Summary
Spider-Man completes his first trilogy tour within the Marvel Cinematic Universe. If this is where they part ways, then they are determined to go out on a joyful bang.
Listen up, true believers! We always do our very best to avoid spoilers in these reviews, but if you’re keen to avoid any new information come back here after you’ve seen it for the first time. Otherwise, enjoy this mostly spoiler-free review. ‘Nuff said.
Following a period of estrangement from the Marvel mothership, Spider-Man had the distinction of opening (via a cameo in Captain America: Civil War) and closing out the third Phase of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. After leaving us on a cliffhanger, the anticipation around the release of SPIDER-MAN: NO WAY HOME was intensified not just by several Covid delays, but Phase Four‘s strong hints about what would emerge from the Multiverse.
The third solo Spider-Man film set within the MCU picks up moments after Spider-Man: Far from Home. With Peter Parker’s (Tom Holland) identity revealed to the world by Mysterio, he seeks the help of Endgame partner Dr. Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) in erasing knowledge of his secret identity from the world. Naturally, something goes wrong.
With the walls of the Multiverse cracked open, Peter and MJ (Zendaya) are set upon by villains from more than one universe. Beginning with Otto Octavius (Alfred Molina), who we last saw in Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man 2, Parker faces villains from across the vast Spider-Man cinematic franchise — or at least the ones since 2002. This means return visits from Green Goblin (Willem Dafoe), Electro (Jamie Foxx), Sandman (Thomas Haden Church) and The Lizard (Rhys Ifans). While Strange wants to send them all back to their home universes, Peter believes that he can save them all.
Unless you’ve been avoiding all news about this film, and peacefully residing under that new rock you call home, you’ll know that SPIDER-MAN: NO WAY HOME is something of an ultimate crossover. Taking a leaf out of the sublime Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, director Jon Watts does something we’ve rarely seen in a live-action outing by bringing three generations of films together for the first time.
The approach is not without its inherent issues. Setting up any high concept film is hard enough, so setting up the threads of multiple franchises makes for a strangely heavy first act. While missing the raw and crazy energy of Spider-Verse, NO WAY HOME piles on the exposition, from Wong’s (Benedict Wong) new status in the world of sorcery to abbreviated origin stories of the primary antagonists.
Yet it’s also joyful to watch when the pace picks up. While we won’t spoil anything for you here, Marvel fans of any iteration will get a kick out of the third act of this film. It achieves the rare feat of figuring out how to make multiple villains work in a single film (one of the fatal flaws of both Spider-Man 3 and The Amazing Spider-Man 2). It also manages to redeem multiple storylines that ill-fated franchises left hanging, and brings about a rousing conclusion that will please all but the most cynical viewers in the audience. Suffice it to say, this is very much a film for the fans.
Peppering the moments we’ve all been waiting for are some truly spectacular visual effects sequences, not least of which is the Mirror Dimension battle between Peter and Dr. Strange. It’s great to see Molina, Foxx and especially Dafoe on screen, and their interplay is unexpectedly delightful. J.K. Simmons barely breaks his stride in returning to his role of J. Jonah Jameson, now a fringe podcaster in the vein of that guy we won’t name here. Speaking of not naming things, there’s so many surprises in store that it would take a whole other article to list them all — and the Internet will be rife with them by this time tomorrow. Let’s just say many of our expectations were met.
One of the primary criticisms of the MCU Spider-Man is that it has been tied to other characters, principally Tony Stark. Yet as the Spider-Man franchise looks to a future that may be with or without the MCU, here’s a third chapter of a franchise that’s telling us its finally ready to cut loose and do its own thing. As a bittersweet ending breaks free into a new era, we can now look forward to that future and whatever corner of the Marvel Multiverse that it may take place in. Excelsior!
2021 | USA | DIRECTOR: Jon Watts | WRITERS: Chris McKenna, Erik Sommers | CAST: Tom Holland, Zendaya, Benedict Cumberbatch, Jacob Batalon, Jon Favreau, Marisa Tomei | DISTRIBUTOR: Sony Pictures Releasing (AUS) | RUNNING TIME: 148 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 16 December 2021 (AUS), 17 December 2021 (USA)
