You are going to go see "Spider-Man: No Way Home." You might even have your ticket already, because nothing can bring people to movie theaters like the Marvel machine. It's easy for people who cover movies to bemoan the corporatized takeover of superhero movies in the multiplexes. It's been long building, but the pandemic certainly sped things up. Great little movies get buried underneath the weight of the Marvel banner, but right now, anything that can bring people to theaters to share in the singular communal experience that going to the movies offers is something worth celebrating. It also helps that "Spider-Man: No Way Home" is really good.
The Spider-Man character has been through a reinvention over the past few years. Tom Holland took on the role for the first time in 2017's wonderful "Spider-Man: Homecoming" and followed up with 2019's sequel "Spider-Man: Far From Home." In between, completely separate (for now?) from the live action universe was the breathtakingly original "Spider-Man: Into the Spiderverse," which rightfully won the Oscar for Best Animated Feature in 2018.
Holland returns for his third film - and the final in the "Home" trilogy, though he is allegedly not done playing the character - and continues to prove why he's the best Spider-Man the screen has seen. Holland is currently 25 years old, but has found a way to channel a teenage naiveté, which makes him best suited for the role. Like most teenagers, Holland's Peter Parker feels like he is invincible and anything can be done with the right intentions. Three movies in he still hasn't learned that sometimes practicality and reality supersede intentions, because Peter has a way of causing major catastrophes (which admittedly feels a bit redundant in this trilogy).
"Spider-Man: No Way Home" picks up immediately after the events of the previous film. Spider-Man has just been pinned with the death of Mysterio (played by Jake Gyllenhaal in the 2019 sequel) and unmasked as Peter Parker. His world is upside down and he needs to find a way to sort things out. Everyone is paying the price for being associated with Peter, including his girlfriend MJ (Zendaya) and his best friend Ned (Jacob Batalon), who were rejected from MIT due to the controversy surrounding Peter. When things go wrong, Peter feels solely responsible for fixing them because he wants to make things right for his friends and protect his Aunt May (Marisa Tomei) from the world that is after him.
Peter gets the idea to pay Dr. Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) a visit to see if he can perform a spell that would erase everyone's memory of his secret identity. It's a risk, but Dr. Strange ultimately obliges. During the casting of the spell, Peter requests that he spare MJ, Ned, and Aunt May from losing their memory. This throws the spell completely off balance and opens new dimensions, bringing about villains Peter has never faced. As advertised - this feels important to preface - Alfred Molina's Dr. Otto Octavius (from 2004's "Spider-Man 2"), Willem Dafoe's Norman Osborn (from 2001's "Spider-Man"), and Jamie Foxx's Electro (from 2014's "The Amazing Spider-Man 2") emerge as Peter's new foes.
Dr. Strange suggests a fix for the problem at hand, but Peter - always the bleeding heart - wants to help these villains and give their fate a second chance. A lot more happens over the course of two hours and 30 minutes, and "Spider-Man: No Way Home" continues to surprise along the way.
"Spider-Man: No Way From Home" is the best example of what superhero movies can be. It's big, flashy, and ambitious, and even when it stumbles over its own grand ideas, it keeps the focus on the characters; the character work is the great achievement of director Jon Watts' trilogy. Holland's Spider-Man, at the end of the day, is a cog in the machine, but when he gets his own movies outside of the "Avengers," it's a sweet story about a teenager who is just trying to get by. It just so happens there's a world of special effects surrounding his every move.
The actors feel like they are simply serving their characters in most superhero films, but Holland shows he is just as invested in Peter as he is in Spider-Man. Thankfullythe film is on the same page, and there's an emotionally affecting human element to "Spider-Man: No Way Home." It might be weird to say, since we go to these movies for the special effects and action, but the "Home" trilogy has the soul that a lot of Spider-Man's counterparts are sorely lacking.
Spider-Man: No Way Home Movie Review By Matthew Passantino
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