I know, I know, I’m VERY late to the party when it comes to seeing this film and that’s partly due to COVID and partly due to the fact that I was able to spend a lot of time in the US at the end of the year. Now the COVID numbers are going down, I FINALLY felt OK to return to the cinema. Despite a face covering advisory from the cinema, most people there were not wearing a mask and I was pissed off by that. However, there were only 7 people in the theatre and I was nowhere near anyone else so, with my N95 on, I felt OK. I don’t think I’ll be doing that again for any new release though, where the theatre would be more packed out.
Anyway, back to the matter in hand. Spider-Man: No Way Home is the third in the Jon Watts trilogy of MCU Spider-Man movies. I will confess that, unlike many, I wasn’t a huge fan of Homecoming or Far From Home. However, this movie was an awful lot of fun. Not perfect by any means, but it does provide a very fitting conclusion to the trilogy. Of course, the behind-the-scenes dealings between Disney and Sony have played into this. Sony appear to have completely taken back the rights to Spider-Man now so the next movies will likely not be in the MCU. Jon and the writers needed to work within the uncertainty of those dealings and bring about a decisive conclusion to the story arc whilst still leaving the door open, should Disney/Marvel want more crossover in the future.
The movie itself follows on directly from the post-credits scene in Far From Home. Peter has been “out-ed” as Spider-Man by Mysterio and J.Jonah Jameson of the Daily Bugle and he is on a personal rampage to have Peter removed from society, painting him as a vigilante who brings nothing but death and destruction with him. The fact that Peter now finds himself as the most recognisable person on the planet, this brings a lot of unwanted attention from both friends, enemies and the public at large where there is a sizeable split between those that view Spider-Man as a hero and those that view him as a menace. The knock-on effect on Ned and MJ is obvious where they are the people closest to Peter so their lives take a nose-dive too.
There is a somewhat unfulfilling segment where the three, plus May, are arrested and questioned. The cops actually appear to be doing quite a good job in making their case, especially with Ned who doesn’t have the brains to realise he is being manipulated until he incriminates himself by opening his mouth one too many times. What follows is an example of one of my real problems with this movie. All of a sudden, the protagonists are out (I assume on some form of bail) with Matt Murdock now acting as lawyer for Peter but seemingly not everyone. The cameo is wonderful but I cannot help but think there is an awful lot on the cutting room floor that we did not get to see since the transition from them being in the police station to being out and with Matt is jarring to say the least with no significant explanation or story telling behind it.
The tipping point to the story is where the trio are refused entry to M.I.T. due to their unwelcome celebrity status. This triggers Peter to approach Dr Strange asking if he can turn back time and stop the reveal of him as Spider-Man from happening. Just one quick note here, the interactions between Tom Holland and Benedict Cumberbatch throughout the movie are wonderful, playing perfectly off of their shared experience through the events of Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame. Strange says he cannot since he doesn’t have the time stone any more and that it would be too dangerous anyway. So an alternative is drawn up to have everyone forget that Peter is Spider-Man. This seems to hold weight so they go ahead. However, while the spell is being cast, Peter keeps trying to make changes asking for specific people to keep their memories of his alter-ego. This disrupts the spell and results in a tear between universes in the multi-verse, allowing certain people with knowledge that Peter Parker is Spider-Man to pass through to the MCU. It quickly transpires that this includes Doctor Oktavious, Green Goblin, Sandman, Electro and Lizard.
The middle act of the movie centres around trying to capture the antagonists whilst providing a beautifully crafted dilemma. If they are just sent back, they are being sent back to their certain deaths. This is something that Peter cannot accept and traps Strange in the mirror dimension whilst he strives to find a ‘cure’ for each of the antagonists. This would normally be plot hole #2 since even if they are sent back as ‘good guys’, they will still die since their transition to the MCU was during their respective battles with ‘their’ Spider-Man iterations. This is resolved by the cavalry of Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield also being pulled in.
The third act of the movie is the inevitable gigantic fight between the bunch and I won’t go into detail here but the presentation of it is phenomenal. It is beautifully crafted and choreographed throughout although I did find the concept of the three Spider-Men figuring out they had to work together to apply their ‘cures’ to the bad guys one at a time a little cheap from a story-telling perspective.
Once all is said and done, my main issue with the movie crops up and, unfortunately, I cannot discuss it without providing significant spoilers so I’m hoping that, by this point, this is not a reveal to anyone yet to see the movie.
The climax of the movie centres around Strange executing a new spell to make everyone forget that Peter ever existed. In itself, that is absolutely fine. One graveside scene featuring Peter and Happy after this is executed extremely well. However, there are so many other issues with this. Of course, J. Jonah Jameson now does not know who Spider-Man is. However, since this is not a time-travel spell and instead was making people forget, then what about things like the photos, print media, previous transmissions etc that are there at the Bugle. Have all of those now mysteriously vanished? All of those would still clearly reveal Peter as Spider-Man. This is completely ignored as a plot hole and left me both confused and frustrated. Strange made it abundantly clear previously that ‘fixing’ the issue by removing events was not possible. So everything about the Mysterio/Jameson Spider-Man reveal DID happen – they just have no memory of it. Similarly, MJ and Ned have no memory of Peter. This leads to a somewhat awkward scene where Peter visits them in the donut shop where MJ works. In itself, it’s fine. However, the way Peter acts would normally be just downright creepy. I completely understand that the idea is that, somewhere in MJ, there’s a latent memory that is nagging at her. However, that is not played up so much and I just found the scene unbelievable in the way it was presented.
The other huge plot hole surrounds when the last spell is executed. Peter swings off into the sunset, swearing he will ‘find’ MJ and Ned and help them remember him. Why didn’t he just stay there? Of course, when it was done, if Peter were still stood there holding MJs hands, it would have been initially awkward but it would reveal to her and Ned Peters secret identity right away and he could try to explain it to them there and then.
So, fundamentally, did I enjoy this movie? Absolutely. It was brilliant fun for the 2hr 30min runtime and what was absolutely great was the use of the older characters. Alfred Molina was just utterly superb returning as Doc Ock, as was Willem Defoe as Green Goblin. Jamie Foxx was a little too ‘nice’ for my personal liking but his character development was still well done. Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield were superb, although Garfield appears to have become a little too ’emo’. However, both are able to confront their own histories and demons in this movie and that closure was amazing.
The thing that makes this movie great is that if those characters weren’t there and we had other villains from the multiverse with Tom Holland fighting them on his own, this still would have been a really wonderful film. It doesn’t rely on the presence of the prior generation of Spider-Man movies to make this one.
However, I cannot put the story-telling aspects that I didn’t like away in a nice box. They are too glaring for that. So is this a really fun time? Yes. However, I cannot deny that I was also disappointed by it given the rave reviews and insane money that the movie has pulled in. Maybe if I had seen it on opening day so my level of expectation could not be tarnished by the reviews, then maybe I would have been less bothered.
