD SHARE THE SCREEN WITH TOM HOLLAND. Those two’s performance follows directly from their original work, and they at all times felt three distinct interpretations of the same character. Tobey gave very much a “wise mentor” vibe, and Andrew connected emotionally with Tom to create an awesome triangle between the three. This is what cinema is made for.

I also really, really loved the ending and hope they stick to their guns in separating Peter from Ned and MJ. There needs to be some major work done to convince me why they should be brought back when we just saw a full movie dedicated to how knowing Peter’s identity puts people at risk. And the fact that people who have been constantly complaining about “Iron Man Jr.” may finally see the “broke” Peter they have been looking for is amazing. I never really minded the different interpretation they went with in the “home” series – this Peter is connected to the MCU and if they make changes to his character, so be it. If they work, I don’t mind changes to the source material. And the ending suit – the gorgeous blue and red handcrafted by Peter mark a shift in tone that I just CANNOT wait to see.